Tech

The use of GPS technology to monitor sex offenders should be viewed as a tool rather than a control mechanism, a team of researchers at Sam Houston State University found in a recent study.

PITTSBURGH—Traditional motion capture techniques use cameras to meticulously record the movements of actors inside studios, enabling those movements to be translated into digital models. But by turning the cameras around — mounting almost two dozen, outward-facing cameras on the actors themselves — scientists at Disney Research, Pittsburgh (DRP), and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have shown that motion capture can occur almost anywhere — in natural environments, over large areas and outdoors.

In Anna Gudmundsdottir's laboratory at the University of Cincinnati, dedicated researchers endeavor to tame the extremely reactive chemicals known as radicals.

Highly reactive radicals are atoms, molecules or ions frantically trying to become something else. Their lifetimes are measured in fractions of seconds and typically occur in the middle of a chain of chemical reactions. They are also known as reactive intermediates. Much of Gudmundsdottir's work has focused on a family of radicals known as triplet nitrenes.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A repellant for sea lampreys could be the key to better controlling one of the most destructive invasive species in the Great Lakes, says a Michigan State University researcher.

Scientists have seen the effect alarm cues have on lampreys. When scents from dead sea lampreys are poured into a tank of live ones, the lampreys' efforts to escape are dramatic. In the past, these reactions were simply dismissed as novel. But Michael Wagner, MSU assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife, sees this reaction as a potential game changer.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego have discovered a way to prevent light signals on a silicon chip from reflecting backwards and interfering with its operation. Otherwise, the light beams would interfere with lasers and other photonic components on the chip and make the chip unstable. The breakthrough marks a significant achievement in the development of integrated photonic chips that could replace electronic chips as the backbone of information technology. Their findings are published Aug. 5 in the journal Science.

PASADENA, Calif.—Stretching for thousands of miles beneath oceans, optical fibers now connect every continent except for Antarctica. With less data loss and higher bandwidth, optical-fiber technology allows information to zip around the world, bringing pictures, video, and other data from every corner of the globe to your computer in a split second. But although optical fibers are increasingly replacing copper wires, carrying information via photons instead of electrons, today's computer technology still relies on electronic chips.

There is a new way to design computer chips and electronic circuitry for extreme environments: make them out of diamond.

A team of electrical engineers at Vanderbilt University has developed all the basic components needed to create microelectronic devices out of thin films of nanodiamond. They have created diamond versions of transistors and, most recently, logical gates, which are a key element in computers.

The avatar is displayed on the monitor of the Audi Mulitmedia Interface that comes standard in all new Audi models. The virtual figure understands complete sentences. Using artificial intelligence, AviCoS interprets questions by the vehicle occupants and answers in spoken language. The driver can view descriptive images or videos on-screen and the avatar points to the relevant areas during the explanation.

Surgeons at the University of Kentucky on Aug. 3 announced that they were among the first to use artificial-lung technology to demonstrate the feasibility of a lung transplant, using a device invented by two university faculty members, Dr. Joseph Zwischenberger and Dr. Dongfang Wang.

WASHINGTON -- Nearly half of college students who are U.S. military veterans reported thinking of suicide and 20 percent said they had planned to kill themselves, rates significantly higher than among college students in general, according to a study presented at the American Psychological Association's 119th Annual Convention.

Scientists can make graphene out of just about anything with carbon -- even Girl Scout Cookies.

Graduate students in the Rice University lab of chemist James Tour proved it when they invited a troop of Houston Girl Scouts to their lab to show them how it's done.

The work is part of a paper published online today by ACS Nano. Rice scientists described how graphene, a single-atom-thick sheet of the same material in pencil lead, can be made from just about any carbon source, including food, insects and waste.

People who buy an expensive solid wooden table or wardrobe want to be certain that their new piece of furniture is absolutely faultless. Pianos – whether upright or grand – can only produce an opulent tone if their soundboard, bridge and keyboard are made of high-quality materials. And wood that is free of imperfections is also essential in house building and window construction: load-bearing wooden beams need to be of the highest quality, as even the smallest crack can cause them to fail.

When it comes to broadband speeds, U.S. Internet service providers (ISPs) largely deliver on their promises, says a report issued today by the Federal Communications Commission, but "throughput" is only one of several metrics listed in the report that affect network performance. ISPs should provide a broadband "nutrition label"—easy-to-understand information about service-limiting factors—and users need better ways of measuring the performance their ISPs are delivering, concludes a study from the Georgia Tech College of Computing.

BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL, August 2, 2011– A multidisciplinary team at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has developed a new training method using a desktop webcam to improve ergonomic posture and reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) among office workers using computers.

MIAMI – August 3, 2011 -- Scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science have discovered a technique to track urban atmospheric plumes thanks to a unique isotopic signature found in vehicle emissions.