Tech

Researchers investigating UK samples have found no association between the controversial xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus (XMRV) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Their study, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Retrovirology, calls into question a potential link described late last year by an American research team.

PASADENA, Calif.—Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The solar cell does all this using only a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells.

The development of alternative fuel will greatly benefit the U.S., say scientists in an Energy Foundation-funded report published today by the Ecological Society of America (ESA), the nation's largest organization of ecological scientists. However, in order to effectively reap the social and economic benefits of biofuel production, U.S. policies need to address potential effects of land-use choices on our ecosystems.

MILWAUKEE – US biofuel policies will fail to achieve the intended environmental, energy and agricultural goals, warns an article in the journal Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy (AEPP).

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., February 15, 2009 -- With a silicone rubber "stick-on" sheet containing dozens of miniature, powerful lenses, engineers at Harvard are one step closer to putting the capacity of a large laboratory into a micro-sized package.

The marriage of high performance optics with microfluidics could prove the perfect match for making lab-on-a-chip technologies more practical.

A "metal foam" that has a similar elasticity to bone could mean a new generation of biomedical implants that would avoid bone rejection that often results from more rigid implant materials, such as titanium. Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed the metal foam, which is even lighter than solid aluminum and can be made of 100 percent steel or a combination of steel and aluminum.

Middle aged and elderly people with high levels of vitamin D could reduce their chances of developing heart disease or diabetes by 43%, according to researchers at the University of Warwick.

A team of researchers at Warwick Medical School carried out a systematic literature review of studies examining vitamin D and cardiometabolic disorders. Cardiometabolic disorders include cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome.

Value-based insurance design (VBID) in which consumer payments are waived for highly effective treatments, but are raised for less effective ones, could increase the benefits of healthcare in the US without increasing expenditures, according to research published in PLoS Medicine. The costs saved by VBID could be used to subsidize coverage for the currently uninsured, providing a substantial improvement in health outcomes.

Earlier studies by MU scientists have shown that grass buffers in croplands can filter herbicides in surface runoff by physically trapping sediment and nurturing microorganisms that break down herbicides.

Goyne and colleagues—including assistant professor of forestry Chung-Ho Lin, professor of soil science Steven Anderson, graduate student Bei Chu, and two USDA soil scientists based at MU, Robert Lerch and Robert Kremer—have been conducting laboratory and field tests to see if buffers could play a similar role in filtering antibiotics.

PHILADELPHIA –- Material scientists at the Nano/Bio Interface Center of the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated the transduction of optical radiation to electrical current in a molecular circuit. The system, an array of nano-sized molecules of gold, respond to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons that induce and project electrical current across molecules, similar to that of photovoltaic solar cells.

awiloc WLAN localization technology is software for navigation devices and mobile telephones. It makes use of the existing broad-coverage WLAN transmitters in cities and buildings. awiloc software on mobile terminal devices measure the received signal strength distribution of these WLAN transmitters and determines its own position on the basis of these values self-sufficiently (i.e. without data communications). Even if the radio networks are secured, positioning still works, because the devices do not have to connect.

Clumsy page layouts, slow page load times of podcasts and videos: Today's mobile surfing on the Internet can be really a hassle. The available bandwidths on mobile phone networks vary widely, due to the number and mobility of the users, the location within the mobile network cell, or the capacity of the terminal. Particularly in bandwidth-intensive services, like video streaming, transmissions are frequently subject to disconnections, gaps or interruptions.

Arizona State University scientists have come up with a new twist in their efforts to develop a faster and cheaper way to read the DNA genetic code. They have developed the first, versatile DNA reader that can discriminate between DNA's four core chemical components⎯the key to unlocking the vital code behind human heredity and health.

A simple one-step process that produces both n-type and p-type doping of large-area graphene surfaces could facilitate use of the promising material for future electronic devices. The doping technique can also be used to increase conductivity in graphene nanoribbons used for interconnects.

Besides the 92 elements that occur naturally, scientists were able to create 20 additional chemical elements, six of which were discovered at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt. These new elements were produced artificially with particle accelerators and are all very short-lived: they decay in a matter of a split second. However, scientists predict the existence of even heavier elements with an extreme longevity, leaving them to only decay after years. These elements form an island of stability.