Tech

Mobile telephone operators should verify the age of children and youngsters when they access multimedia services by having a record of users' dates of birth. This is one of the recommendations in a report by researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain), that also suggest content classifications for mobiles by age, like in the case of video games.

(Santa Barbara, CA —) Portable, accurate, and highly sensitive devices that sniff out vapors from explosives and other substances could become as commonplace as smoke detectors in public places, thanks to researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara.

TAMPA, Fla. (Nov. 19, 2012) – In three studies published in the current issue of Technology and Innovation – Proceedings of the National Academy of Inventors®, innovators unveil creative technologies that could change our sources of energy, change our use of energy, and change our lives.

Untapped energy in the oceans

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 19, 2012) -- Serendipity proved to be a key ingredient for the latest nanoparticles discovered at Rice University. The new "lava dot" particles were discovered accidentally when researchers stumbled upon a way of using molten droplets of metal salt to make hollow, coated versions of a nanotech staple called quantum dots.

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 19, 2012) -- Rice University scientists have unveiled a revolutionary new technology that uses nanoparticles to convert solar energy directly into steam. The new "solar steam" method from Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is so effective it can even produce steam from icy cold water.

By fabricating graphene structures atop nanometer-scale "steps" etched into silicon carbide, researchers have for the first time created a substantial electronic bandgap in the material suitable for room-temperature electronics. Use of nanoscale topography to control the properties of graphene could facilitate fabrication of transistors and other devices, potentially opening the door for developing all-carbon integrated circuits.

HOUSTON – (Nov. 16, 2012) – A device that looks like a tiny washboard may clean the clocks of current commercial products used to manipulate infrared light.

New research by the Rice University lab of Qianfan Xu has produced a micron-scale spatial light modulator (SLM) like those used in sensing and imaging devices, but with the potential to run orders of magnitude faster. Unlike other devices in two-dimensional semiconducting chips, the Rice chips work in three-dimensional "free space."

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Technology can serve as a tool to bridge the digital divide, but it is unlikely to be a complete solution in helping people find jobs and escape poverty, according to a Penn State researcher.

"People really want to believe that the latest technology will help us do all these great things and liberate us," said Michelle Rodino-Colocino, assistant professor of communications and women's studies. "But it's also a way of putting off the big problems and saying, 'let's not touch these big problems because Internet access will turn it all around for us.' "

Ethanol, a component of biofuel made from plants such as corn, is blended with gas in many parts of the country, but has significantly different fluid properties than pure gasoline. A group of researchers from the University of Michigan wondered how ethanol-based fuels would spread in the event of a large aquatic spill. They found that ethanol-based liquids mix actively with water, very different from how pure gasoline interacts with water and potentially more dangerous to aquatic life.

Psychological scientists are exploring the mechanisms that underlie memory to understand why we remember certain things and why we forget others. Read about the latest research on memory published in the November 2012 issue of Psychological Science.

Retrieval-Induced Forgetting Predicts Failure to Recall Negative Autobiographical Memories

A fundamental cornerstone for spintronics that has been missing up until now has been constructed by a team of physicists at Linköping University in Sweden. It's the world's first spin amplifier that can be used at room temperature.

Colleges are often perceived as leaning left, but research by social scientists at the University of Iowa suggests the reality is more nuanced and that higher education attracts students from across the political spectrum.

The researchers say fraternities and sororities in particular tend to be a locus for students who are more conservative than classmates unaffiliated with the Greek system. They also provide a buffer from influences that can make students more liberal over the course of their college careers.

A study led by researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has found a correlation between vitamin D3 serum levels and subsequent incidence of Type 1 diabetes. The six-year study of blood levels of nearly 2,000 individuals suggests a preventive role for vitamin D3 in this disease. The research appears the December issue of Diabetologia, a publication of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD).

New artificial muscles made from nanotech yarns and infused with paraffin wax can lift more than 100,000 times their own weight and generate 85 times more mechanical power during contraction than the same size natural muscle, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas and their international team from Australia, China, South Korea, Canada and Brazil.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Thermoelectric devices, which can harness temperature differences to produce electricity, might be made more efficient thanks to new research on heat propagation through structures called superlattices. The new findings show, unexpectedly, that heat can travel like waves, rather than particles, through these nanostructures: materials made up of layers only a few billionths of a meter in thickness.