Tech

The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), located at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has run over two billion processor-hours of computations at a mind-boggling speed of over 557 trillion calculations a second as it enables scientists and engineers to conduct cutting-edge research in just weeks or months rather than years.

It is clear that the future of manufacturing and automation is sustained on two fundamental premises —portable machinery and cooperative robotics—, according to the Machine-Tool Biennial (BIEMH), held recently at the BEC Trade Fair Centre in Bilbao. The Industrial Systems Unit at Tecnalia demonstrated its latest technological advances at the BIEMH, including novelties related to these basic pillars — besides those of unattended machinery, advanced processes of manufacture and intelligent machine.

New experiments are casting doubt on previously reported observations of supersolid helium. In a paper appearing in the current issue of Physical Review Letters (PRL), John Reppy (Cornell University) presents research suggesting that prior experiments that seemed to show signs of supersolidity were in fact the result of the plastic deformation of normal helium.

INDIANAPOLIS – A new study of homicides of 797 children younger than age five has found that these deaths occur uniformly throughout the year, dispelling the widely held anecdotal notion that the winter months, and especially winter holidays, are a time of increased child abuse.

Boaters increasingly require convenience and quieter boats. Boating is unpleasant for the skipper and passengers if it is difficult to hear normal conversation in the cockpit. VTT's Quiet boats project examined both short-term solutions applicable to existing boats and factors affecting noise level that can be taken into account in the design of new boats.

Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in patients with Type 2 diabetes and may be associated with poor blood sugar control, according to a new study. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

"This finding supports an active role of vitamin D in the development of Type 2 diabetes," said study co-author Esther Krug, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and an endocrinologist at Sinai Hospital, Baltimore.

Gastric bypass surgery improves Type 2 diabetes by other mechanisms in addition to weight loss and does so better than a low-calorie diet despite achieving equal weight loss, a new study finds. The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

MADISON, WI, June 21st, 2010 – Water runoff from cropped farm fields can contain large amounts of eroded soil as well as some of the fertilizer and herbicide. Expanding on existing conservation practices, a team of scientists has tested whether compost filters socks in grassed waterways would reduce sediment flow and retain dissolved chemicals in runoff. The researchers observed reduced sediment in a non-tilled field and reduced concentrations of two herbicides.

MADISON, WI, June, 2010 – Despite sophisticated nutrient management of potato crops, quality and yield still see wide variability. Although nutrients are already well understood, the influence of other environmental factors remains understudied.

Obese women with insulin resistance lose more weight after three months on a lower-carbohydrate diet than on a traditional low-fat diet with the same number of calories, according to a new study. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Batteries might gain a boost in power capacity as a result of a new finding from researchers at MIT. They found that using carbon nanotubes for one of the battery's electrodes produced a significant increase — up to tenfold — in the amount of power it could deliver from a given weight of material, compared to a conventional lithium-ion battery. Such electrodes might find applications in small portable devices, and with further research might also lead to improved batteries for larger, more power-hungry applications.

Rome, Italy, Saturday 19 June 2010: Achieving disease remission in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) provides superior outcomes across measures of socio-economic importance including work productivity and quality of life according to results presented today at EULAR 2010, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism in Rome, Italy. These Austrian findings are reported in addition to improvements in measures of physical functioning, when compared with RA patients achieving low disease activity (LDA).

DURHAM, N.C. -- Around the country and throughout the world, politicians and education activists have sought to eliminate the "digital divide" by guaranteeing universal access to home computers, and in some cases to high-speed Internet service.

The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), located at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has run over two billion processor-hours of computations at a mind-boggling speed of over 557 trillion calculations a second as it enables scientists and engineers to conduct cutting-edge research in just weeks or months rather than years.