COLUMBIA, Mo. ¬— A typical American consumes approximately 3 or more tablespoons of vegetable oil each day. Vegetable oils, like those from soy, corn and canola, are a significant source of calories and are rich in linoleic acid (LA), which is an essential nutrient. Since the 1970s, researchers have known that LA helps reduce blood cholesterol levels, and for decades, scientists have known that consuming LA can help lower the risk of heart disease. However, some experts have been claiming recently that Americans might be getting too much of a good thing.
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(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– A new study by researchers at UC Santa Barbara provides clues into the understanding of the behavior of the charged molecules or particles in ionic liquids. The new framework may lead to the creation of cleaner, more sustainable, and nontoxic batteries, and other sources of chemical power. The research was published in an early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Ever been to a whispering gallery—a quiet, circular space underneath an old cathedral dome that captures and amplifies sounds as quiet as a whisper? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are applying similar principles in the development optomechanical sensors that will help unlock vibrational secrets of chemical and biological samples at the nanoscale.
Loading a lithium-ion battery produces lithium atoms that are taken up by the graphite layers of the negative electrode. However, the capacity of graphite is limited to one lithium atom per six carbon atoms. Silicon could take up to ten times more lithium. But unfortunately, it strongly expands during this process – which leads to unsolved problems in battery applications.
Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today's electronics.
The ORNL battery design, which uses abundant low-cost elemental sulfur, also addresses flammability concerns experienced by other chemistries.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a new flow-based method for manipulating and confining single particles in free solution, a process that will help address current challenges faced by nanoscientists and engineers.
Engineers in the Coordinated Robotics Lab at the University of California, San Diego, have developed new image processing techniques for rapid exploration and characterization of structural fires by small Segway-like robotic vehicles.
A sophisticated on-board software system takes the thermal data recorded by the robot's small infrared camera and maps it onto a 3D scene constructed from the images taken by a pair of stereo RGB cameras.
DETROIT — The local food movement is gaining traction in cities across America, with urban gardens contributing a healthy source of fresh produce for local citizens as well as providing a social outlet for gardeners and creating open spaces for residents to enjoy. Urban gardening is not without risks, however. Many garden plots within cities were previously inhabited by residences or industrial buildings that disposed of toxic chemicals on site, creating potential health hazards from the use of lead in paint, gasoline and industrial activities.
How much will BP pay to compensate for damage from the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig disaster? One article in a three-part cover package on the disaster in this week's edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) focuses on what promises to be a long, complicated federal trial — now getting underway in New Orleans — that will provide an answer. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
Ulsan, South Korea– The research team of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Case Western Reserve University and University of North Texas have paved a new way for affordable commercialization of fuel cells with efficient metal-free electrocatalysts using edge-halogenated graphene nanoplatelets.
Fuel cell technology has come a long way since the early days in the Apollo space program. Certainly the idea of running a car on pure hydrogen is an exciting prospect as the only emissions will be pure water.
Can cloud formation, precipitation or thunderstorms be influenced by laser light irradiation? This issue has been investigated by researchers from KIT's Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research – Atmospheric Aerosol Research (IMK-AAF), Freie Universität Berlin, and the University of Geneva. The objective of the studies conducted by head of IMK-AAF Professor Thomas Leisner was to find out whether and in how far laser light and plasma can influence cloud formation.
Researchers from South Korea, Case Western Reserve University and University of North Texas have discovered an inexpensive and easily produced catalyst that performs better than platinum in oxygen-reduction reactions.
The finding, detailed in Nature's Scientific Reports online today, is a step toward eliminating what industry regards as the largest obstacle to large-scale commercialization of fuel cell technology.
An expert in robotics and automation problems, especially those involving manufacturing systems, NJIT Distinguished Professor and IEEE Fellow Mengchu Zhou will have two articles published in the upcoming proceedings of the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Both papers were recently presented at this conference.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Peer group influences affect children much earlier than researchers have suspected, finds a new University of Maryland-led study. The researchers say the study provides a wake-up call to parents and educators to look out for undue group influences, cliquishness and biases that might set in early, the researchers say.
All the study's authors are members of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, a National Science Foundation Center that brings together biologists, computer scientists, engineers and researchers from other disciplines to study evolution as it happens.
Studying swarming and unlocking the secrets of why it evolved is a small first step toward understanding how human-level intelligence evolved in nature, a research goal of the team.