While an engineering student, your correspondent spent one summer crack-testing engine parts in an airline's workshops in Spain.

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After the Bush Administration announced last year that the space shuttle would be retired in 2010, NASA's Stennis Space Center, which performs engine testing on it, went into action, wooing more private enterprises to its 140, 000-acre grounds.

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Taobao, a unit of Alibaba Group, announced on Tuesday that it was beta testing a shopping search engine called Etao.

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Testing on a 125hp diesel engine is scheduled to begin soon.

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As the sole customer for the two engines, the government must cover all the costs of designing a second engine, developing and testing it, equipping and manning a second production line, funding a second supplier network, and sustaining a parallel maintenance and support infrastructure across the lifetime of the program.

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Nicknamed "Caffeine" the new version is still in the testing phase and will replace the current engine once tests are complete.

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The testing required to demonstrate that a novel engine can meet stringent emissions standards and durability requirements is expensive and time consuming.

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Fuel economy may suffer as well, so it is worthwhile to monitor your engine's overall performance while testing the lower-octane fuel.

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For those tests, Virgin will be testing the aerodynamics of its SpaceShipTwo with its rocket engine fully installed.

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In fact, says Hakia founder Berkan, detailed, obscure queries are where his search engine may outshine Google--at least once it finishes beta testing this summer.

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The current F1 rulebook has limited certain areas of car improvement: a 10-year freeze on engine development is in place, Bridgestone tires are standard issue to every team and testing in season is restricted.

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Meanwhile, the feds' fuel-economy administrators are currently operating at a dead run trying to keep up with a host of new, highly digitized fuel-saving technologies, such as "Eco" throttle mapping and stop-start (the engine cuts out as the vehicle coasts or stops), which were practically invented to hack the EPA testing cycle.

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