Tech

The eureka moments can come fast and furious at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which last fiscal year racked up a record 169 inventions. Chris Deline's idea came to him while jogging, and from that sprang the potential to better protect firefighters.

Deline, a research engineer in NREL's photovoltaic performance and reliability group, jotted down his idea, a few paragraphs sufficiently describing his innovation that would be marked as a record of invention, or ROI.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Senior Scientist Min Zhang has a special relationship with Zymomonas mobilis, a rod-shaped bacterium that has bioethanol-producing capabilities. Of her 80 peer-reviewed papers and 21 U.S. patents in the field of biochemistry and biofuels, many reference this sugar-eating 'bug.'

From smartphones to the operating interfaces of ticket machines and cash dispensers, every touchscreen we use requires transparent electrodes: The devices' glass surface is coated with a barely visible pattern made of conductive material. It is because of this that the devices recognise whether and where exactly a finger is touching the surface.

Scientists at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and at the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) have jointly set a new world record for converting non-concentrated (1-sun) sunlight into electricity using a dual-junction III-V/Si solar cell.

Researchers at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have made advances toward affordable photoelectrochemical (PEC) production of hydrogen.

Monitoring chicken flock behaviour could help combat leading cause of food poisoning

A new technique that monitors the movement of chickens can be used to predict which flocks are at risk of becoming infected with Campylobacter - the most common bacterial source of food poisoning in humans in the UK.

Mexico's staggering homicide rate has taken a toll on the mortality rate for men -- and it could be even worse than the statistics indicate, a new study from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health suggests.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A new Sandia National Laboratories accelerator called Thor is expected to be 40 times more efficient than Sandia's Z machine, the world's largest and most powerful pulsed-power accelerator, in generating pressures to study materials under extreme conditions.

"Thor's magnetic field will reach about one million atmospheres, about the pressures at Earth's core," said David Reisman, lead theoretical physicist of the project.

PRINCETON, N.J.--Curbing school bullying has been a focal point for educators, administrators, policymakers and parents, but the answer may not lie within rules set by adults, according to new research led by Princeton University. Instead, the solution might actually be to have the students themselves, particularly those most connected to their peers, promote conflict resolution in school.

SHENYANG, CHINA - Nitrogen (N) is an essential nutrient for plant growth, and nitrogen fertilization - including the application of manures - is a major management strategy in agriculture across the globe. However, the overuse and misuse of manures has resulted in the accumulation of surplus N in soil and its eventual migration to soil layers and groundwater. The authors of a new study found that the environmental risks of manure applications in high-input greenhouse environments may outweigh the benefits, and recommend that the role of manures be reexamined.

New research into the potential for sparing land from food production to balance greenhouse gas emissions has shown that emissions from the UK farming industry could be largely offset by 2050. This could be achieved if the UK increased agricultural yields and coupled this with expanding the areas of natural forests and wetlands to match its European neighbours.

Methane is increasing in the atmosphere, but many sources are poorly understood. Lakes at high northern latitudes are such a source. However, this may change with a new study published in Nature Geoscience. By compiling previously reported measurements made at a total of 733 northern water bodies - from small ponds formed by beavers to large lakes formed by permafrost thaw or ice-sheets - researchers are able to more accurately estimate emissions over large scales.

Research performed by U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory Associate Scientist Durga Paudyal was recently featured on the cover of the November 13, 2015, issue of Physical Review Letters.

In his paper, "Complex Magnetism of Lanthanide Intermetallics and the Role of their Valence Electrons: Ab Initio Theory and Experiment," Paudyal and coauthors used electronic structure theory to explain how a mobile "electronic adhesive" helps localized electrons communicate and interact with one another.

Imagine a new type of tyres whose structure has been designed to have greater adhesion on the road. Quite a timely discussion during the long winter nights. French physicists have now developed a model to study the importance of adhesion in establishing contact between two patterned, yet elastic, surfaces. Nature is full of examples of amazing adjustable adhesion power, like the feet of geckos, covered in multiple hairs of decreasing size.

Fitness trackers like Fitbit, Fuelband, and Jawbone are all the rage and if they help individual people exercise more, great, but right now they are in the placebo world regarding evidence they work any better than anything else overall.