Tech

LAS CRUCES, NM – Used throughout the world in horticulture and agriculture production, high tunnels are less complex and less expensive versions of greenhouses. The structures' passive heating and cooling capabilities can offer growers a cost-effective way to extend the growing season for high-value crops such as fruits, vegetables, and cut flowers. High tunnels can provide protection against some insects, early freezes, hail, and other weather events.

Aspiring game developers may want to bone up on their interpersonal skills. A forthcoming study from North Carolina State University and Microsoft Research finds that game developers need a suite of non-programming skills – including communication skills – that are considered less important in other fields of software development.

Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego are asking what might be possible if semiconductor materials were flexible and stretchable without sacrificing electronic function?

Farmers are used to optimizing crop production on their own lands. They do soil tests to choose the right amount of fertilizers to apply, and they sometimes plant row crops on some fields while keeping others in pasture.

But is it possible to optimize production across a much bigger area—say, the whole East Coast of the United States? That's the question a team of USDA-ARS scientists in Beltsville, MD, has begun to tackle by developing a sophisticated new modeling tool.

Farmers are used to optimizing crop production on their own lands. They do soil tests to choose the right amount of fertilizers to apply, and they sometimes plant row crops on some fields while keeping others in pasture.

But is it possible to optimize production across a much bigger area—say, the whole East Coast of the United States? That's the question a team of USDA-ARS scientists in Beltsville, MD, has begun to tackle by developing a sophisticated new modeling tool.

The icing on the cake for semiconductor nanocrystals that provide a non-damped optoelectronic effect may exist as a layer of tin that segregates near the surface.

Nine U.S. diesel engine manufacturers and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using their collective horsepower to tackle the perennial industry-wide problem of efficiency-robbing soot in engines. Over time, heat exchangers in diesel engines become coated with soot and unburned fuel that robs 1-2 percent of the engine's efficiency.

Philadelphia, PA, May 1, 2014 – Oily fish are currently recommended as part of a heart healthy diet. This guideline is partially based on the landmark 1970s study from Bang and Dyerberg that connected the low incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD) among the Eskimos of Greenland to their diet, rich in whale and seal blubber. Now, researchers have found that Eskimos actually suffered from CAD at the same rate as their Caucasian counterparts, meaning there is insufficient evidence to back Bang and Dyerberg's claims.

An ecological strategy developed by four researchers, including two from Simon Fraser University, aims to abate the grim future that the combination of two factors could inflict on many amphibians, including frogs and salamanders.

A warming climate and the introduction of non-native fish in the American West's mountainous areas are combining to threaten the habitat that this ecologically critical group of species needs to thrive.

The present study illustrates, for the hypersonic flows, through the local and marching analysis, the crossover of the mode W and the mode T at O(1) wavenumber and large Görtler number regime. In fact, it is at this wavenumber regime that the instability is most likely to occur. The two approaches are expected to deliver similar results and the marching analysis helps to express the details of the crossover and confirm the result of the local analysis.

Over 60 years of data collected across 8 states by citizen scientists may demonstrate their potential to contribute to monitoring long-term lake water trends over a large area, according to results published April 30, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Noah Lottig from University of Wisconsin and colleagues.

A University of Arizona-led team of physicists has discovered how to change the crystal structure of graphene, more commonly known as pencil lead, with an electric field, an important step toward the possible use of graphene in microprocessors that would be smaller and faster than current, silicon-based technology.

University of California, Berkeley, geologist William Dietrich pioneered the application of airborne LIDAR – light detection and ranging – to map mountainous terrain, stripping away the vegetation to see the underlying ground surface.

But that didn't take him deep enough. He still couldn't see what was under the surface: the depth of the soil, the underlying weathered rock and the deep bedrock.

Older adults' fears that companion robots will negatively affect young people may create design challenges for developers hoping to build robots for older users, according to Penn State researchers.

Companion robots provide emotional support for users and interact with them as they, for example, play a game, or watch a movie.

HZB-scientist Emad Aziz, who leads the Joint lab between HZB and Freie Universität Berlin, has developed and installed a new tool to investigate ultrafast dynamics in solutions and at interfaces with the use of ultrashort Laser pulses. Liquid phases are a natural environment for many interesting processes in chemistry and biology, and short light pulses allow insights into electronic and structural dynamics of molecules and molecular complexes.