Tech

COLUMBIA, Mo. - More than 40 percent of Americans have at least one step relative, according to a recent Pew Center study. Relationships between stepchildren and stepparents can be complicated, especially for children. University of Missouri experts have found that stepchildren relate with stepparents based on the stepparents' treatment of them and their evaluations, or judgments, of the stepparents' behaviors.

Stanford researchers have developed a battery that takes advantage of the difference in salinity between freshwater and seawater to produce electricity.

Anywhere freshwater enters the sea, such as river mouths or estuaries, could be potential sites for a power plant using such a battery, said Yi Cui, associate professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research team.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A Harvard bioengineer and an MIT aeronautical engineer have created a new device that can detect single cancer cells in a blood sample, potentially allowing doctors to quickly determine whether cancer has spread from its original site.

Ranchers in the central Great Plains may be using some of their winter downtime in the future to rehearse the upcoming production season, all from the warmth of their homes, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) soil scientists.

ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — After six years of intensive effort, scientists are reporting development of the first commercially viable nanogenerator, a flexible chip that can use body movements — a finger pinch now en route to a pulse beat in the future — to generate electricity. Speaking here today at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, they described boosting the device's power output by thousands times and its voltage by 150 times to finally move it out of the lab and toward everyday life.

Madison, WI, MARCH 29, 2011 – The environmental concern is great when considering the role of toxic contaminants in the plant-soil relationship. Understanding plant's absorption and accumulation of these contaminants from the soil would be incredibly beneficial.

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A nanotechnology-based biosensor being developed by Kansas State University researchers may allow early detection of both cancer cells and pathogens, leading to increased food safety and reduced health risks.

Lateef Syed, doctoral student in chemistry, Hyderabad, India, is developing the biosensor with Jun Li, associate professor of chemistry. Their research focuses on E. coli, but Syed said the same technology could also detect other kinds of pathogens, such as salmonella and viruses.

Madison, WI, MARCH 29, 2011 – Manure has long been used as a crop fertilizer, but the challenge of finding an efficient use of the nutrients found in manure is ever present. The ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus in manure is low in relation to the nutrient needs of most crops. Therefore, crops tend to be overloaded with manure to meet the nitrogen requirement of agricultural crops, but the excess phosphorus from the process can damage the environment.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn, March 29, 2011 – New clues about plant structure are helping researchers from the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center narrow down a large collection of poplar tree candidates and identify winners for future use in biofuel production.

Information technology (IT) companies need to bring in doctors and other health care stakeholders in order to ensure that new technologies and applications are actually useful to the health care system – something which is currently fragmented at best, according to a recent paper from North Carolina State University.

The simple practice of letters and a telephone call to patients who are due for a colonoscopy significantly improves adherence to endoscopic follow-up recommendations, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute. This work provides justification for the creation of reminder systems to improve colorectal cancer screening rates.

MADISON, WI MARCH 18, 2011 – Research has documented the rise of nutrient runoff from flat agricultural fields with high rates of precipitation that adds nitrates and phosphates to waterways.

These nutrients increase the amount of phytoplankton in the water, which depletes oxygen and kills fish and other aquatic creatures. While injecting animal manure slurry into the soil has been proven to be an effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there has been no research on the possibility of nutrients leaching from the soil and reaching waterways.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) -- New clues about plant structure are helping researchers from the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center narrow down a large collection of poplar tree candidates and identify winners for future use in biofuel production.

"Third-hand smoke" stuck to skin or clothing is responsible for the high nicotine levels seen in babies who share a bedroom with their smoker parents. This is the conclusion of a study carried out in Catalonia, which also shows that ventilating bedrooms is not effective in reducing the levels of toxins from passive smoking.

Doctors who used a free iPhone application provided by the UK Resuscitation Council performed significantly better in a simulated medical emergency than those who did not, according to a study in the April issue of Anaesthesia.

"Every year approximately 30,000 people in the UK have an unexpected cardiac arrest in hospital and, despite significant advances in resuscitation research, survival rates for adults suffering a cardiac arrest remain poor" says Dr Daniel Low, the consultant anaesthetist who developed the application.