Tech

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 24, 2015 - A University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine-led trial to test a text message-based program aimed at reducing binge drinking is the first to show that such an intervention can successfully produce sustained reductions in alcohol consumption in young adults.

The intensity of earth's magnetic field has been weakening in the last couple of hundred years, leading some scientists to think that its polarity might be about to flip. But the field's intensity may simply be coming down from an abnormal high rather than approaching a reversal, scientists write in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A new study shows that wind, water and solar generators can theoretically result in a reliable, affordable national grid when the generators are combined with inexpensive storage.

Over the last few years, Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering, and his colleague, Mark Delucchi of the University of California, Berkeley, have produced a series of plans, based on huge amounts of data churned through computer models, showing how each state in America could shift from fossil fuel to entirely renewable energy.

The power of the sharing economy in shaking up traditional industries can be harnessed to help financially struggling Queenslanders, according to QUT research.

Dr Dhaval Vyas, from QUT's Science and Engineering Faculty, found the model that has brought success to companies like Uber and Airbnb could be developed to support people experiencing financial hardship.

Dr Vyas' research will be presented next month (DECEMBER) at the Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Melbourne.

The most direct information about the interior of the earth comes from measuring how seismic acoustic waves--such as those created by earthquakes -- travel through the earth. Those measurements show that 95% of the earth's core is liquid. But, scientists also want to know the composition of the liquid, and that is harder.

A new computer algorithm can predict whether you and your spouse will have an improved or worsened relationship based on the tone of voice that you use when speaking to each other with nearly 79 percent accuracy.

In fact, the algorithm did a better job of predicting marital success of couples with serious marital issues than descriptions of the therapy sessions provided by relationship experts, reported in a study in Proceedings of Interspeech on September 6, 2015.

ANN ARBOR--A computer model of tuberculosis has shown that approved treatments prescribing antibiotic doses once or twice a week are more likely to lead to drug resistant strains than are daily antibiotic regimens.

The finding, from a University of Michigan study, could help inform the treatment of the roughly 10 million people worldwide who fall ill with tuberculosis each year.

New research may draw a 'curtain of fire' on dinosaur extinction theory

The role volcanic activity played in mass extinction events in the Earth's early history is likely to have been much less severe than previously thought, according to a study led by the University of Leeds.

Scientists at EPFL show how a light-induced force can amplify the sensitivity and resolution of a technique used to study single molecules.

What is true for double-blade razors is also true for solar cells: two work steps are more thorough than one. Stacking two solar cells one on top of the other, where top cell is semi-transparent, which efficiently converts large energy photons into electricity, while the bottom cell converts the remaining or transmitted low energy photons in an optimum manner. This allows a larger portion of the light energy to be converted to electricity. Up to now, the sophisticated technology needed for the procedure was mainly confined to the realm of Space or Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV).

MIT researchers have developed a biomedical imaging system that could ultimately replace a $100,000 piece of a lab equipment with components that cost just hundreds of dollars.

The system uses a technique called fluorescence lifetime imaging, which has applications in DNA sequencing and cancer diagnosis, among other things. So the new work could have implications for both biological research and clinical practice.

Scientists from the University of Exeter are warning of the risks that seismic surveys may pose to sea turtles. Widely used in marine oil and gas exploration, seismic surveys use airguns to produce sound waves that penetrate the sea floor to map oil and gas reserves.

The review, published in the journal Biological Conservation, found that compared to marine mammals and fish, turtles are largely ignored in terms of research attention and are often omitted from policy guidelines designed to mitigate the environmental risks of seismic surveys.

An interdisciplinary team at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum has found a way of accessing the interior of transistors. The researchers have manipulated the electron gas contained within by applying resonators to generate rhythmic oscillation in the terahertz range inside. They shared their findings in the journal Scientific Reports.

Transistors can be manipulated not only with voltages

Polluted water can at times make swimming in the sea or a pool risky, on the other hand aquatic organisms such as water boatman need the nutrients in dirty water to feed on. Taking inspiration from water beetles and other swimming insects, academics at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) have developed the Row-bot, a robot that thrives in dirty water. The Row-bot mimics the way that the water boatman moves and the way that it feeds on rich organic matter in the dirty water it swims in.

An innovative approach to calibrating high-tech microscopes enables researchers to track the movement of single molecules in 3D at the nanoscale.