Award Data

While bacteria cause fewer plant diseases than fungi and viruses, they do cause serious economic damages to both US and worldwide agriculture. Citrus canker caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis has resulted in the destruction of over 20 million trees in Florida, while fire blight caused by Erwinia amylovora costs exceed $100 million per year in the United States alone, and recent epidemics have cost o ...

Hundreds of existing wind power projects have transformed communities by creating jobs, improving economic development, and reducing environmental pollution. However, 85 percent of rural communities cannot utilize wind power today due to community concerns or poor wind resources at ground level that make projects uneconomical. Altaeros Energies is developing an airborne wind turbine that adapts pr ...

Maintaining the expected quality and safety of food products is often difficult due to potential chemical and biological contamination. Of particular concern is the threat of food poisoning. Over 40 different foodborne microbial pathogens cause an estimated 30 million cases of human illness each year costing >$12 billion annually. Over the last 20 years, food-borne diseases caused by microbes have ...

Devices resulting from this development will greatly enhance the development of food crops designed for effective water utilization and thus facilitate the genetic improvement in food yield per volume of water. Efficient use of water in agriculture can be facilitated through accurate root zone water content monitoring and control. Crop yields and crop quality can benefit through the prevention of ...

The "KickinKitchen.TV" project combines: technology, education and research strategies to address the USDA challenge area of improving nutritional health and reducing childhood obesity. This study involves the following partners: racially diverse, urban public schools, KidsCOOK Productions, an independent production company committed to addressing childhood obesity risk through its digital educati ...

The development of an inexpensive, field pesticide sensor would serve a large market for researchers, municipalities and regulatory agencies to minimize the risks involved in pesticide use. The long-term vision is for this technology to become a key environmental science tool to support water quality monitoring efforts. The proposed device will solve two of the most important shortcomings of prese ...

Sheep ranching and wool production have been a part of our country & #8223;s rural heritage for more than a hundred years, with small and mid-sized ranches serving as the backbone of our country & #8223;s sheep operations. Presently, small operators account for more total ewes than larger operations. This means that small ranches offer the best potential for growth of sheep operations in the futur ...

Agiltron Development Corp. will develop the world"s first affordable, reliable and accurate Helicopter Hostile Fire Indicator Sensor capable of detecting small arms through rocket propelled grenade threats using Agiltron"s unique photomechanical, uncooled infrared sensor. In phase one, Agiltron will construct a test sensor system and conduct field tests to determine detection range, accuracy and f ...

SOCOM and other DOD services have urgent need for safe, non-toxic visual obscurants that can be rapidly dispersed in a battlefield or into a vehicle. These obscurants must block or disrupt all visual capability within their area of effect. The dispersion must be rapid and easy to implement by field personnel. Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) will develop a non-toxic obscurant and dispersion system c ...

Sensitive site exploitation activities are focused on collecting forensic evidence left behind by persons involved in terrorist or other illegal activity, and the biological evidence recovered is often referred to as"touch DNA samples". Touch samples include fingerprints, skin cells found on clothing (e.g. a shirt collar), and oral epithelial cells found on the opening of a soda can or the rim of ...