Tech

Video games can have a very positive influence in the education of children, and, when used in moderation, they do not harm children's academic performance. This conclusion emerges from a research conducted by Ángeles Llorca Díez from the Department of Didactics of Musical, Plastic and Corporal Expression at the University of Granada, and directed by professors Mª Dolores Álvarez Rodríguez (University of Granada) and Mª Ángeles Díez Sánchez (University of Salamanca).

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) afflicts a large number of younger minority adults receiving medical care in settings that serve the uninsured and underinsured (settings collectively known as the healthcare safety net). Poor, minority adults with moderate to severe CKD are also two to four times more likely to progress to kidney failure than non-Hispanic whites. These are the findings from a study published online in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN).

In the March issue of BioScience, researchers present a sophisticated new analysis of the effects of boosting use of maize-derived ethanol on greenhouse gas emissions. The study, conducted by Thomas W. Hertel of Purdue University and five co-authors, focuses on how mandated increases in production of the biofuel in the United States will trigger land-use changes domestically and elsewhere. In response to the increased demand for maize, farmers convert additional land to crops, and this conversion can boost carbon dioxide emissions.

People in seven European countries have positive attitudes toward a new eco-friendly toilet that could reduce pollution problems and conserve water and nutrients, say scientists in Switzerland. Their article, which calls on authorities to give wider support for the innovative toilet technology, is in Environmental Science & Technology.

A team of physicists headed by Christian Roos and Rainer Blatt from the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences realize a quantum walk in a quantum system with up to 23 steps. It is the first time that this quantum process using trapped ions is demonstrated in detail.

Parents of young boys may want to encourage moderation when it comes to their kids' video game habits. According to new findings in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, owning a video-game system may hamper academic development in some children.

The low that forecasters were watching for development yesterday, March 9, strengthened into Tropical Storm Hubert, and is already making landfall in eastern Madagascar.

Computers should not play dice. That, to paraphrase Einstein, is the feeling of a University of Washington computer scientist with a simple manifesto: If you enter the same computer command, you should get back the same result. Unfortunately, that is far from the case with many of today's machines. Beneath their smooth exteriors, modern computers behave in wildly unpredictable ways, said Luis Ceze, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering.

A naturally occurring class of plant hormones called cytokinins has been found to help increase cotton yields during drought conditions, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists.

Cytokinins promote cell division and growth in plants. In cotton, cytokinins stimulate the growth of the main plant stem and branches. Commercially produced cytokinins are routinely applied in apple and pistachio orchards to promote fruit growth.

The smell of sea salt in the air is a romanticized feature of life along a seacoast. Wind and waves kick up spray, and bits of sodium chloride – common table salt – can permeate the air.

It is believed that as much as 10 billion metric tons of chloride enters the air mass through this process each year, but just a tiny fraction – perhaps one-third of 1 percent – does anything but fall back to the surface.

Scientists have leaped over a major hurdle in efforts to begin commercial production of a form of carbon that could rival silicon in its potential for revolutionizing electronics devices ranging from supercomputers to cell phones. Called graphene, the material consists of a layer of graphite 50,000 times thinner than a human hair with unique electronic properties. Their study appears in ACS' Nano Letters, a monthly journal.

Fifty years after the first laser sparked a technological revolution, the "light fantastic" continues to impact people's daily lives — by playing DVDs, speeding Internet connections, and performing intricate surgery. As the golden anniversary of the announcement of the first laser approaches on July 7th, Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine, takes a special look at the past, present, and exciting future of this amazing invention.

Tears in the shoulder's rotator cuff, a common sports injury, are painful and restricting. Surgery to repair the damage is successful for pain management, but in many patients it does not result in full recovery of function due to poor healing. New research shows an approved therapy for osteoporosis, Forteo, may speed healing and improve patient outcomes. The preliminary study from Hospital for Special Surgery in New York is being presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) meeting in New Orleans March 9-13.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new analytical method that opens the door to faster processing of large amounts of information, with applications in fields as diverse as the military, medical diagnostics and homeland security.

Bisphosphonate treatments, proven to enhance bone density and reduce fracture incidence in post-menopausal women, may adversely affect bone quality and increase risk of atypical fractures of the femur when used for four or more years, according to preliminary research presented today at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS).

Bisphosphonates are designed to slow or stop the bone loss that occurs during the body's bone remodeling cycle, or the natural process that involves removal and replacement of bone tissue.