Tech | Page 1072 | Science Codex

Planning algorithm also generates contingency plans

Planning algorithms are widely used in logistics and control. They can help schedule flights and bus routes, guide autonomous robots, and determine control policies for the power grid, among other things.

In recent years, planning algorithms have begun to factor in uncertainty -- variations in travel time, erratic communication between autonomous robots, imperfect sensor data, and the like. That causes the scale of the planning problem to grow exponentially, but researchers have found clever ways to solve it efficiently.

Freezing steak improves tenderness of some cuts, study finds

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- Meat lovers may find it appealing to take a fresh steak from the store right to their home grill, but research continues to show that freezing the steak and cooking it later actually improves the tenderness of certain cuts.

Kansas State University meat scientists say they've confirmed previous findings about the impact of freezing strip loin and inside round steaks. In a recent study, they tested six major muscles from the hind quarter and found that those two cuts were as much as 10 percent more tender after freezing.

Portion of ancient Australian chert microstructures definitively pseudo-fossils

Washington, DC-- A team of scientists including Carnegie's Dina Bower and Andrew Steele weigh in on whether microstructures found in 3.46 billion-year-old samples of a silica-rich rock called chert found in Western Australia are the planet's oldest fossils. The purported fossils have been a heated scientific controversy for many years. The team asserts that at least a portion of the microstructures are actually pseudo-fossils. Their findings are published in Astrobiology.

Adderall misuse rising among young adults

While the number of prescriptions for the stimulant Adderall has remained unchanged among young adults, misuse and emergency room visits related to the drug have risen dramatically in this group, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

Revolutionary flexible smartphone allows users to feel the buzz by bending their apps

KINGSTON, ON/ EINDHOVEN, NL - Researchers at Queen's University's Human Media Lab have developed the world's first full-colour, high-resolution and wireless flexible smartphone to combine multitouch with bend input. The phone, which they have named ReFlex, allows users to experience physical tactile feedback when interacting with their apps through bend gestures.

"This represents a completely new way of physical interaction with flexible smartphones" says Roel Vertegaal (School of Computing), director of the Human Media Lab at Queen's University.

Social media face threats affect relationships; communication helps

Impression management refers to an individual's deliberate efforts to control or influence other people's perceptions. Sometimes impression management occurs in reaction to face threats: unfavorable incidents that undercut a person's ability to cultivate and maintain a desirable self-image on social networking sites (SNSs).

SNSs such as Facebook, where content can be shared widely and is often persistent, studies have repeatedly shown that people are vulnerable to face threats resulting from things that others post.

Losing the fight against antibiotic resistance

Tackling antibiotic resistance on only one front is a waste of time because resistant genes are freely crossing environmental, agricultural and clinical boundaries, new research has shown.

Analysis of historic soil archives dating back to 1923 has revealed a clear parallel between the appearance of antibiotic resistance in medicine and similar antibiotic resistant genes detected over time in agricultural soils treated with animal manure.

Ice sheet modeling of Greenland, Antarctica helps predict sea-level rise

LIVERMORE, Calif.--The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will make a dominant contribution to 21st century sea-level rise if current climate trends continue. However, predicting the expected loss of ice sheet mass is difficult due to the complexity of modeling ice sheet behavior.

Materials with self-healing powers

Bridges, tunnels and roads: Concrete is the main component of our infrastructure. And when the structural elements need to be repaired, it often leads to long traffic jams. At the Annual Meeting of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) in Washington, D.C., Prof. Christian Grosse from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and other experts talked about smart materials for sustainable infrastructure.

A new spin on quantum computing: Scientists train electrons with microwaves

In what may provide a potential path to processing information in a quantum computer, researchers have switched an intrinsic property of electrons from an excited state to a relaxed state on demand using a device that served as a microwave "tuning fork."

The team's findings could also lead to enhancements in magnetic resonance techniques, which are widely used to explore the structure of materials and biomolecules, and for medical imaging.

Engineering material magic

University of Utah engineers have discovered a new kind of 2D semiconducting material for electronics that opens the door for much speedier computers and smartphones that also consume a lot less power.

New hardware to expand fast fiber-to-the-home

The cost of deploying fast fibre connections straight to homes could be dramatically reduced by new hardware designed and tested by UCL researchers. The innovative technology will help address the challenges of providing households with high bandwidths while futureproofing infrastructure against the exponentially growing demand for data.

Drones for research: DePaul University archaeologist to explain UAV use at Fifa

CHICAGO --- The use of unmanned aerial vehicles -- drones -- to document and monitor a ravaged landscape on the Dead Sea Plain in Jordan for the past three years reveals that looting continues at the site, though at a measurably reduced pace, according to a DePaul University archaeologist.

Does living near an oil or natural gas well affect your drinking water?

"The answer to that question is usually 'no,' but there are exceptions," said Stanford Professor Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy.

When machines can do any job, what will humans do?

HOUSTON -- (Feb. 13, 2016) -- Rice University computer scientist Moshe Vardi expects that within 30 years, machines will be capable of doing almost any job that a human can. In anticipation, he is asking his colleagues to consider the societal implications. Can the global economy adapt to greater than 50 percent unemployment? Will those out of work be content to live a life of leisure?