Tech

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The batteries in Illinois professor Paul Braun's lab look like any others, but they pack a surprise inside.

Braun's group developed a three-dimensional nanostructure for battery cathodes that allows for dramatically faster charging and discharging without sacrificing energy storage capacity. The researchers' findings will be published in the March 20 advance online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Statistics released today by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) show that more men are going under the knife. Overall cosmetic plastic surgery procedures in men were up 2 percent in 2010 compared to 2009. However, many male surgical procedures increased significantly. Facelifts for men rose 14 percent in 2010 while male liposuction increased 7 percent.

INDIANAPOLIS – A new study, conducted by researchers from the Regenstrief Institute and the schools of medicine at Indiana University and Moi University, is one of the first to explore and demonstrate the impact of electronic record systems on quality of medical care in a developing country.

MADISON, WI MARCH 17, 2011 – Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas and a precursor to compounds that contribute to the destruction of the ozone. Intensively managed, grazed pastures are responsible for an increase in nitrous oxide emissions from grazing animals' excrement. Biochar is potentially a mitigation option for reducing the world's elevated carbon dioxide emissions, since the embodied carbon can be sequestered in the soil. Biochar also has the potential to beneficially alter soil nitrogen transformations.

Biochemist Leor Weinberger and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego and UCLA have proposed a fundamentally new intervention for the HIV/AIDS epidemic based on engineered, virus-like particles that could subdue HIV infection within individual patients and spread to high-risk populations that are difficult for public health workers to reach.

When combined with on-Oahu wind farms and solar energy, the Interisland Wind project planned to bring 400 megawatts (MW) of wind power from Molokai and Lanai to Oahu could reliably supply more than 25% of Oahu's projected electricity demand, according to the Oahu Wind Integration Study (OWIS).

For the purposes of the research project, the OWIS released today studied the impact on the Oahu grid of a total of 500 MW of wind energy and a nominal 100 MW of solar power, though a good deal more utility-scale and customer-sited solar power is expected on Oahu.

BOSSIER CITY, LA—Perlite, a processed volcanic mineral, is widely used as a component of soilless growing mixes. Lightweight, sterile, and easy to use, perlite is popular with greenhouse growers. But because salt and pathogen buildup can occur when perlite is reused, it must be replaced every year or two to minimize the risk of crop failure. The cost of disposing of old material and replacing it with new perlite can be significant and often prohibitive for smaller greenhouse operations. Hanna Y.

TOLEDO, OH—In parts of the United States where ornamental and vegetable plants are produced in greenhouses during cold seasons, heating costs are second only to labor costs for greenhouse operators. Greenhouse growers are faced with important management decisions that rely on understanding how temperature settings, heating systems, fuel types, and construction decisions influence their heating costs.

RICHLAND, Wash. – Though considered a promising large-scale energy storage device, the vanadium redox battery's use has been limited by its inability to work well in a wide range of temperatures and its high cost. But new research indicates that modifying the battery's electrolyte solution significantly improves its performance. So much so that the upgraded battery could improve the electric grid's reliability and help connect more wind turbines and solar panels to the grid.

Radioactive waste decaying down at the dump needs millions of years to stabilize. The element Neptunium, a waste product from uranium reactors, could pose an especially serious health risk should it ever seep its way into groundwater – even 5 million years after its deposition. Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have shown the hazardous waste can be captured and contained. The means? A particular kind of green goop that occurs naturally in oxygen-poor water.

Carbon nanofibers hold promise for technologies ranging from medical imaging devices to precise scientific measurement tools, but the time and expense associated with uniformly creating nanofibers of the correct size has been an obstacle – until now. A new study from North Carolina State University demonstrates an improved method for creating carbon nanofibers of specific sizes, as well as explaining the science behind the method.

Nurses are the front-line caregivers to hospital patients, coordinating and providing direct care and delivering it safely and reliably. The goal for any hospital is to ensure that each of its patient-care units has an adequate number of nurses during every shift.

Ideally, the proper number of hours nurses work — known as the "target level" — should be adjusted each shift, depending on the ebb and flow of patients and their need for care. Too many nurses can be costly for hospitals; too few can put patients' health in danger.

Los Angeles, CA (March 16, 2011) Many Baby Boomers will experience a bone fracture as they age, and the current US healthcare system is not prepared to provide the necessary care required, according to a special monograph released in the January 2011 issue of Geriatric Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation (GOS), published by SAGE.

DALLAS – March 16, 2011 – A new anti-asthma medication dramatically reduced increases in seasonal asthma attacks in children and young adults with allergic asthma, according to a multi-institutional study involving a UT Southwestern Medical Center physician.

Washington, DC – Stephen J. Teach, MD, MPH, Medical Director and Principal Investigator of IMPACT DC, a program of pediatric asthma care and research at Children's National Medical Center, served as the Site Principal Investigator for a new study that may advance asthma treatment and outcomes, specifically for inner-city children and teens. Findings from a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were published and released in the March 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.