Creative thinking is a necessary skill in process safety. While most people are born with the capacity for creative thinking, this skill can be lost through formal education and societal pressures that discourage it. Luckily, creative thinking can be learned.
April
2017
The term soft skills refers to nontechnical proficiencies. As the name implies, soft skills are not rigidly defined but often include communication (verbal and written), teamwork and collaboration, leadership, creativity, and adaptability.
April
2017
Synthetic promoters can be designed rationally to provide tremendous advantages over their natural counterparts in terms of promoter strength and specificity.
April
2017
Synthetic biology can be broadly defined as technologies that accelerate the process of genetically engineering biological systems. Although the field encompasses both plant and mammalian cells, in recent years, research has targeted mainly mammalian cells.
April
2017
Traditional methods of gene delivery to plants are labor- and time-intensive, are suitable for only a small number of hosts, and have high toxicity and limited practical applicability. This article discusses how nanoparticle-based approaches could enable efficient gene transfer into plants.
April
2017
Advances in plant mutagenesis and transgenesis will enable more sophisticated and precise engineering efforts in plants.
Fossil fuels contain sulfur compounds that poison catalytic converters and form polluting sulfur oxides when combusted. With strict environmental regulations in many countries limiting the sulfur content in transportation fuels, refiners must remove most of the sulfur impurities from petroleum fractions prior to their use as fuel.
Engineers at the Univ. of British Columbia have developed a transparent, stretchy sensor that could one day be draped over skin or surfaces such as windows, countertops, and steering wheels to either receive instructions or provide feedback to an appliance. Another application for the new material — a floor sensor that indicates the position of inhabitants.
Steel is a common benchmark material for strength. Many newly developed materials boast strength rivaling that of steel. Although strong, steel has weaknesses, in particular, it is susceptible to fatigue failure. Instead of pushing steel aside for a newer model, researchers have identified a way to improve steel’s performance by adding a bit of new to the old.
What appears to be an ordinary cut rose is in fact the first-ever fully functional electronic plant. Researchers from Linköping Univ. in Sweden pumped a self-organizing conducting polymer into the natural vasculature of the rose to create a flower that could theoretically act as a power source for sensors, switches, and other applications.
