Tech

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - May 25, 2011 - Semiconductor ResearchCorporation (SRC), the world's leading university-research consortiumfor semiconductors and related technologies, and researchers from theUCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science havedeveloped a new method of design-dependent process monitoring forsemiconductor wafer manufacturing.

In the first study of its kind on K-12 Christian education in North America, University of Notre Dame sociologist David Sikkink, in partnership with Cardus – a public policy think tank – found that while Protestant Christian school graduates show uncommon commitment to their families and churches, donate more money than graduates of other schools, and divorce less, they also have lower incomes, less education, and are less engaged in politics than their Catholic and non-religious private school peers.

For the first time, results on the impact of gaming devices on finger and wrist pain in children were presented today at the EULAR 2011 Annual Congress. Data comparing two schools in the USA demonstrate that young children experience high levels of pain following long term use of gaming devices and mobile phones indicating that excessive gaming may negatively impact on joint health.

Establishing an economically and environmentally beneficial, 'bio-derived' Australian and New Zealand aviation fuels industry is a viable proposition, according to a report compiled by CSIRO in collaboration with the region's major aviation industry players.The report, Flight Path to Sustainable Aviation, predicts that over the next 20 years a new, sustainable, Australia-New Zealand aviation fuels industry could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent, generate more than 12,000 jobs and reduce Australia's reliance on aviation fuel imports by $2 billion per annum.

Cell phone distractions account for more than 300,000 car crashes each year. As a result, most states have put laws in place to limit or prohibit the use of things like cell phones and PDAs while driving. But a new study led by Temple University finds a widening gap between the evidence on distracted driving and the laws being passed to address the problem.

Berkeley, CA—In the next 40 years, California's population is expected to surge from 37 million to 55 million and the demand for energy is expected to double. Given those daunting numbers, can California really reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, as required by an executive order? Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who co-wrote a new report on California's energy future are optimistic that the target can be achieved, though not without bold policy and behavioral changes as well as some scientific innovation.

We still need to halt the increase of global carbon emissions before 2020 and in the long term reduce emissions by at least 50% up to 2050. Ultimately, we will have to reduce carbon emissions to close to zero or even remove carbon completely from the atmosphere.

However, climate change is not the only energy challenge:

Scientists from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), in collaboration with Linköping University, Sweden, have shown that regions of graphene of different thickness can be easily identified in ambient conditions using Electrostatic Force Microscopy (EFM).

The exciting properties of graphene are usually only applicable to the material that consists of one or two layers of the graphene sheets. Whilst synthesis of any number of layers is possible, the thicker layers have properties closer to the more common bulk graphite.

Sweden and the US are two countries in which increased leisure use of computers by children leads to poorer reading ability. This is the conclusion from research carried out at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Farmers using a cover crop seeder developed by Penn State agricultural scientists may eventually need only a single trip across the field to accomplish what takes most farmers three passes and several pieces of equipment to do.

Pennsylvania farmers are increasingly interested in growing cover crops, but the time, cost and late fall harvest of corn and other crops often limit their use, said Gregory Roth, professor of agronomy.

Scientists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have suc-ceeded in encoding data at a rate of 26 terabits per second on a single laser beam, transmitting them over a distance of 50 km, and decoding them successfully. This is the largest data volume ever transported on a laser beam. The process developed by KIT allows to transmit the contents of 700 DVDs in one second only. The renowned journal "Nature Photonics" reports about this success in its latest issue (DOI: 10.1038/NPHOTON.2011.74).

Chemical Engineering students at Stevens Institute of Technology are transforming the way that American soldiers power their battery-operated devices by making a small change: a really small change. Capitalizing on the unique properties of microscale systems, the students have invented a microreactor that converts everyday fossil fuels like propane and butane into pure hydrogen for fuel cell batteries. These batteries are not only highly efficient, but also can be replenished with hydrogen again and again for years of resilient performance in the field.

NEW ORLEANS, LA – May 23, 2011 -- The next agricultural revolution may be sparked by fungi, helping to greatly increase food-production for the growing needs of the planet without the need for massive amounts of fertilizers according to research presented today at the 111th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.

Patients with dyssynchronous yet viable ventricles are most likely to benefit from cardiac resynchronization therapy combined with defibrillation, concludes the latest analysis of the MADIT CRT trial. The CRT-MADIT-CRT trial - presented at the Heart Failure Congress 2011, organized by the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in Late Breaking Session 1 - showed that CRT produced improvements in both synchrony and contractile function, and that the extent of this benefit relates to subsequent outcomes.