In fictional television shows such as Dexter and CSI, patterns in blood splatters at the scene of the crime can be counted on to lead investigators to the killer. In real life, they’re a useful tool, but an imperfect one.

Scientists who have spent their careers studying the behaviours of liquids are putting forensic techniques to the test. They’re working to test the rigor of modern forensic science by improving our understanding of the secrets hidden in blood.

“There’s been a huge amount of basic research done on droplets and sprays,” said Professor Sanjeev Chandra (MIE), an engineer at the University of Toronto who helps General Motors develop better ways to spray paint its cars. “A lot of the physics is exactly the same for blood.”

In soon to be published research, Professor Chandra and his team have revisited the techniques and software packages that forensic experts have developed over the years to reconstruct the origin of blood splatters. By testing this software scientifically on splatters of pig blood in the lab, they’ve shown that there is significant room for improvement in the models, which typically use straight lines to trace the path of blood droplets a surface back to their point of origin.

“They aren’t very accurate,” said Professor Chandra. “They don’t consider the effects of gravity on blood droplets. They ignore air drag, which can be very significant.”

Follow the link to read the full article on the Fox News website.

A University of Toronto alkali-silica reaction research project led by Professor R. Doug Hooton (CivE), who holds the Industrial Research Chair in Concrete Durability and Sustainability at U of T, correlated short-term laboratory tests with long-term performance to predict concrete behaviour, which improved understanding of detrimental chemical processes in concrete. This new information was subsequently incorporated into Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) specifications to improve the quality and extend the life of concrete.

With a research investment of $29,000, MTO calculates implementation of the changed concrete standards that can add one extra year of bridge life before rehabilitation or replacement occurs–at a savings of $40,000 per structure–for an overall savings of $72 million over the life of the ministry’s 1,800 concrete bridges.

MTO included this research news in the Fall 2010 issue of its transportation technology digest, RoadTalk.

Taryn Davis (ChemE, 1T0), the Chair of the 2010 Skule™ Arts Festival, has been honoured with a University of Toronto Arts Council Award for Student Engagement. The award recognizes Davis’s contribution to the arts community within the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, where she helped establish the one-week festival for Engineering students and displayed several of her own works of art. Davis also served as a prop coordinator for Skule™ Nite 2009, an annual musical comedy review, and helped create a mural in the atrium of the Sandford Fleming Building.

“I’m delighted that Taryn has won this well-deserved award,” said Professor Grant Allen (ChemE) Vice-Dean, Undergraduate. “Her award also helps recognize the connection between engineering and the arts, both of which are creative processes. In particular, the Skule™ Arts Festival allows students to display their artwork and inspires others to also take up the arts as well, thereby fostering creativity.”

Follow the link to read the full announcement of the award recipients for 2009-2010.

Astronaut Robert Thirsk, the first Canadian to live on the International Space Station (ISS), visited the University of Toronto on October 27th.

His visit was an opportunity to review the results of an experiment Thirsk conducted while aboard the ISS, which was designed by Professor Masahiro Kawaji (ChemE).

Thirsk spent 188 days aboard the ISS between May and December of 2009. While aboard, he was  responsible for the maintenance and repair of the ISS, in addition to conducting experiments on behalf of Canadian and international researchers.

U of T’s contribution to Dr. Thirsk’s mission was the Marangoni Experiment in Space (MEIS-2), which sought to understand how a zero-gravity environment impacts upon the physical processes underlying crystal formation.

If you have ever noticed “the tears” that form when you swirl a glass of wine, you’ve noticed the Marangoni effect. When a liquid with a high surface tension pulls more strongly on the surrounding liquid than one with a low surface tension, the presence of a gradient in surface tension will naturally cause the liquid to flow away from regions of low surface tension. Because alcohol has a lower surface tension than water, that can cause the tears to appear along the side of the wine glass.

However, this effect also has a significant impact on the manufacturing of semiconductor crystals, which are widely used in electronics. Creating a liquid bridge is one way to produce semiconductor crystals, but the Marangoni effect causes convection that needs to be better understood. Gravity has made obtaining precise data on the Marangoni effect difficult on earth, so outer space provides a perfect environment to conduct this research.

The results of the experiment are still being analyzed. Professor Kawaji explained that over three terabytes of data was collected over the course of the experiment. This information will help to better understand the transition from steady to oscillatory Marangoni flow, as well as the effects of g-jitter (random vibrations) on the liquid bridge. That knowledge, in turn, can be used to develop higher quality and more efficiently produced semiconductor crystals.

While on campus, Dr. Thirsk also met with Professor Peter Lewis, U of T’s Associate Vice-President of Research, and Professor Stewart Aitchison (ECE) Vice-Dean, Research, for the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, to express his thanks to the University.

“We were very proud of our association with the University of Toronto and the contribution Dr. Kawaji made to our mission through the MEIS-2,” Dr. Thirsk said.

He presented U of T with a mission patch that was flown in space, as well as a personalized collage of his time in space to Professor Kawaji. He also participated in an information session for graduate students, where he detailed his experience aboard the ISS.

“I woke up every morning feeling tired,” Dr. Thirsk noted, “but then I would remember I was in space and thought ‘that’s pretty cool’ and got on with my day.”

Dr. Thirsk, who holds the Canadian record for the most time spent in space, announced that he was retiring from space travel on October 25th.

Engineering Services Inc. (ESI) announced today that it has signed a $3-million contract with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to develop robotic arm technologies for lunar missions, with an option for a second arm in a contract worth $500,000. Along with a micro-rover and a smaller robotic arm, this is the third robot that ESI is developing for the CSA and establishes ESI as a significant player in Canada’s space industry.

As prime contractor, ESI will lead a team of experts from industry and academia in the design, building and testing of the Planetary Medium Manipulator (PMM) prototype. A leading feature of the PMM is its versatility, allowing tasks as varied as scientific investigations, construction of a simulated lunar base and maintenance of other robots to be performed autonomously. The key technologies developed in this project will also impact Earth-based robotics: enabling more complex tasks to be completed autonomously and allowing robots to safely work alongside humans.

According to ESI’s founder and president, Professor Andrew Goldenberg, this robotic arm “expands the scope of what is possible with robots in space and on the Earth.” Designing space robots marks a return for Professor Goldenberg, who was a designer of the original Canadarm before becoming a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and later founding ESI.

Professor Goldenberg was also recently announced as a winner of a 2010 Ontario Professional Engineers Award, which will be presented on November 20th.

Canada’s health records system, based largely on paper and bracelets, is “arcane,” says Darren Entwistle, chief executive officer of Telus Corp., and in bringing it into the 21st century there is the opportunity for both profit and social good. Several years ago the Vancouver-based telecommunications giant set about to help computerize it.

And with the baby boom generation about to crush into Canada’s health care system, upping the annual cost of health care to about $240-billion a year by 2020 from $160-billion now, the technological revolution has come just in time. Medical institutions are desperately seeking ways to maximize their time and cut costs. And Canada is very far behind: Only about 50 per cent of the country’s health records are digital, compared with nearly 100 per cent in the United Kingdom, according to Telus.

“The will to do it is much stronger than it was 15 years ago,” says Professor Michael Carter (MIE) of the Centre for Research in Healthcare Engineering. “Implementation of IT in health care is really 15 years behind other service industries. But they’re coming around, so Telus may be right.”

Follow the link to read the full article on The Globe and Mail website.