Tech

Which is more efficient at harvesting the sun's energy, plants or solar cells? This salient question and an answer are the subject of an article published in the May 13 issue of the journal Science.

Although both photosynthesis and photovoltaics harvest energy from the sun, they operate in distinctly different ways producing different fuels. It is not a simple task to find common ground between the two in order to compare energy conversion efficiency.

Most mechanical resonators damp (slow down) in a well-understood linear manner, but ground-breaking work by Prof. Adrian Bachtold and his research group at the Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology has shown that resonators formed from nanoscale graphene and carbon nanotubes exhibit nonlinear damping, opening up exciting possibilities for super-sensitive detectors of force or mass.

A report commissioned by the US Department of Energy has concluded that a novel University of Colorado Boulder method of producing hydrogen fuel from sunlight is the only approach among eight competing technologies that is projected to meet future cost targets set by the federal agency.

The car is racing far too fast toward the tail end of a traffic jam – a crash is inevitable. The inflated airbag can protect the car's occupants. But if the person in the passenger seat is leaning too far forward, perhaps looking for something in a bag in the foot space, the force of the airbag can cause injury.

Move your arm and the robot imitates your movement. This type of intuitive handling is now possible thanks to a new input device that will simplify the control of industrial robots in the future. But that is not all: The sensor system can also help regulate the movements of active prostheses. The new technology will be presented at the Sensor+Test trade fair from June 7-9 in Nuremberg.

Conserving energy is a top priority for auto manufacturers today. Laser technology can help. Lasers can be used to process thin light-weight components made of fiber-composite materials, as well as to manufacture more efficient engines and more powerful batteries. At the Laser 2011 trade fair May 23-26, Fraunhofer scientists will be presenting new production technologies in Hall C2, Stand 330 and Hall B2, Stand 417.

In this week's issue of the journal Science, MIT researchers and their colleagues at the University of Augsburg in Germany report the discovery of a new physical phenomenon that could yield transistors with greatly enhanced capacitance -- a measure of the voltage required to move a charge. And that, in turn, could lead to the revival of clock speed as the measure of a computer's power.

A Nordic multicentre study, headed by researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, shows that pelvic organ prolapse surgery using synthetic mesh can be more effective than traditional surgery. The advantages indicated by the study mainly concern restored genital anatomy and more efficient symptom relief, although there is an associated greater risk of complications. The study is published in the renowned scientific periodical The New England Journal of Medicine.

Fingerprints – dozens of crime dramas revolve around them. The investigators find the victim, dust for fingerprints, run them through a computer program and, voilá, the guilty party is quickly identified and sent to prison.

If only it were that easy. The reality is that often this common but crucial portion of an investigation is often done by humans, not by computers. An upcoming study in Psychological Science, reveals that the human factor in the process could lead to errors and incorrect conclusions.

This discovery will make it possible to improve photoelectrochemical cells. In the same way that plants use photosynthesis to transform sunlight into energy, these cells use sunlight to drive chemical reactions that ultimately produce hydrogen from water. The process involves using a light-sensitive semi-conducting material such as cuprous oxide to provide the current needed to fuel the reaction. Although it is not expensive, the oxide is unstable if exposed to light in water. Research by

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have defined a new class of software, calling it "surrogate interaction," which enables designers and video gamers to more easily change features of complex objects like automotive drawings or animated characters.

The new interactive approach is being used commercially and in research but until now has not been formally defined, and doing so could boost its development and number of applications, said Ji Soo Yi, an assistant professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University.

NEW YORK (May 9, 2011) -- Teenagers who drink alcohol spend more time on their computers for recreational use, including social networkingand downloading and listening to music, compared with their peers who don't drink.

Results of an anonymous survey of 264 teenagers were reported in the online edition of the journal Addictive Behaviors in a study authored by Weill Cornell Medical College public health researcher Dr. Jennifer Epstein.

For their experiments, the researchers attached a wedge-shaped block of wood to the head of their robot, which was built with seven connected segments, powered by servo motors, packed in a latex sock and wrapped in a spandex swimsuit. The doorstop-shaped head -- which resembled the sandfish's head -- had a fixed lower length of approximately 4 inches, height of 2 inches and a tapered snout. The researchers examined whether the robot's vertical motion could be controlled simply by varying the inclination of the robot's head.

PITTSBURGH—Digital imagery, Facebook updates, online music collections, email threads and other immaterial artifacts of today's online world may be as precious to teenagers as a favorite book that a parent once read to them or a t-shirt worn at a music festival, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers say.