Wright State, Wright-Patterson AFB Partner For New Innovation Center

Wright State, Wright-Patterson AFB Partner For New Innovation Center.

The Dayton Daily News (11/17), Larsen reports, "Wright State University will partner with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to help to make Dayton the world's center for human-centered innovation and research." The partnership yesterday "announced the university's designation as an Ohio Center of Excellence in Human-Centered Innovation," which "will support the mission of the 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright-Patt and provide increased opportunities for technology transfers to Ohio-based companies." Officials said "the center will focus on developing systems and technology for human use, while considering human needs, capabilities and limitations." Also, "the center will focus on the development of health care information technology and innovations for reducing health care costs," and a number of other innovation projects.

        The Dayton Business Journal (11/17) reports, "The center will bring together 56 professors amid six colleges and 30 departments in the university to conduct research and provide a think tank focusing on human performance, said David Hopkins, Wright State president." Wright State, notes the Journal, "is not the only local university to be honored with the designation of centers of excellence. In October, Central State University and the University of Dayton received the same designations for their own centers of excellence." And "six other Ohio schools - Bowling Green State University, Case Western Reserve University, University of Cincinnati, The Ohio State University, Ohio University and the University of Toledo - will host centers."

Modified Algae Produces Steady Supply Of Hydrogen.

Popular Science (11/16, Dillow) reports, "By isolating the photosynthesizing parts of a certain thermophilic blue-green algae and catalyzing it with light and platinum," a group of researchers from the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Labs discovered that "the cellular workings that carry out photosynthesis can be coaxed into producing a clean, steady supply of hydrogen when exposed to light and a platinum catalyst." In the past, "efforts to produce hydrogen from algae were stymied by the high temperatures that exist in large sunlight-trapping systems." In this case, however, "the researchers found that a thermophilic blue-green algae that thrives at higher temperatures will carry out photosynthesis in environments up to an ideal 131 degrees Fahrenheit. The method also cuts out inefficiencies, like the amount of time it takes a plant to photosynthesize, die and fossilize, and the relatively high energy required to cultivate and process biomass into fuel."