Leipzig. Straw from agriculture could play an important role in the future energy mix for Germany. Up until now it has been underutilised as a biomass residue and waste material. These were the conclusions of a study conducted by the TLL (Thueringian regional institute for agriculture), the DBFZ (German biomass research center) and the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ). According to them, from a total of 30 million tons of cereal straw produced annually in Germany, between 8 and 13 million tons of it could be used sustainably for energy or fuel production.
Tech
Researchers have demonstrated how to produce electronic inks for the development of new applications using the 'wonder material', carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes are lightweight, strong and conduct electricity, which make them ideal components in new electronics devices, such as tablet computers and touchscreen phones, but cannot be used without being separated out from their natural tangled state.
In the near future, solar panels will not only be more efficient but also a lot cheaper and affordable for everyone, thanks to research by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) scientists.
This next generation solar cell, made from organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite materials, is about five times cheaper than current thin-film solar cells, due to a simpler solution-based manufacturing process.
CLEVELAND--Instead of having to use tons of crushing force and volcanic heat to forge diamonds, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a way to cheaply make nanodiamonds on a lab bench at atmospheric pressure and near room temperature.
The nanodiamonds are formed directly from a gas and require no surface to grow on.
Results from a study led by researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital found more than three-fourths of breast milk samples purchased over the Internet contained bacteria that can cause illness, and frequently exhibited signs of poor collection, storage or shipping practices.
Rows of aluminum studs help solar panels extract more energy from sunlight than those with flat surfaces.
Most solar cells used in homes and industry are made using thick layers of material to absorb sunlight, but have been limited in the past by relatively high costs. Many new, lower cost designs are limited as their layer of light-absorbing material is too thin to extract enough energy.
DURHAM, N.C. -- It's an idea financial regulators have dreamed of. Experiments on a simple model of chaos have found that it may be possible not only to predict an extreme event, like a stock market collapse, but to intervene and prevent it from happening.
In a paper appearing October 21 in the journal Physical Review Letters, an international team of chaos researchers say that these extreme events, which they call "dragon kings," are less random than had been thought and that, in a simple experiment at least, they can be anticipated and controlled.
October 17, 2013—Antibiotic resistance (ABR) has been around for millennia; genes showing ABR have been found in woolly mammoth fossils. It's a natural occurrence, and scientists need to account for this when doing studies on ABR.
UPTON, NY -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified the key genes required for oil production and accumulation in plant leaves and other vegetative plant tissues. Enhancing expression of these genes resulted in vastly increased oil content in leaves, the most abundant sources of plant biomass-a finding that could have important implications for increasing the energy content of plant-based foods and renewable biofuel feedstocks. The research is described in two new publications in The Plant Journal and Plant Cell.
In a report publishing October 17th, 2013 in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and its scientific research arm, Epicentre, present results of one of the first-ever, large-scale use of an oral cholera vaccine during a cholera outbreak – a major breakthrough in the understanding and future control of deadly cholera epidemics.
Many people, especially young adults, engage in high-risk drinking because of the belief it will lead to positive mood effects such as cheerfulness. A new study of the association between blood alcohol content (BAC) and the subjective effects of alcohol like cheerfulness, focus distraction, and sluggishness among students in a real-life setting of high-school parties, has found that cheerfulness increased up to a certain BAC value for girls, and then decreased at higher BACs, while it increased linearly for boys.
- Many underage youth use false identification (ID) to buy alcohol.
- A new study has found that almost two-thirds of a college student sample used false IDs.
- False ID use might contribute to the development of alcohol use disorders by facilitating more frequent drinking.
Virginia Tech College of Engineering researchers are part of a national study that has cracked how jellyfish move with the lowest cost of transport of any animal. The findings will be used as researchers continue to design bio-inspired jellyfish for the U.S. Navy.
This news release is available in Spanish.
Like subsurface ninjas, the cells of a particular fungus are slipping into the skins of amphibians worldwide, killing them, and now a new study hints at why this particular fungus has been so successful.
MAYWOOD -- Women with common forms of urinary incontinence have various bacteria in their bladder, according to data presented today by researchers from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Researchers also found that some of these bacteria may differ based on their incontinence type.