According to the new research results of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, lignocellulosic biomass can be used in the production of high-quality biofuels for the price of less than one euro per litre. A new technology developed in Finland allows the transfer of more than half the energy of wood raw materials to the end-product. The technology is considered ready for the construction of a commercial-scale production plant in Europe.
Tech
Subjectivity is problematic when evaluating fingerprints, and quality is in the eye of the examiner. But three computer programs used together can give fingerprint grading unprecedented consistency and objectivity, according to Penn State researchers.
According to the new research results of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, lignocellulosic biomass can be used in the production of high-quality biofuels for the price of less than one euro per litre. A new technology developed in Finland allows the transfer of more than half the energy of wood raw materials to the end-product. The technology is considered ready for the construction of a commercial-scale production plant in Europe.
New research shows that existing copper resources can sustain increasing world-wide demand for at least a century, meaning social and environmental concerns could be the most important restrictions on future copper production.
Researchers from Monash University have conducted the most systematic and robust compilation and analysis of worldwide copper resources to date. Contrary to predictions estimating that supplies of this important metal would run out in around 30 years, the research has found there are plenty of resources within the reach of current technologies.
Ulsan, S. Korea, July 2, 2013 – Korean researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), S. Korea, developed a novel bio-inspired composite electrocatalyst outperforming platinum.
This research work was published on June 25, in the journal Nature Communications. (Title: Promotion of Oxygen reduction by a bio-inspired tethered iron phthalocyanine carbon nanotube-based catalyst).
MADISON – A discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may represent a significant advance in the quest to create a "hydrogen economy" that would use this abundant element to store and transfer energy.
Theoretically, hydrogen is the ultimate non-carbon, non-polluting fuel for storing intermittent energy from the wind or sun. When burned for energy, hydrogen produces water but no carbon dioxide. Practically speaking, producing hydrogen from water, and then storing and using the gas, have proven difficult.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass -- Cloud computing -- outsourcing computational tasks over the Internet -- could give home-computer users unprecedented processing power and let small companies launch sophisticated Web services without building massive server farms.
But it also raises privacy concerns. A bank of cloud servers could be running applications for 1,000 customers at once; unbeknownst to the hosting service, one of those applications might have no purpose other than spying on the other 999.
Most electronic games are no better than watching TV in terms of the body movement and energy expenditure involved, say the authors. Kids in developed countries spend an estimated 38 to 90 minutes a day playing these games.
But what has not been clear is whether the newer generation "active" games, such as Sony PlayStation EyeToy and Move, dance mats, and Microsoft Xbox Kinect, are any better.
China Ming Yang Wind Power Group Limited, a wind turbine manufacturer in China, today announced that its first 6.5 MW prototype super compact drive ("SCD") wind turbine generator has been successfully completed in June 2013, and installation and testing are expected to commence in the third quarter of 2013.
The 6.5 MW SCD prototype utilizes Ming Yang's two-bladed SCD technology. It is designed mainly for off-shore operation, and Ming Yang believes that this SCD WTG prototype currently has the largest design capacity of its kind in the world.
Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation announced the use of Marcellus Shale natural gas to fracture wells via dual fuel technology, the first time "field" gas has been used in northeastern Pennsylvania for this purpose.
The process of using clean-burning natural gas can displace up to 70 percent of the diesel fuel traditionally used to operate fracturing equipment. This successful effort was a partnership with FTS International (FTSI) and Caterpillar Global Petroleum.
Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have discovered a mechanism that triggers chronic inflammation in Alzheimer's, atherosclerosis and type-2 diabetes. The results, published today in Nature Immunology, suggest a common biochemical thread to multiple diseases and point the way to a new class of therapies that could treat chronic inflammation in these non-infectious diseases without crippling the immune system. Alzheimer's, atherosclerosis and type-2 diabetes—diseases associated with aging and inflammation—affect more than 100 million Americans.
Computer science researchers have programmed a computer to play the game Concentration (also known as Memory). The work could help improve computer security – and improve our understanding of how the human mind works.
In recent years, illegal cooking oil incident led to the serious food safety risks and the negative social repercussions. Professor HE Yujian and his group from College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences establish two rapid and convenient colorimetric detections of illegal cooking oils based on phase transfer technology. This work could be helpful for the rapid and on-site detection of illegal cooking oil.
A technique developed several years ago at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for improving optical microscopes now has been applied to monitoring the next generation of computer chip circuit components, potentially providing the semiconductor industry with a crucial tool for improving chips for the next decade or more.
A team of scientists at USC has verified that quantum effects are indeed at play in the first commercial quantum optimization processor.
The team demonstrated that the D-Wave processor housed at the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center behaves in a manner that indicates that quantum mechanics plays a functional role in the way it works. The demonstration involved a small subset of the chip's 128 qubits.
This means that the device appears to be operating as a quantum processor – something that scientists had hoped for but have needed extensive testing to verify.