Word: sensors
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...reduce the risk, Williams is testing a remote gas sensor that can read a volcano's emissions from a plane flying nearby or even a car driving past at a distance of as much as 20 miles. The instrument works by detecting changes in the infrared energy caused by different gases in the volcanic plume. Says Williams: "Volcanoes give gaseous signals of approaching eruptions. This gives us the lead time we need to get people educated and not terrorized...
Traditionally, a false start occurs when a runner starts before the starter pistol fires. But advances in technology have led to these errors being registered by a sensor attached to the starting block and connected to the starter...
...mice thin. But they are still trying to puzzle out just how it works. Friedman, for one, believes leptin is almost certainly a hormone that travels through the bloodstream to act on the brain. In fact, it appears leptin may act in a feedback loop like the temperature sensor in a thermostat--or in this case a "fatstat"--to tell the body whether to turn metabolism and appetite up or down. Thus when leptin is low, hunger pangs increase, body temperature drops, and metabolism slows. When leptin is high, everything reverses. In such fashion, the brain strives to keep body...
...more remarkable developments in sensor technology is the Automotive Stability Management System under development by ITT and already proved on frozen test tracks in Sweden and on the upper peninsula of Michigan. Using a coordinating system of seven sensors that detect the sideways momentum, steering-wheel position and cornering rate of the car along with the rotation of each of its wheels, the asms overcomes any driver error and makes skidding virtually impossible even on ice covered lightly by snow. "With this system," says ITT's Tom Mathues, "you can floor the throttle and still get around a cone obstacle...
...from Washington, which has joined it in a $1 billion Supercar program. The goal: development of a joint prototype vehicle that will achieve fuel economies of 80 m.p.g. by 2004 "while maintaining performance and cost of owning today's cars." Since internal-combustion engines, no matter how efficient and sensor studded, are unlikely to attain so high a gas mileage, the Supercar partnership is looking elsewhere. Aided by scientists at the U.S. National Laboratories, it is exploring such power sources as fuel cells and gas turbines, along with such energy-storage devices as flywheels, ultracapacitors and innovative, lightweight batteries...