Tech

A specially designed antidote to reverse acute, potentially life-threatening anticoagulant-related bleeding worked quickly, and was well-tolerated according to interim results of the ongoing ANNEXA-4 study.

Andexanet alfa reduced anticoagulant activity by roughly 90% within half an hour among patients with acute major bleeding while receiving a factor Xa (fXa) inhibitor, resulting in "excellent or good" homeostatis at 12 hours in most subjects, reported lead investigator Stuart J. Connolly, MD, from McMaster University, in Hamilton Ontario, Canada.

Fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors are a promising design in the next generation of nuclear energy production, and one of the first steps from concept to reality is underway at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The Global Medical Holography Market may reach USD 953.9 Million by 2021, at a CAGR of 33.7% from 2016 to 2021, according to a market survey by MarketsandMarkets.

The development of the smart power grid and the smart meter in our homes to accompany it brings several benefits, such as improved delivery and more efficient billing. Conversely, any digital, connected technology also represents a security risk. Writing in the International Journal of Smart Grid and Green Communications, UK researchers explain how a malicious third party that hacked into the metering system could manipulate en masse the data being sent back to the smart grid and perhaps trigger a power generation shortfall.

Around 5.4 million people currently receive treatment for asthma in the UK, of which 1.1 million are children.

To diagnose the condition doctors usually measure a person’s airflow lung capacity, however lung function tests can be inaccurate and do not reflect underlying changes associated with asthma. Other tests, such as blood, urine or sputum analysis can be distressing, particularly for younger patients.

The new test, developed in collaboration with Nottingham City Hospital, is completely painless and offers a one-stop diagnosis suitable for people of all ages.

Visualization was enabled by designing a new artificial magnetic material. The finding means remarkable possibilities to materials research.

Researchers at Aalto University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have demonstrated that polaron formation also occurs in a system of magnetic charges, and not just in a system of electric charges. Being able to control the transport properties of such charges could enable new devices based on magnetic rather than electric charges, for example computer memories.

Materials researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a technique that allows them to integrate graphene, graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) onto silicon substrates at room temperature by using nanosecond pulsed laser annealing. The advance raises the possibility of creating new electronic devices, and the researchers are already planning to use the technique to create smart biomedical sensors.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2016 -- The new iPhone is slimmer and faster than ever. But like most new generations of smartphones, its battery has pretty much stayed the same over the years. Short of carrying an external battery all the time, is there any way to extend the life of your smartphone battery? In the latest Reactions episode, we explain the chemistry of lithium-ion batteries, why they occasionally explode, and share some tips to get the most from that smartphone battery.

In today's computer chips, memory management is based on what computer scientists call the principle of locality: If a program needs a chunk of data stored at some memory location, it probably needs the neighboring chunks as well.

But that assumption breaks down in the age of big data, now that computer programs more frequently act on just a few data items scattered arbitrarily across huge data sets. Since fetching data from their main memory banks is the major performance bottleneck in today's chips, having to fetch it more frequently can dramatically slow program execution.

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 13, 2016 -- Clinking your glass of beer often leaves its contents sloshing back and forth. Soon, though, the motion stops, your drink settles down, and you can take a sip without getting foam on your nose. It turns out that the foam helps stop the sloshing. Now, physicists have figured out why.

The analysis, published this week in Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, reveals a surprising effect on the surface of the water that contradicts conventional thought and deepens our understanding of the role of capillary forces.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 13, 2016 -- Materials with large dielectric constants -- aka "high-K materials" -- have recently garnered attention for their potential use within future generations of reduced-dimension semiconductor devices.

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego, in collaboration with the Materials Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), have created the world's largest database of elemental crystal surfaces and shapes to date.

It is a very unusual kind of laser: researchers at the photonics institute at TU Wien (Vienna) have built a device which emits ultrashort flashes of infrared light with extremely high energy. "It is very hard to combine these three properties - long infrared wavelength, short duration and high energy", says Valentina Shumakova. "But this combination is exactly what we need for many interesting strong-field applications."

A study presented at this year's European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting in Munich, Germany (12-16 September), shows that UK commercial airline pilots with insulin-treated diabetes can fly safely, with almost all of their blood sugar readings at safe levels. The study is by medical staff at Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, Surrey, UK and the UK Civil Aviation Authority, Gatwick Airport, UK.

New research presented at this year's European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting in Munich, Germany (12-16 Sept) shows that both gestational diabetes (which develops during pregnancy) and pre-gestational diabetes (present before conception) in a pregnant woman are associated with a range of poor outcomes for her child. The study is by Dr Basilio Pintuadi, Niguarda Ca' Granda Hospital, Milan, Italy, and colleagues.