Tech

Quartz glass does not conduct electric current, it is a typical example of an insulator. With ultra-short laser pulses, however, the electronic properties of glass can be fundamentally changed within femtoseconds (1 fs = 10^-15 seconds). If the laser pulse is strong enough, the electrons in the material can move freely. For a brief moment, the quartz glass behaves like metal. It becomes opaque and conducts electricity. This change of material properties happens so quickly that it can be used for ultra-fast light based electronics.

Big Data presents scientists with unfolding opportunities, including, for instance, the possibility of discovering heterogeneous characteristics in the population leading to the development of personalized treatments and highly individualized services. But ever-expanding data sets introduce new challenges in terms of statistical analysis, bias sampling, computational costs, noise accumulation, spurious correlations, and measurement errors.

Decades of experiments have verified the quirky laws of quantum theory again and again. So when scientists in Germany announced in 2012 an apparent violation of a fundamental law of quantum mechanics, a physicist at the University of Rochester was determined to find an explanation.

"You don't destroy the laws of quantum mechanics that easily," said Robert Boyd, professor of optics and of physics at Rochester and the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Quantum Nonlinear Optics at the University of Ottawa.

A series of experiments conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) researchers is shedding new light on the photosynthetic process. The work also illustrates how light sources and supercomputing facilities can be linked via a "photon science speedway" as a solution to emerging challenges in massive data analysis.

Personal protective equipment designed to shield health care workers from contaminated body fluids of Ebola patients is not enough to prevent transmission, according to a commentary being published early online today in Annals of Internal Medicine.

There's an old saying in the biofuels industry: "You can make anything from lignin except money." But now, a new study may pave the way to challenging that adage. The study from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) demonstrates a concept that provides opportunities for the successful conversion of lignin into a variety of renewable fuels, chemicals, and materials for a sustainable energy economy.

Alexandria, Va. — The rapid proliferation of 3-D printing technology in the early 2000s sent ripples of excitement through the tech world and beyond, but the high price of printers put them out of reach for most academic researchers and hobbyists. Now, more affordable printers have broken this barrier, and geoscientists have started testing the waters.

As part of an ongoing effort to improve commercial scale algae biofuel production, a group of scientists, led by crude oil producer Sapphire Energy, Inc., completed a collaborative study which identified the morphology, ultrastructure, and life history of A. protococcarum, one of the most difficult to manage algae parasites. Their findings are detailed in "Characterization of Amoeboaphelidium protococcarum: An Algal Parasite New to the Cryptomycota Isolated from an Outdoor Algal Pond Used for the Production of Biofuel," was published last year in PLOS ONE.

RUSTON, La. – A team of researchers at Louisiana Tech University has developed an innovative method for using affordable, consumer-grade 3D printers and materials to fabricate custom medical implants that can contain antibacterial and chemotherapeutic compounds for targeted drug delivery.

New feeding tube connectors, designed by an international standards process, will be available soon and will improve patient safety.

According to an invited review published in the OnlineFirst version of Nutrition in Clinical Practice (NCP), the official journal of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N.), the new connectors will greatly reduce the occurrence of misconnection that can be harmful and even fatal to patients.

Anyone who has suffered an injury can probably remember the after-effects, including pain, swelling or redness. These are signs that the body is fighting back against the injury. When tissue in the body is damaged, biological programs are activated to aid in tissue regeneration. An inflammatory response acts as a protective mechanism to enable repair and regeneration, helping the body to heal after injuries such as wounds and burns.

Thanks to certain helper substances, in PCFs proteins are fixated in a way so as to align themselves symmetrically, forming highly stable crystals. Next, the HZB and Fudan University researchers are planning on looking into how PCFs may be used as functional materials. Their findings are being published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5634).

In 2015, American consumers will finally be able to purchase fuel cell cars from Toyota and other manufacturers. Although touted as zero-emissions vehicles, most of the cars will run on hydrogen made from natural gas, a fossil fuel that contributes to global warming.

This news release is available in French.

NAIROBI (22 August 2014)—With the steady drain of essential nutrients from African soils looming as a major threat to food security across the continent, a new report released today finds that over the last five years, 1.7 million African farmers in 13 countries have embraced farming practices that have rejuvenated 1.6 million hectares and helped them double or even triple crop yields.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced two $10 million projects to create cloud computing testbeds--to be called "Chameleon" and "CloudLab"--that will enable the academic research community to develop and experiment with novel cloud architectures and pursue new, architecturally-enabled applications of cloud computing.