BORDER TECHNOLOGY. UTA is one of five University of Texas System schools participating in a consortium for nanotechnology along the Texas-Mexico border. The “Nano at the Border” initiative is designed to benefit from the area’s booming population and its proximity to Mexico. With headquarters at U.T. Brownsville, the project also includes U.T. Austin, U.T. Dallas and U.T. Pan American. Nanotechnology involves the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules to form new materials with potentially significant real-world applications.

WHERE THE WATER MEETS THE ROAD. The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has received a three-year, $436,000 grant from the Texas Department of Transportation to study water flow on street pavement. Under the direction of professors Anand Puppala, Ernest Crosby and Max Spindler, researchers have built a 20-foot by 68-foot tiltable section of roadway in the Nedderman Hall basement. The team is studying what happens when water from a 20,000-gallon tank is propelled across the pavement. No other full-scale test facility is known to be performing this type of investigation.

WILL THE WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN? Aerospace engineering Professor Frank Lu usually investigates the mysteries of hypersonic flight. Now he’s using his knowledge of shock waves to study the blast effects of terrorist-type explosions. Dr. Lu and Victor V. Golub of the Russian Academy of Sciences are conducting one of six projects funded by the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation to minimize the impact of terrorist threats. The pair are developing materials and techniques to protect buildings from terrorist bombings.