In a breakthrough that could make fuel cells practical for such small machines as lawnmowers and chainsaws, researchers have developed a new mechanism to efficiently control hydrogen fuel cell power.


Many standard fuel cell designs use electronics to control power output, but such designs require complex systems to manage humidity and fuel recovery and recycling systems to achieve acceptable efficiency.


The new process controls the hydrogen feed to match the required power out More …

The largest known twin prime pair found to date was discovered today
through the Twin Internet Prime Search and PrimeGrid distributed computation projects.
The new twins are 2003,663,613 2^195000 +/- 1, each of which has 58711
decimal digits.

A look back at some of the NSF-supported activities highlighted last year More …

Engineers have developed a system that uses a simple water purification technique that can eliminate 100 percent of the microbes in New Orleans water samples left from Hurricane Katrina. The technique makes use of specialized resins, copper and hydrogen peroxide to purify tainted water.


The system–safer, cheaper and simpler to use than many other methods–breaks down a range of toxic chemicals. While the method cleans the water, it doesn’t yet make the water drinkable. However, the m More …