News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Simple, inexpensive urban design interventions can increase well-being and social connections among city residents, finds a new case study from the Urban Realities Lab at the University of Waterloo.

The study uses data from the Transportation Research Board's second Strategic Highway Research Program's Naturalistic Driving Study. During 2006-2015, researchers collected data from more than 3,000 drivers traveling more than 50 million miles. With this information, researchers can now see a detailed firsthand account of a driver's interaction with the vehicle, roadway and surrounding environment. Of the seven current Federal Highway Administration funded projects using this data, only MU is using the data to specifically look at highway work zones.

Cities could ease congestion and improve safety during snowstorms by tweaking the timing of traffic lights to take road conditions into account.

Researchers have developed a technique that uses bacteria to produce 'biocement' in coal ash ponds, making the coal ash easier to store and limiting the risk of coal ash spills into surface waters.

Researchers at MIT and other universities have found that spider silk produces a strong twisting motion when exposed to humidity, and may be usable for future artificial muscles or actuators.

Canadian homeowners do not have the information they need to know if they should buy flood insurance leaving them exposed to significant financial risk. A recent study from the University of Waterloo found flood mapping information in Canada was inadequate, incomplete, hard to locate and varied widely from province-to-province.