Washington, Dec 12 : Physicists at the MIT have built a calibration tool that will aid in the search for dark matter, by revealing when hypothetical particles are detected.

Several research projects are underway to try to detect particles that may make up the mysterious “dark matter”, believed to dominate the universe’s mass.

But the existing detectors have a problem.

They also pick up particles of ordinary matter - hurtling neutrons that masquerade as the elusive dark-matter particles the instruments are designed to find.

Washington, Dec 12 : A team of scientists at the University of Pittsburgh and the U. S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Pittsburgh has demonstrated a molecular chain reaction on a metal surface – a nanoscale process with sizable potential in areas from nanotechnology to developing information storage technology.

The researchers said that a single electron caused a self-perpetuating chain reaction that rearranged the bonds in 10 consecutive molecules positioned on a gold surface.

As each molecule''s original bond was broken by the reaction, the molecule rearranged itself to form a new molecule.

Washington, Dec 12 : Engineers at U. Va.''s Center for Biomechanics are creating a new "virtual" dummy, which will live entirely within computers and will be more realistic than any physical dummy ever subjected to a crash test.

For decades, automobile manufacturers have been crashing test dummies to gain insight to how various auto safety systems protect — or fail to protect — people during car accidents.

However, those dummies are made of plastic and steel, not tissue and bone. They can teach only so much.

London, Dec 11 : Engineers in Israel are hoping to develop roads into power stations, by using crystals to harvest energy from passing vehicles.

According to a report in New Scientist, the crystals have been developed by Haim Abramovich at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa in Israel.

He recommends placing piezoelectric crystals under the asphalt that convert vibration into electricity, which would help to harvest energy from passing vehicles.

Abramovich said that the crystals can produce up to 400 kilowatts from a 1-kilometre stretch of four-lane highway.

London, Dec 11 : A team of scientists has theorized that nanoparticles from melting glaciers can help slow global warming, by trapping CO2 from the atmosphere.

According to a report in New Scientist, Rob Raiswell of the University of Leeds, UK and colleagues trained high-resolution microscopes on ice sampled from icebergs in the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic glaciers from which they are born.

They found nano-sized particles of iron, between five and 10 millionths of a millimetre across.

Washington, Dec 11 : The first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the proposed, major, energy-related solutions, has suggested that natural sources like wind, water and the Sun are much better than biofuels, nuclear and coal for clean energy.

The evaluation was done by Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.