Tech

Biodiversity and environmental monitoring is of crucial importance to diagnose changes in the environment and natural populations in order to provide conservation practice with relevant data and recommendations. The information from monitoring is required, for example, for the design and evaluation of biodiversity policies, conservation management, land use decisions, and environmental protection.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. –A new "nano machine shop" that shapes nanowires and ultrathin films could represent a future manufacturing method for tiny structures with potentially revolutionary properties.

The structures might be "tuned" for applications ranging from high-speed electronics to solar cells and also may have greater strength and unusual traits such as ultrahigh magnetism and "plasmonic resonance," which could lead to improved optics, computers and electronics.

MADISON, WI - Aug. 29, 2012 – The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) announces the following 2012 awards that will be formally presented during their Annual Meetings, Oct. 21-24, 2012 in Cincinnati, OH.

Susan Brantley, Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State - SSSA Presidential Award: Susan Brantley is Distinguished Professor of Geosciences in the Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. She received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in Geological and Geophysical Sciences from Princeton University.

A team of scientists including those from the University of Southampton have shed new light on the world's history of climate change.

The Pacific Ocean has remained the largest of all oceans on the planet for many million years. It covers one third of the Earth's surface and has a mean depth of 4.2 km. Its biologically productive equatorial regions play an important role particularly to the global carbon cycle and long-term climate development.

Solar panels, like those commonly perched atop house roofs or in sun-drenched fields, quietly harvesting the sun's radiant energy, are one of the standard-bearers of the green energy movement. But could they be better – more efficient, durable and affordable? That's what engineers from Drexel University and The University of Pennsylvania are trying to find out, with the aid of a little nanotechnology and a lot of mathematical modeling.

On the surface, ants and the Internet don't seem to have much in common. But two Stanford researchers have discovered that a species of harvester ants determine how many foragers to send out of the nest in much the same way that Internet protocols discover how much bandwidth is available for the transfer of data. The researchers are calling it the "anternet."

A new 'traffic light' test devised by Dr Nick Sheron and colleagues at University of Southampton and Southampton General Hospital could be used in primary care to diagnose liver fibrosis and cirrhosis in high risk populations more easily than at present.

UPTON,NY -- The evolution of digital electronics is a story of miniaturization - each generation of circuitry requires less space and energy to perform the same tasks. But even as high-speed processors move into handheld smart phones, current data storage technology has a functional limit: magnetically stored digital information becomes unstable when too tightly packed. The answer to maintaining the breath-taking pace of our ongoing computer revolution may be the denser, faster, and smarter technology of spintronics.

In order to catch a thief, you have to think like one.

UT Dallas computer scientists are trying to stay one step ahead of cyber attackers by creating their own monster. Their monster can cloak itself as it steals and reconfigures information in a computer program.

In part because of the potentially destructive nature of their technology, creators have named this software system Frankenstein, after the monster-creating scientist in author Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus.

Munich, Germany – August 28 2012: Recommendations for the practical management of CRT patients have been set out for the first time in an international consensus statement on cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in heart failure.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Separated and divorced couples are increasingly using emails, texting and social media to communicate with their ex-partners about their children. However, when ex-spouses use that technology to withhold or manipulate information, the children are the ones who suffer most, according to a University of Missouri family studies expert. A new study suggests divorce counselors should teach separated parents effective ways to use communication technology in order to maintain healthy environments for their children.

Scientists at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and Federal University of Minas Gerais, led by Dr. Andréa Teixeira-Carvalho and Dr. Mônica Cristina de Oliveira, have developed and characterized a circulating and pH-sensitive liposome containing cisplatin (SpHL-CDDP) aiming to promote the release of cisplatin near the tumor as well as decreasing toxicity. The development of analog drugs and new formulations are current strategies for increasing the effectiveness and safety of cisplatin as an anti-peritoneal carcinomatosis drug.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- To control the three-dimensional shape of engineered tissue, researchers grow cells on tiny, sponge-like scaffolds. These devices can be implanted into patients or used in the lab to study tissue responses to potential drugs.

Aug. 27, 2012 – Professional athletic field managers maintain trimmed turfgrass with great precision, carefully painting crisp lines and colorful logos on their grass before each game. While these fields appear to be in perfect health, some field managers have noted deteriorating turfgrass beneath repeated paint applications.

New research now suggests why. In a study that appears in Crop Science, three North Carolina State University researchers found that grasses coated with latex paints show a notable reduction in photosynthesis.

The scientists start with a so-called hydrogel – a material made of macromolecules, arranged in a loose meshwork. Between those molecules, large pores remain, through which other molecules or even cells can migrate.