2008 Northeast Regional Award Winners Honored

The Northeast Region recently presented its annual awards honoring outstanding technology transfer achievements. The award winners were recognized at a ceremony during a Northeast regional meeting at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. This year's winners include the following. Read more

Scientists Reveal Effects of Quantum "Traffic Jam" in High-Temperature Superconductors

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), in collaboration with colleagues at Cornell University, Tokyo University, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Colorado, have uncovered the first experimental evidence for why the transition temperature of high-temperature superconductors—the temperature at which these materials carry electrical current with no resistance—cannot simply be elevated by increasing the electrons' binding energy. The research—published in the August 28 issue of Nature—demonstrates how, as electron-pair binding energy increases, the electrons' tendency to get caught in a quantum mechanical "traffic jam" overwhelms the interactions needed for the material to act as a superconductor—a freely flowing fluid of electron pairs. Read more

Volpe Center Wins the Prestigious 2008 Innovations in American Government Award

The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School recently announced the Global Maritime Domain Awareness Program as a winner of the 2008 Innovations in American Government Award for its efforts to enhance levels of safety and economic stability on the global seas. Read more

Pilot Project with Fishing Industry Seeks to Provide More Detailed Data on the Region's Fisheries and Environmental Conditions

For some commercial fishermen, flounders are not just a species of fish but a computer software system being tested aboard fishing vessels to record haul-by-haul data. The resulting electronic logbook system may one day replace paper logbooks in the New England groundfish fleet, providing near real-time information to improve stock assessments and fisheries science in the region. Read more

Northeast Region Fall 2008 Meeting Review

The fall 2008 Northeast Region meeting was recently held at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in Upton, New York. The three-day event, which took place September 16-17, included informative sessions on regional technology transfer activities, a tour of BNL, a networking reception, and presentation of the 2008 Northeast Region awards. Read more

Prager to Lead PPPL

Dr. Stewart Prager, director of the Madison Symmetric Torus experiment at the University of Wisconsin and an internationally recognized leader in the field of fusion energy research, has been named director of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), effective this fall. Read more

Enzyme Detectives at Brookhaven Uncover New Reactions, Products

If your experiment doesn't go the way you expect, take a closer look—something even more interesting may have happened. That strategy has led scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) to discover a fundamental shift in an enzyme's function that could help expand the toolbox for engineering biofuels and other plant-based oil products. The results were published online the week of September 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read more

Volpe Center Supports China's Growing Air Traffic Management Needs

In June 2008, Volpe Center representatives took part in a final program review of the Chinese Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) program in Beijing, China. The Center is part of the U.S. China Aviation Cooperation Program (ACP) ATFM team, which includes individuals from the Civil Aviation Administration of China/Air Traffic Management Bureau, Metron, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the MITRE Corporation, Boeing, and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). Dr. Nelson H. Keeler, director of the Volpe Center's Office of Aviation Programs, serves as the senior U.S. government representative on the team. Read more

Picatinny Engineer Awarded Two Patents for New Grenade Ammunition Designs

On August 5, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued an Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) employee two patent approvals for new designs to be incorporated into the ammunition belt for the MK 19 grenade machine gun. The MK 19 40-millimeter (mm) grenade machine gun is used by all military services to deliver intense firepower against enemy personnel and lightly armored vehicles. The designs to be incorporated into the belt, which is called a 40-mm M16A2 link, are meant to keep gunners safer on the battlefield, help conserve ammunition, and save money. Read more

Scientists Integrate Data in Three Dimensions Across Coastal Seascapes to Study Climate Effects on Young Fish

From the surface, the two areas of ocean off the coasts of northern New Jersey and Long Island, New York, look the same. But to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists, the four-square-mile patches could not be more different as they view real-time underwater images and environmental data to try to figure out what lives there and how climate change is affecting marine life, especially very young fish. Read more

Lynn Murray Retires from Volpe Center

Lynn Murray, head of the Communication and Technology Outreach Division at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, retired from her post in August. During her tenure at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based laboratory, she served as chair of the Department of Transportation's (DOT) Technology and Innovation Committee and as DOT representative to the Interagency Working Group on Technology Transfer; provided oversight for DOT's Small Business Innovation Research program; and was President-elect and board member of the Association for Federal Technology Transfer Excellence. Read more