chickens and computing

It's easy to drive past one of the composite materials laboratories on the campus of the University of Delaware and not give too much thought to the work that goes on inside. I remember watching the University of Delaware football team play an away game in Princeton a few years back, and the New Jersey announcer informed the crowd (with tongue-in-cheek) that the Delaware State motto was "better living through chemistry." With the State's close ties to the chemistry industry, we often take for granted some of the marvels that are created at places like Dupont, Hercules, and Astro-Zeneca. The University of Delaware has a good national reputation when it comes to the study of chemical engineering, and it's partially because of the efforts of companies like those I mentioned that the school excels in that field.

Some news from the university's Affordable Composites from Renewable Sources (ACRES) project has received a bit of publicity recently. The ACRES project looks "at existing products and tries to find a waste product or an easy-to-grow crop that could be used to fabricate it." The media is looking at and writing about a patent filed from a chemical engineer working at the laboratories that would allow faster computer chips to be made from chickens' feathers.