Tech

As the Navy's Ice Exercise (ICEX) 2016 winds to a close this week in the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean, officials at the Office of Naval Research (ONR) today reported new scientific research that took place during the event that will enhance our understanding of, and ability to safely operate in, Arctic maritime environments.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 31, 2016) -- Break out the brochures: World Autism Awareness Day is just around the corner. As is World Health Day, World Dolphin Day, Earth Day, World Lupus Day, and the list goes on and on. One federal catalog includes 212 separate health-focused awareness days.

A survey of a major oil and natural gas-producing region in Western Canada suggests there may be a link between induced earthquakes and hydraulic fracturing, not just wastewater injection, according to a new report out this week in the journal Seismological Research Letters.

Most of us think nothing of rainfall or where it goes, unless it leads to flooding or landslides. But soil scientists have been studying how water moves across or through soil for decades. Daniel Hirmas, a professor at University of Kansas, and his team may be taking the study of soil hydrology to some exciting new territory. Territory that may help soil scientists manage water resources better.

Why is Hirmas trying to predict water movement in soil?

"There is still a lot we don't know about the structure of food, but this is a good step on the way to understanding and finding solutions to a number of problems dealing with food consistency, and which cost the food industry a lot of money," says Associate Professor Jens Risbo, Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is one of the authors of a recently-published scientific paper in Food Structure, which deals with the new groundbreaking insight into the 3D structure of food.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A new study of more than 440 parents and their preschoolers offers insight into why some parents who binge eat also may try to restrict their children's food intake, placing their children at higher risk for unhealthy eating habits and weight problems.

Parents who reported feeling distress when their child was angry, crying or fearful were more likely to engage in episodes of binge eating - and to limit the amounts or types of food they provided to their children, University of Illinois researchers found.

When it comes to indoor lighting, nothing beats the sun's rays streaming in through windows. Soon, that natural light could be shining through walls, too. Scientists have developed transparent wood that could be used in building materials and could help home and building owners save money on their artificial lighting costs. Their material, reported in ACS' journal Biomacromolecules, also could find application in solar cell windows.

Ionic transport has been studied extensively over the years for energy devices such as fuel cells and batteries using Li+, H+, Ag+, Cu+, F-, and O2-. Yet as Genki Kobayashi and Ryoji Kanno point out in a recent report, hydride ions (H-) may be particularly useful for high-energy-density storage and conversion devices. Using an oxyhydride solid state cell they have now demonstrated pure H- conduction in an oxide for the first time.

Scientists from the University of Liverpool have developed computer models of the bodies of sauropod dinosaurs to examine the evolution of their body shape.

Sauropod dinosaurs include the largest land animals to have ever lived. Some of the more well-known sauropods include Diplodocus, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus. They are renowned for their extremely long necks, long tails as well as four thick, pillar-like legs and small heads in relation to their body.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 29, 2016 -- Lithium ion phosphate batteries are widely used to power the batteries in electric cars, but, unlike the amount of gas in a fuel tank, their state of charge can't be measured directly by a physical quantity. Instead, they use an algorithm based on measurements of battery voltage and current, which are in turn influenced by conditions such as weather, electrovoltaic state and traffic conditions. However, the algorithms currently used to measure state of charge each carry drawbacks when used in real-time applications.

An automated "sample-to-answer" system could provide Ebola virus disease (EVD) diagnosis more quickly and easily than the current standard test, according to research published this week in PLOS Medicine. In a field evaluation study, Nira Pollock of Boston Children's Hospital and colleagues from Public Health England and Partners In Health found that the Cepheid GeneXpert Ebola assay provided results in near agreement with the standard laboratory test for both whole blood (WB) and cheek swab (buccal swab, BS) samples.

If people feel Brexit will reduce their income - even by as little as £25 a year, or 50p a week - then a majority will vote to remain. If people think they'll be better off out, then a majority will vote to leave.

The findings are from a YouGov poll of 15,000 people, commissioned by Philip Cowley, Professor of Politics at QMUL.

A lack of standards for testing polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells - the most attractive type of fuel cells for powering vehicles - has hampered objective comparative assessment of their performance and durability under operating conditions and hence of their technological progress. By proposing a test methodology including a set of representative operating conditions and getting European industry and research stakeholders to agree on it, the JRC has helped fill the gap.

The amount of data that we take in from screens each day through documents, email chains, web pages and social media flows is enormous. The continuous scrolling technique we typically use to browse this data is, however, far from perfect.

Sweet, tasty and healthy - the new essence of juice?

Lime, fibre and stevia provide a cocktail of ingredients that can be added to fruit juice to increase its nutritional value and promote the sensory experience of the juice.