Highly charged tungsten ions may work to monitor fusion energy reactors

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Just as health-food manufacturers work on developing the best possible sodium substitutes for low-salt diets, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have acquired new knowledge on a promising sodium alternative of their own. Sodium-like tungsten ions could pepper——and conveniently monitor——the hot plasma soup inside fusion energy devices, potential sources of abundant, clean power.

River flow and temperature limit trout numbers

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Over a 23-year study, Javier Lobón-Cerviá a researcher at the National Museum of Natural Sciences (CSIC), has found the mechanism that controls the number of Salmon found each year in Cantabrian rivers. His method has been to monitor population numbers in relation to river flow in March, when the juvenile fish emerge. He concludes that environmental conditions change each year and modify river flow, positively or negatively affecting survival rates. This information throws light on a long debate within ecological theory about the mechanisms that regulate the size of animal populations.

Surgeons General, STOP Obesity Alliance announce America has reached tipping point on obesity

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WASHINGTON, D.C., September 9, 2009 –- The two most recent Surgeons General of the United States, David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., FAAFP, FACPM, FACP and Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., FACS, today led the Strategies to Overcome and Prevent (STOP) Obesity Alliance in urging policymakers to take direct action in health reform to address obesity and the chronic diseases associated with it.

New calculations may improve temperature measures for microfluidics

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If you wanted to know whether or not your child had a fever if that the roast in the oven was thoroughly cooked, you would, of course, use a thermometer. However, it isn't that simple for researchers who need to measure temperatures in microfluidic systems—tiny, channel-lined devices used in medical diagnostics, DNA forensics and "lab-on-a-chip" chemical analyzers—as their current "thermometer" can only be precisely calibrated for one reference temperature.

New standards for identity credentials and authentication systems

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Two publications from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) describe new capabilities for authentication systems using smart cards or other personal security devices within and outside federal government applications. A report describes a NIST-led international standard, ISO/IEC 24727, which defines a general-purpose identity application programming interface (API). The other is a draft publication on refinements to the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) specification.

Internists' new paper identifies and analyzes key drivers of health care costs

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WASHINGTON – A policy paper that identifies and analyzes the key drivers of health care costs was released today by the American College of Physicians (ACP). Controlling Health Care Costs While Promoting the Best Possible Health Outcomes provides nearly four dozen recommendations to achieve better quality care to more people.

ACP is particularly concerned that the high cost of health care in the United States is not correlated with high quality and efficiency in the delivery of services or improved health outcomes.

Prototype NIST method detects and measures elusive hazards

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A chemist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has demonstrated a relatively simple, inexpensive method for detecting and measuring elusive hazards such as concealed explosives and toxins, invisible spoilage in food or pesticides distributed in soil by wind and rain. The prototype method is more sensitive than conventional techniques for detecting traces of these materials, which are polar—like water molecules, having distinct electrically positive and negative ends—and do not readily evaporate.

Graphitic memory techniques could provide mass data storage for digital devices

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Advances by the Rice University lab of James Tour have brought graphite's potential as a mass data storage medium a step closer to reality and created the potential for reprogrammable gate arrays that could bring about a revolution in integrated circuit logic design.

ESA campaign reveals glimpse of future Sentinel-3 imagery

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As part of the development process for ESA's Sentinel-3 Earth observation mission, remote-sensing experts carried out an extensive experiment campaign across southern Europe this summer. The results provide valuable insight into the imagery the mission will deliver after it is launched in 2013.

High fruit and vegetable intake positively correlated with antioxidant status, cognitive performance

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Amsterdam, September 8, 2009 – Researchers at the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology I of the Heinrich-Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany, investigated the relationship between fruit and vegetable intake, plasma antioxidant micronutrient status and cognitive performance in healthy subjects aged 45 to 102 years. Their results, published in the August issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, indicated higher cognitive performance in individuals with high daily intake of fruits and vegetables.