Tech

PASADENA, Calif.—A group of scientists led by researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has engineered a type of artificial optical material—a metamaterial—with a particular three-dimensional structure such that light exhibits a negative index of refraction upon entering the material. In other words, this material bends light in the "wrong" direction from what normally would be expected, irrespective of the angle of the approaching light.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Heating and squishing microalgae in a pressure-cooker can fast-forward the crude-oil-making process from millennia to minutes.

University of Michigan professors are working to understand and improve this procedure in an effort to speed up development of affordable biofuels that could replace fossil fuels and power today's engines.

They are also examining the possibility of other new fuel sources such as E. coli bacteria that would feed on waste products from previous bio-oil batches.

Aydogan Ozcan, whose invention of a novel lensless imaging technology for use in telemedicine could radically transform global health care, has now taken his work a step further ― or tinier: The UCLA engineer has created a miniature microscope, the world's smallest and lightest for telemedicine applications.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A multi-site study led by an Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute researcher has identified set criteria that could be used to help identify physicians who might benefit from additional training in interpreting screening mammograms.

PASADENA, Calif.—Taking inspiration from a popular executive toy called Newton's Cradle, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have built a device called a nonlinear acoustic lens that produces highly focused, high-amplitude acoustic signals they dubbed "sound bullets."

HOUSTON -- (April 21, 2010) -- There are enticing new findings this week in the worldwide search for materials that support fault-tolerant quantum computing. New results from Rice University and Princeton University indicate that a bizarre state of matter that acts like a particle with one-quarter electron charge also has a "quantum registry" that is immune to information loss from external perturbations.

A growing shortage of high-quality paper for recycling into new paper products threatens to thwart consumers' preferences for oh-so-soft toilet paper, according to an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

Doctors and patients have varying opinions on how much control a person has over their own health outcomes. A new study by University of Iowa researchers suggests that when doctor and patient attitudes on the issue match up, patients do a better job of taking their medications.

Published online and in the May issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the study is part of a growing body of evidence indicating that patient-physician compatibility affects adherence to doctor's orders and even a patient's health status.

A new study exploring the growing worldwide problem of nitrogen pollution from soils to the sea shows that global ratios of nitrogen and carbon in the environment are inexorably linked, a finding that may lead to new strategies to help mitigate regional problems ranging from contaminated waterways to human health.

Atomic force microscopy, a tactile-based probe technique, provides a three-dimensional nanoscale image of a material by gliding a needle-like arm across the material's surface. The core of AFM imaging workhorse is a cantilever with a sharp tip that deflects as it encounters undulations across a surface. Due to a minimum force required for imaging, conventional AFM cantilevers can deform or even tear apart living cells and other biological materials.

The Eyjafjallajökull-Fimmvörduháls glacier ash cloud measurements will be a little more accurate, it seems.

The good news comes after DMI has analysed LIDAR measurements from Risø. At DMI, Chief Consultant Jens Havskov Sørensen has exchanged data with Torben Mikkelsen from Risoe National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, the Technical University of Denmark, and compared the measurements from Risø's LIDAR with DMI's model cloud and cloud observations.

The conclusion is that DMI's model calculations are well in line with Risø's LIDAR observations.

What is a LIDAR?

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Women who have a breast density of 75 percent or higher on a mammogram have a risk of breast cancer that is four to five times greater than that of women with little or no density, making mammographic breast density one of the strongest biomarkers of breast cancer risk.

At the American Association for Cancer Research 101st Annual Meeting 2010, held in Washington, D.C., April 17-21, researchers will present the latest data on mammographic density and breast cancer risk.

Inpatient mortality rates, used by organizations to issue "report cards" on the quality of individual U.S. hospitals, are a poor gauge of how well hospitals actually perform and should be abandoned in favor of measures that more accurately assess patient harms and the care being provided, argue patient safety experts in a paper out today.