Tech

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new class of electronic logic device in which current is switched by an electric field generated by the application of mechanical strain to zinc oxide nanowires.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Sept. 1, 2010 –Very low birthweight and very preterm infants are more likely to die if they are not born at hospitals with neonatal intensive care units specially equipped to care for seriously ill newborns, in contrast to similar babies born at those specialized facilities.

A long-held assumption about asymmetrical division of stem cells has cracked. Researchers at the University of Oregon report that the mitotic spindle does not act alone -- that cortical proteins help to position a cleavage furrow in the right location.

WATERLOO, Ont. (Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010) - A new "smart materials" process - Multiple Memory Material Technology - developed by University of Waterloo engineering researchers promises to revolutionize the manufacture of diverse products such as medical devices, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), printers, hard drives, automotive components, valves and actuators.

Researchers from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard and from Boston University have discovered that charitable behavior exists in one of the most microscopic forms of life—bacteria. Their findings appear in the current issue of Nature.

In studying the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, the researchers found that the populations most adept at withstanding doses of antibiotics are those in which a few highly resistant isolates sacrifice their own well being to improve the group's overall chance of survival.

Passengers who fly in Developing World countries face 13 times the risk of being killed in an air accident as passengers in the First World. The more economically advanced countries in the Developing World have better overall safety records than the others, but even their death risk per flight is seven times as high as that in First World countries.

Speakers made from carbon nanotube sheets that are a fraction of the width of a human hair can both generate sound and cancel out noise -- properties ideal for submarine sonar to probe the ocean depths and make subs invisible to enemies. That's the topic of a report on these "nanotube speakers," which appears in ACS' Nano Letters, a monthly journal.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University researchers have developed a new type of pump for drug-delivery patches that might use arrays of "microneedles" to deliver a wider range of medications than now possible with conventional patches.

CHICAGO – Repairing torn shoulder muscles in elderly patients is often discouraged because of fears of complications. But a new study conducted at Rush University Medical Center has shown that minimally invasive, or arthroscopic, surgery can significantly improve pain and function.

The study has just been published online in Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery and will appear in the October issue.

This USGS report is published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology and is available as a free download online at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es101333u.

The use of salt to deice pavement can leave urban streams toxic to aquatic life, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study on the influence of winter runoff in northern U.S. cities, with a special focus on eastern Wisconsin and Milwaukee.

With a brilliant, finely tuned spark of ultraviolet (UV) light, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) helped NASA scientists successfully position a crucial UV sensor inside a space-borne instrument to observe a "hidden" layer of the Sun where violent space weather can originate.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have created "quantum cats" made of photons (particles of light), boosting prospects for manipulating light in new ways to enhance precision measurements as well as computing and communications based on quantum physics.

A new experiment proposed by physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may allow researchers to test the effects of gravity with unprecedented precision at very short distances—a scale at which exotic new details of gravity's behavior may be detectable.