Engineering

Biocatalysis/Biodegradation Database
This database contains information on microbial biocatalytic reactions and biodegradation pathways for primarily xenobiotic, chemical compounds. The goal of the UM-BBD is to provide information on microbial enzyme-catalyzed reactions that are important for biotechnology.

ChemIDPlus

Science Accelerator
Resources made available by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), U.S. Department of Energy.

Science and Engineering Statistics
National Science Foundation - publications, data, and analysis about the nation's science and engineering resources.

NASA Technical Reports Server(NTRS)

Complete information about Interlibrary Borrowing, including the online forms, can be found at: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/services/interlibrary_services/doc_delivery_forms.html

Please check the SearchWorks online catalog before requesting items from other institutions. If Stanford does own the book i

A new tool has entered the larger market of search but it does something almost completely new. The Wolfram Alpha calculates an answer for you rather than just finding matches to your query among web results. Google has offered a small scale service like this (enter a simple query like "quarts in a gallon" in Google and it will give you the correct conversion) but the Wolfram Alpha engine is decidedly more advanced. A simple query like, "calories burned walking" takes you to a result set where it allows you to enter more clarifying data (e.g. your weight, distance walked, etc.). It also can handle more advanced equations or data queries like comparing the properties of two chemicals (try the sample search for Caffeine vs. Aspirin.

The WorldFirstRacing car is constructed out of recycled carbon fiber, along with plastic bottles and other organic materials. The Formula 3 car is powered by vegetable oil and chocolate with lubricants derived from plant oil and the radiators use a catalyst that reduces ground-level ozone by converting ozone molecules to oxygen.

The car is sponsored by Warwick University (UK) and the Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Center, and their work is inspired by the general movement to "green" the technology used in racing cars.

Read more:

PARC Forum - Cleantech Series
Thursday, May 28, 2009 4-5pm PARC Audiorium

[No PARC Forum on May 21 due to the Memorial Day Holiday weekend]

Degrees of Separation: A novel approach to enhancing water quality Meng Lean, Principal Scientist, PARC

Clean water: is there ever enough of it? There could be if we had eco-friendly, highly configurable systems that quickly and affordably separate unwanted particles from underutilized water sources.

Read the recent cover stories about Stanford from the May 10th Edition
of the San Jose Mercury News.

Stanford's startup culture stronger than ever, By Scott Duke Harris
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12317917

Stanford's Role in Founding Silicon Valley
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12318018

Stanford Time Line: 100 years of Innovation
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12324727

For more than a decade, scientists have been frustrated in their attempts to create continuous light sources from individual molecules because of an optical quirk called blinking. Scientists at the University of Rochester have recently uncovered the basic physics behind the phenomenon, and along with researchers at the Eastman Kodak Company, created a nanocrystal that constantly emits light.

With blink-free nanocrystals, lasers and lighting could be incredibly cheap and easy to fabricate. Currently, different color laser light is created using different materials and processes, but with the new nanocrystals a single fabrication process can create any color laser.

PARC Forum — Cleantech Series
Thursday, May 14, 2009 Auditorium 4pm - 5pm

Leveraging PARC’s Competencies for Innovations in Cleantech

Scott Elrod, Vice President and Director of Hardware Systems Laboratory, PARC