Tech

RICHLAND, Wash. - Energy storage system owners could see significant savings from a new flow battery technology that is projected to cost 60 percent less than today's standard flow batteries.

The organic aqueous flow battery, described in a paper published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials, is expected to cost $180 per kilowatt-hour once the technology is fully developed. The lower cost is due to the battery's active materials being inexpensive organic molecules, compared to the commodity metals used in today's flow batteries.

A frequent problem faced by cells is that they are surrounded by a promising cloud of scent and must determine the direction of its source. Nerve cells, for example, form long extensions that are attracted to signals from other cells in order to produce the network that forms the nervous system; similarly, scavenger cells recognise the scent of harmful germs in order that they can pursue and destroy them.

Quantum cryptography is considered a fully secure encryption method, but researchers from Linköping University and Stockholm University have discovered that this is not always the case. They found that energy-time entanglement - the method that today forms the basis for many systems of quantum cryptography - is vulnerable to attack. The results of their research have been published in Science Advances.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a technique for using chains of magnetic nanoparticles to manipulate elastic polymers in three dimensions, which could be used to remotely control new "soft robots."

Teams of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have demonstrated a biosensor capable of counting the blood cells electrically using only a drop of blood. The blood cell count is among the most ubiquitous diagnostic tests in primary health care. The gold standard routinely used in hospitals and testing laboratories is a hematology analyzer, which is large and expensive equipment, and requires trained technicians and physical sample transportation.

How disposable Lithium batteries degrade during normal use has been tracked in real-time by a UCL-led team using sophisticated 3D imaging, giving a new way to non-invasively monitor performance loss and guide the development of more effective commercial battery designs.

The team recently used the same technique to show how rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries fail when they are exposed to extreme levels of heat, but this is the first time the extent of day-to-day damage of disposable Lithium batteries has been shown.

Since the 1980s, advanced robotic platforms have provided assistance to crisis intervention teams in the wake of man-made and natural disasters. The objective of such robots, in various sizes and shapes, has been to intervene where humans cannot and send life-saving data to rescue teams in the field.

The researcher who developed the process says it could save approximately six tons of carbon emissions per ton of silica compounds produced. He estimates the cost of the technique to be 90 percent less than the current process, with virtually no carbon footprint.

Developed by Richard Laine, a professor of materials science and engineering, the new technique is believed to be the first simple, inexpensive chemical method for producing high-purity silica compounds from agricultural waste.

A first-of-a-kind drug that interferes with the metabolic activity of gut microbes could one day treat heart disease in humans, according to a mouse study published December 17 in Cell. Dietary supplementation with a compound that is naturally abundant in red wine and olive oil prevented gut microbes from turning unhealthy foods into metabolic byproducts that clog arteries.

History supports Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's recent tweet saying that men have a hard time asking for help for their depression.

But new research brings good news: Men really do think it's important to seek help.

Participants in a national survey read a scenario describing someone who had depressed symptoms. Among other things, this hypothetical person has difficulty sleeping, can't concentrate and doesn't feel happy even when good things happen.

Kyoto, Japan -- Researchers have found that fish oil transforms fat-storage cells into fat-burning cells, which may reduce weight gain in middle age.

The team explains in Scientific Reports that fish oil activates receptors in the digestive tract, fires the sympathetic nervous system, and induces storage cells to metabolize fat.

What happens to the land when a ski run is abandoned? Not much, if the run was previously graded, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.

The study, published online Dec. 16 in the Journal of Applied Ecology, evaluated six abandoned ski areas in the Northern Sierra region of California and Nevada. It found that runs that were graded showed no predictable recovery even 40 years after abandonment. With graded runs, heavy machinery is used to remove vegetation, boulders and, consequently, much of the topsoil and seed bank during construction.

There's more to an ecosystem than the visible plants and animals. The soil underneath is alive with vital microbes. They make sure nutrients from dead plant and animal material are broken down and made useable by other plants. This completes the process of nutrient cycling and carbon storage.

Scientists are learning more about how important these microbes are. But how do changes in temperature and precipitation levels affect microbes? And will that affect carbon storage?

ETH Professor Martin Fussenegger calls them molecular prosthetics: cells with specially developed gene circuits that can be implanted into an organism, where they take over metabolic functions that the organism cannot perform itself. Fussenegger and his team at ETH Zurich's Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering in Basel have now succeeded in developing a molecular prosthesis of this kind where the functions are far more complex than before. The prosthesis is tailored to the treatment of psoriasis, a complex and chronic inflammatory disease of the skin.

At a press conference held on Friday Dec. 11, 2015 in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam, archaeologist Nico Roymans from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam announced a discovery that is truly unique for Dutch archaeology: the location where the Roman general and statesman Julius Caesar massacred two Germanic tribes in the year 55 BC. The location of this battle, which Caesar wrote about in detail in Book IV of his De Bello Gallico, was unknown to date. It is the earliest known battle on Dutch soil.