Tech

Responsible sourcing of raw minerals from conflict regions could be achieved if firms were to collaborate and if there was more pressure from consumers, a new University of Sussex report argues.

Research by Constantin Blome, Professor of Operations Management at the University of Sussex, has found that simple measures such as companies developing and sharing lists of certified smelter and refineries could make a big impact in the global drive to stop profits from mineral trade falling into the hands of armed groups.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Spills from oil and gas operations can contaminate local water and soil with high levels of toxic chemicals, salts and radioactivity, but in many cases there is insufficient information to determine how long ago the spill occurred and identify its source.

A trio of new age-dating methods developed at Duke University can now answer these questions.

Scientists and engineers from the Universities of Bristol and Western Australia have developed how to efficiently simulate a "quantum walk" on a new design for a primitive quantum computer.

A significant number of publications are devoted to results of investigations aimed at the development of methods of laser ablation for varicose veins. This is due to the fact that this method is an effective and minimally invasive technique for the treatment of varicose.

However, this kind of therapy is associated with significant collateral damage because of the high output power of the laser. Therefore, it is an important question in vein surgery to optimize the laser characteristics for ablation.

URBANA, Ill. - Good news - the quality of water in the Illinois River has improved in one important aspect. A new study from the University of Illinois reports that nitrate load in the Illinois River from 2010 to 2014 was 10 percent less than the average load in the 1980s and early 1990s.

For campers, nothing beats sleeping in a tent in the great outdoors. But scientists are finding out the air inside tents might not be as fresh as people think. A study appearing in Environmental Science & Technology has found that flame retardants used in the manufacturing of tents are released in the air within this enclosed space, which could lead to campers breathing them in.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A new study by a University of Illinois employment law expert determined that the First Amendment often fails to protect the most controversial ideas expressed by faculty in higher education.

When academics choose to litigate speech disputes with colleges and universities, they end up losing nearly three-quarters of the time - a finding that points to the growing tension between academic freedom and campus speech codes, said Michael LeRoy, a professor of labor and employment relations at Illinois and author of the paper.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have engineered a strain of bacteria that enables a "one-pot" method for producing advanced biofuels from a slurry of pre-treated plant material.

Materials researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new technique to deposit diamond on the surface of cubic boron nitride (c-BN), integrating the two materials into a single crystalline structure.

"This could be used to create high-power devices, such as the solid state transformers needed to create the next generation 'smart' power grid," says Jay Narayan, the John C. Fan Distinguished Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the research.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 9, 2016 - More, faster, better, cheaper. These are the demands of our device-happy and data-centered world. Meeting these demands requires technologies for processing and storing information. Now, a significant obstacle to the development of next-generation device technologies appears to have been overcome, according to researchers from the University of Tokyo (Japan), Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan) and Ho Chi Minh University of Pedagogy (Vietnam).

Microbiologists at The University of Texas at Austin and their colleagues have cracked the genetic code of how bacteria broke down oil to help clean up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, revealing that some bacteria have far greater potential for consuming oil than was previously known. The findings, published in the journal Nature Microbiology, have applications for responding to future oil spills and other ecological disasters, while shedding light on the ways in which tiny microbes played an outsized role in limiting damage from the 2010 spill caused by the explosion of a BP oil rig.

UPTON, NY--From cell phones to laptops and tablets, lithium-ion batteries power most of today's portable electronics. Understanding how these batteries store and release energy as they charge and discharge is critical to improving their performance and increasing their longevity, especially for high-power applications such as electric vehicles and smart power grids.

A team led by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a method to enhance the photoluminescence efficiency of tungsten diselenide, a two-dimensional semiconductor, paving the way for the application of such semiconductors in advanced optoelectronic and photonic devices.

Engineering researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a suite of techniques that allow them to create passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that are 25 percent smaller - and therefore less expensive. This is possible because the tags no longer need to convert alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) in order for the tags to function effectively.

Rice University photonics researchers have unveiled a new nanoparticle amplifier that can generate infrared light and boost the output of one light by capturing and converting energy from a second light.