This monthly review lets you “meet” the new advertisers appearing in NTB and its supplements. Here’s a sneak peek at the products, services, and offers available from November’s first-time advertisers.

AMPS Technologies (Pittsburgh, PA) develops Advanced Multi-Physics Simulation (AMPS) software, an advanced simulation system with up-to-date FE technology and computer software engineering.

ETSI (Sophia-Antipolis Cedex, France) is a not-for-profit organization that produces globally applicable standards for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including fixed, mobile, radio, converged, broadcast, and Internet technologies.

Keyence (Woodcliff Lake, NJ) is a leading supplier of sensors and measuring instruments. Keyence develops and manufactures FA sensors, opto-electronic equipment, and related systems.

SPIE (Bellingham, WA) is an international membership society, serving scientists and engineers in industry, academia, and government, as well as companies producing leading-edge products. SPIE constituents work in a wide variety of fields that utilize some aspect of optics and photonics.

Tadiran Telecom (Port Washington, NY) is a global IP business telephone and communications supplier. They supply business telephone and IP communications solutions to organizations of all sizes, from small companies to large, multi-national enterprises.

Virginia Panel Corp. (Waynesboro, VA) designs, manufactures, and markets Interface Connector products for both commercial and military applications. VPC has developed the standard interface system for the United States Air Force Modular Automated Test Equipment Program (MATE).

A company is looking for effective personal skincare products for niche applications where the efficacy can be clearly demonstrated. The products, product ranges, and/or brands should offer relief for common skin conditions. Products will preferably be topically applied. They should also be on the market and recognizable by the consumer. Orally ingested, prescription, and purely cosmetic items are not of interest. Click here for more info.

A company is seeking a simple surfactant system that effectively removes silicone build up used in hair conditioner from manufacturing equipment surfaces. High molecular weight silicone PDMS (silicone with viscosity higher than 5MM) used in hair conditioner formula sticks to the inner surface of the manufacturing system, which is primarily stainless steel. The accumulation of silicone potentially attracts suspended solids in formulation, leaving more visible residue. Click here for more info.

The Technology Needs of the Week are anonymous requests for technology, distributed through the yet2.com marketplace, that you and your organization may be able to fulfill. Responding to a Tech Need is the first step to gaining an introduction with a prospective “buyer” for your technology solution.

Haunted by memories of blackouts and power reductions, utility and battery companies are stepping up efforts to upgrade their substations with larger batteries.

For instance, electric utility giant American Electric Power (Columbus, OH) has ordered three multimegawatt battery systems, with the goal of having 25 megawatts of storage in place by 2010, and 40 times that by 2020.

In a substation upgrade demonstration project in Charleston, VA, American Electric Power deployed a sodium-sulfur battery the size of a double-decker bus, plus power electronics to manage the flow of AC power in and out of the DC battery. The battery, produced by NGK Insulators of Nagoya,Japan, generates up to 1.2 megawatts for up to seven hours, easing the strain on an overloaded substation.

American Electric Power hopes to leverage the capacity of the larger storage† grids to harness renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. The company plans to connect its third two-megawatt battery system to a group of wind turbines at an undetermined site. The company hopes to find out whether batteries can smooth out short-term power flow fluctuations from the turbines, which could eventually lead to utilities absorbing larger levels of wind power on their grids.

Find out more here.

The naked mole rat has been labeled as being ugly, wrinkled, blind, and bucktoothed. But scientists conducting aging studies have found that the unglamorous creature may hold the key to longevity. One such scientist is Stan Braude, a lecturer in biology at Washington University in St. Louis. Braude has studied mole rats for over 25 years, 20 of them on the fields of Kenya, Africa.

A key component in the aging of any species is oxidative damage, where the cells accrue damage from poisons, toxins, and other effects. Mole rats have been found to deal with oxidative stress in pulses, due mostly to their ability to shut down their metabolism when facing hardships. Mole rats apparently can rid their body of harmful reducing agents and poisons more easily during these metabolic pulses.

“Another way to think of it is, their gross life span might be 28 years, but their metabolism is going in these short bursts so maybe the net damage is only 3 to 4 years of net use,” Braude said.

Braude has observed unique traits among mole rats. For instance, he noted that mole rats routinely invade neighboring rat colonies and fight for hostile takeover, and kidnap young rats from other colonies to serve as workers in their own tunnels.

Find out more here.

NASA Tech Briefs’ 2007 National Nano Engineering Conference (NNEC), November 14-15 at the Marriott Boston Copley Place, is the premier event focused on current and future developments in engineering innovations at the nanoscale, as well as the commercialization of nanotechnology. The event also includes the presentation of the third annual Nano 50™ Awards.

One of the Nano 50 award winners is Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL), for work in metallic materials with hierarchical porous structures.

Used in electronic, catalytic, and sensor applications, metallic materials with multimodal porosity or hierarchical porous structures are of particular interest because larger pores in the structure facilitate mass transport while smaller pores increase the surface area. Although noble metals have been used extensively in catalytic, electrochemical, and purification processes, synthesizing hierarchical porous noble metal materials remains challenging.

Find out more in the presentation by Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientist Gregory Nyce on Wednesday, November 14, at 11:15 am.

For more information and to register for the NNEC, click here.