There's a light at the end of the carpal tunnel for engineers who use computers for much of their workday, according to Abir Qamhiyah and Don Flugrad, assistant and associate professors, respectively, Oof mechanical engineering at Iowa State University in Ames.

The pair invented a gadget that works as a pointer and can replace the computer mouse used with computer-aided design programs. The device can also be used to play video games and, the developers said, eventually to control wireless technology components. The design eliminates many of the actions that lead to wrist, arm, shoulder, neck, and back ailments, according to the inventors. The pointer is more ergonomically friendly than cursors devices used to guide CAD development, the developers said.

Qamhiyah and her colleagues said the pointer is a welcome relief because they use CAD software extensively themselves and have experienced related discomforts. When a departmental secretary began requiring surgery for carpal tunnel ailments and other staffers told stories of computer-related health problems, Qamhiyah and Flugrad began pursuing mouse alternatives.

After two years, the duo has designed the technology for a pointer gadget small enough to fit into the palm of a hand. Resembling a joystick, it's made of a spongy, flexible material similar to that in a stress-relief squeeze ball, making it conducive to hand exercises while in use. A pressure button at the top of the gadget is controlled by the thumb to move the cursor across the screen in any direction. The thumb pressure also controls the speed at which the cursor moves. Two pushbuttons on the side are the right- and left-click buttons.

Qamhiyah and Flugrad currently are modifying the design to include a strap that would allow the device to rest in place on the hand, freeing up the fingers to type on a computer keyboard and adding to the gadget's convenience. And once a wireless prototype has been completed, it will allow lecturers or presenters to move freely around rooms during computer-based presentations.

Currently, a patent is pending on the pointer, and the university is pursuing licensing opportunities for its manufacture.

The U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors have selected 17 teams that will participate in Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility competition. The three-year competition calls for university teams from the United States and Canada to re-engineer a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox, a compact sport utility vehicle. The teams have three basic goals: to reduce energy consumption, decrease emissions, and maintain the performance and utility features of the stock vehicle.

Each team participating in Challenge X will receive a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox to re-engineer.

The students will follow GM's Global Vehicle Design Process. Year one will emphasize vehicle simulation, powertrain testing, and engineering trade-offs that occur in the early stages of vehicle design. In years two and three, students will integrate the powertrain and subsystems into the vehicle.

The universities selected to participate are Michigan Technological University, Mississippi State University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, San Diego State University, Texas Tech University, University of Akron, University of California-Davis, University of Michigan, University of Tennessee, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, University of Texas-Austin, University of Tulsa, University of Waterloo, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia University.

The Challenge X program was established by the Department of Energy and GM and is being managed by Argonne National Laboratory.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center's Carderock Division has issued a handbook and companion software for predicting the reliability of mechanical systems.

There is no charge for the publication, Handbook of Reliability Prediction Procedures for Mechanical Equipment, or for the software, called MechRel. Both are available online at www. mechrel.com. To download the program and handbook, one must register at the Web site.

According to the Surface Warfare Center, "The twenty chapters in this handbook include design analysis procedures for all basic mechanical components." It says the models can take into account operating environment, the effects of wear and fatigue, and other forms of equipment degradation over time.

The software automates the use of the handbook's analytical procedures.

Biologists have long wondered why the skin of dolphins was so, well, flaky. In what is an extreme instance of underwater eczema, the soft, outermost layer of skin is completely shed every two hours.

Japanese engineers believe they now have the answer. In a paper published in the May issue of the Journal of Turbulence, Yoshimichi Hagiwara of the Kyoto Institute of Technology and his colleagues report that the flaky surface reduces drag, enabling dolphins to slip through the water.

This isn't the only hydrodynamic trick dolphins have up their sleeves. Their bodies are extraordinarily streamlined, which reduces both form drag—the pressure of water against their skin—and drag due to friction. But to understand the role the skin flakes have on reducing drag, the Japanese researchers constructed a computer model so detailed it accounted for every single flake on a typical dolphin's body. Not only does the wavy contour of the skin reduce surface friction, but the peeling off of skin flakes disrupts drag-inducing vortices that form as water slips over the dolphin's body.

The physicists verified the computer model by immersing a flake-covered plate in a test tank.

The concept needs to be studied further, the researchers say, but may someday be applied to the hulls of boats and submarines.

Lockheed Martin has started building the flight turret assembly for the U.S. Air Force's airborne laser, a weapon in development that one day may detect and destroy ballistic missiles during their ascent before the separation of warheads. It's in a class that the Air Force calls "directed energy weapons."

It is associated with the advanced defense program popularly nicknamed "Star Wars." Representatives of the government generally do not use the term.

The plan is to carry the weapon on a modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft. The laser system will take aim and fire through the turret ball, in the nose of the plane. According to the Air Force, the system's laser energy will be able to heat and destroy hostile missiles at a range of hundreds of kilometers.

The integration began several weeks ago with the arrival of the flight turret ball from a subcontractor, Brashear LP of Pittsburgh.

The ABL program is managed by the Missile Defense Agency and is executed by the U.S. Air Force from Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M.

The U.S. Army has awarded up to $218 million in contracts to United Defense Industries of York, Pa., for the remanufacturing and upgrading of Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

Water officials in Pinellas County, Fla., have started adding fluoride to the water supply. Pinellas was the largest water supplier in the eastern United States not to fluoridate its water.

Advanced Visual Systems of Waltham, Mass., has released AVS/Express 6.3, an upgrade to the developer's AVS/Express software for the creation and deployment of advanced graphical applications in science, engineering, and business.

DP Technology of Camarillo, Calif., has released a new feature that allows its Esprit CAM software to read SolidWorks CAD features and their properties directly from part models. SolidWorks is in Concord, Mass.

Ford Motor Co. studied 32 drowsy drivers as part of its plans to introduce adaptive, intelligent lane departure warnings on its Volvo line later this decade. Study subjects stopped consuming caffeine at 6 p.m., stayed up all night, then went for simulated three-hour drives down long, lonely roads.

Ram Inc. of Cisco, Texas, is using edge glow compounds from RTP Co. of Winona, Minn., for its new golf putter. The compounds use dyes that absorb UV light and re-emit it in the visible spectrum. Embedded in the middle of the club's head, the UV absorbing sheet illuminates a line along its edge to guide a golfer's eyes, and the ball, toward the cup.

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