Pavement power

Harvesting energy with piezoelectrics

By Dr. John Noël, Ph.D.

Our roadways form an invaluable network. They make our modern life possible by connecting families, transporting goods and driving our economy by bringing millions to work, daily. Could we soon include “power plant” in their description?

Step outside and you can see and feel many energy sources – sun, wind, waves and tides. The energy supply is seemingly infinite, but that energy must be captured and converted to a usable form if we want to put it to good use.

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Lab Corner: A(I), Asphalt

By Mike Anderson, P.E.

In February’s “National Geographic”, I saw a headline that read “AI just deciphered part of an ‘unreadable’ ancient scroll. Here’s what it says.” (See the end of the article for the quiz.)

I shared the headline with my family and made up a few responses that I thought could be punchlines. I shared my responses at the end of this article along with another response that came when I asked ChatGPT to provide a punchline as well. Take the quiz and see if you can pick which one is AI-generated.

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