New-to-me and wow, what a collection of enthusiasm and expertise. It’s the Wood Database! https://www.wood-database.com/ . This is a collection of information about wood — almost 600 species according to the front page, with tons of articles, a wood identification guide, and more. Just wow.
FeedNavigator: New interactive tool designed to show country-specific supply chain regulations . “Risk assurer, LRQA, has published a map outlining country-specific supply chain and [Environmental, Social and Governance] legislation.”
Statistics Netherlands: CBS develops experimental database of supply chains in the Dutch economy. “Production chains play a major role in the Dutch economy, but they are vulnerable to disruptions. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) is developing a database to understand the production chains for Dutch companies. The database is still in the experimental phase, but some initial analyses have recently been published.”
New York Times: How A.I. and DNA Are Unlocking the Mysteries of Global Supply Chains. “Amid growing concern about opacity and abuses in global supply chains, companies and government officials are increasingly turning to technologies like DNA tracking, artificial intelligence and blockchains to try to trace raw materials from the source to the store.”
Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Significant textile archive goes online thanks to year-long project. “ONE of the most significant woven textile archives in the UK is now available online thanks to a year-long collaboration. Called Weaving the Web, it means that the historic Sunny Bank Mills Archive can now be viewed in 3D on the web.”
New-to-Me, from University of Massachusetts Amherst: Umass Amherst Political Economy Research Institute Updates Tool Tracking Air Pollution At Every U.S. School. “The tool, Air Toxics at School, reports toxicity-weighted concentrations of pollutants to show the comparative individual chronic health risk from industrial toxic air pollution at each K-12 and higher-education institution identified in databases maintained by the U.S. Department of Education.”
Clemson News: Clemson Libraries receives $1.2 million to develop free textbooks for advanced manufacturing classes . “The Collaborative Development of Robotics Education and Advanced Manufacturing Open Educational Resources (Co-DREAM OER) project received $760,000 last year to develop three openly licensed textbooks and other digital educational materials on robotics — one at the technical college level, one at the bachelor’s degree level and one at the graduate education level. The latest round of funding will allow for the development of six more textbooks in the areas of advanced manufacturing and mechatronics, subjects that were chosen because they support the growing advanced manufacturing industry in South Carolina and other parts of the country.”
ZDNet: This 3D printing system converts waste sawdust into stunning wooden lamps and guitars. “In the build box, an inkjet print head drops a water-based binder onto the surface of the sawdust and the two substances meld into each other. The printhead simultaneously injects a water-based ink that mimics practically any wood grain you would want, including rosewood, zebrano, ebony and mahogany, among others. Deposits of the binder and injection of the ink is done layer by layer, as per the contours of the rendering dictated by the 3D software.”
MIT News: An automated way to assemble thousands of objects. “…researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Autodesk Research, and Texas A&M University came up with a method to automatically assemble products that’s accurate, efficient, and generalizable to a wide range of complex real-world assemblies. Their algorithm efficiently determines the order for multipart assembly, and then searches for a physically realistic motion path for each step.”
Ford Media Center: The British Job: Ford Heritage Vault Unlocked To Add New Digital UK Archives. “Ford’s new online Heritage Vault now offers a more comprehensive digital archive collection following the addition of more than 1,600 new photos showing every car produced in the U.K. Following the opening of the vault earlier in 2022 which saw unprecedented web traffic from around the world, Ford’s new UK upload includes the Anglia to Zodiac and everything in between including Transit, Consul, Escort, Fiesta, Thames van, and more.”
National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Collaborative Database Maps Lithium-Ion Supply Chain Landscape. “The Lithium-Ion Battery Supply Chain Database [is] an ongoing collaboration between NAATBatt International and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to identify every company in North America involved in building lithium-ion batteries from mining to manufacturing to recycling. First released in September 2021 and funded by NAATBatt International, this database is the first comprehensive directory of its kind. A recent update in 2022 significantly expands on the database.”
Bloomberg: Renault, Google Expand Pact to Make Cars ‘Like Mobile Phones’. “Renault SA is deepening its collaboration with Alphabet Inc.’s Google in a bid to extend capabilities on remote software updates to new models such as the electric Megane E-Tech and Austral.”
Washington State University: Martian rock-metal composite shows potential of 3D printing on Mars. “A little Martian dust appears to go a long way. A small amount of simulated crushed Martian rock mixed with a titanium alloy made a stronger, high-performance material in a 3D‑printing process that one day could be used on Mars to make tools or rocket parts.”
Reuters: Dell Ceases All Russian Operations After August Offices Closure . “Dell Technologies Inc. said on Saturday it had ceased all Russian operations after closing its offices in mid-August, the latest in a growing list of Western firms to exit Russia. The U.S. computer firm, a vital supplier of servers in Russia, has joined others in curtailing operations since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.”
Science Daily: Algorithm learns to correct 3D printing errors for different parts, materials and systems. “Engineers have created intelligent 3D printers that can quickly detect and correct errors, even in previously unseen designs, or unfamiliar materials like ketchup and mayonnaise, by learning from the experiences of other machines.”
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