Tech

A new study of pollution records indicates that the Western Amazon, an area of unparalleled biological and cultural diversity, may have been contaminated by widespread oil pollution over a 30-year period. This work will be presented at the Goldschmidt conference in Sacramento, California

Years after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil spill, oil continues to wash ashore as oil-soaked "sand patties," persists in salt marshes abutting the Gulf of Mexico, and questions remain about how much oil has been deposited on the seafloor. Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences have developed a unique way to fingerprint oil, even after most of it has degraded, and to assess how it changes over time.

In today's Information Age, it's easy get overwhelmed by online content. On YouTube alone, over 100 hours worth of video is uploaded every minute. Showcasing the most interesting content allows providers to convey a certain level of quality to its audiences and encourages users to stay on the website, consuming content and winning advertising dollars for its provider. However, this influx of information makes it difficult for both content providers and users to determine what is interesting and worth consuming.

The UK has failed to match the gains made in reducing deaths among children and young adults by 17 other high-income countries in the European Union*, Australia, Canada, and Norway (EU15+) in the 38 years since 1970.

Alexandria, Va. — In 2006, a fossil collector and his crew discovered a rare fossil on private land in Montana's Hell Creek Formation: the bones of two fully articulated dinosaurs that appeared to have died together, locked in battle. The fossil duo — a small, pony-sized carnivorous tyrannosaurid and a slightly larger herbivorous ceratopsian, both now preserved in plaster — became known as the "Montana Dueling Dinosaurs." Last November, the fossils were put on the block at Bonhams auction house in New York City — but they did not sell.

An advance has been achieved towards next generation ultrasonic imaging with potentially 1,000 times higher resolution than today's medical ultrasounds. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated a technique for producing, detecting and controlling ultrahigh frequency sound waves at the nanometer scale.

A form of quantum weirdness is a key ingredient for building quantum computers according to new research from a team at the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC).

In a new study published in the journal Nature, researchers have shown that a weird aspect of quantum theory called contextuality is a necessary resource to achieve the so-called magic required for universal quantum computation.

They are invisible, but perfectly suited for analysing liquids and gases; infrared laser beams are absorbed differently by different molecules. This effect can for instance be used to measure the oxygen concentration in blood. At the Vienna University of Technology, this technique has now been miniaturized and implemented in the prototype for a new kind of sensor.

A new report, prepared by analysts from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), reviews estimates of the costs and benefits of compliance with Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) in the United States and explores how costs and benefits may evolve over time.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu) — Researchers at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering have developed a three-dimensional, silicon-decorated, cone-shaped carbon-nanotube cluster architecture for lithium ion battery anodes that could enable charging of portable electronics in 10 minutes, instead of hours.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Researchers from The Miriam Hospital have found that adding evidence-based weight loss strategies to a statewide wellness campaign improves weight loss outcomes among participants. The study and its findings are published online in advance of print in the American Journal of Public Health.

WASHINGTON, June 9—Monitoring a patient's vital signs and other physiological parameters is a standard part of medical care, but, increasingly, health and fitness-minded individuals are looking for ways to easily keep their own tabs on these measurements. Enter the biometric watch.

The development of a wind farm is a process in which various factors need to be taken into consideration to ensure that the resource is properly used and that appropriate planning is carried out to minimise the effects it could have. "The fundamental parameter to take into account when designing a wind farm is the wind or wind potential. Another very important factor is the orography of the land," explained David de la Vega, a member of the Signal Processing and Radiocommunications Group (TSR).

MAYWOOD, Ill. – In the fight against teenage obesity, some researchers have proposed targeting popular teens, in the belief that such kids would have an outsize influence on their peers.

But in a Loyola University Chicago study, researchers were surprised to find that this strategy would be only marginally more effective than targeting overweight kids at random.

Results are published in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Stanford, CA—Soil is a microscopic maze of nooks and crannies that hosts a wide array of life. Plants explore this environment by developing a complex branched network of roots that tap into scarce resources such as water and nutrients. How roots sense which regions of soil contain water and what effect this moisture has on the architecture of the root system has been unclear.