Tech

HOUSTON -- (Dec. 5, 2013) -- Scientists from Rice University and the University of Bremen's Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) in Germany have combined cutting-edge experimental techniques and computer simulations to find a new way of predicting how water dissolves crystalline structures like those found in natural stone and cement.

Hummingbird metabolism is a marvel of evolutionary engineering. These tiny birds can power all of their energetic hovering flight by burning the sugar contained in the floral nectar of their diet.

Now new research from the University of Toronto Scarborough shows they are equally adept at burning both glucose and fructose, which are the individual components of sugar; a unique trait other vertebrates cannot achieve.

The Information Age will get a major upgrade with the arrival of quantum processors many times faster and more powerful than today's supercomputers. For the benefits of this new Information Age 2.0 to be fully realized, however, quantum computers will need fast and efficient multi-directional light sources. While quantum technologies remain grist for science fiction, a team of researchers with the U.S.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Although vegetation growth in the Arctic is boosted by global warming, it's not enough to offset the carbon released by the thawing of the permafrost beneath the surface, University of Florida researchers have found in the first experiment in the Arctic environment to simulate thawing of permafrost in a warming world.

With every heartbeat, the blood is sent to all our peripheral tissues, generating changes in pulsatile perfusion. Using these pulsatile changes as a source of information, researchers at the University of Eastern Finland have developed a new method of 2D mapping of microcirculation, called BPI (Blood Pulsation Imaging). The aim is to use the pulsatile vascular changes detected with BPI for diagnostic purposes.

Thread-like semiconductor structures called nanowires, so thin that they are effectively one-dimensional, show potential as lasers for applications in computing, communications, and sensing. Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have demonstrated laser action in semiconductor nanowires that emit light at technologically useful wavelengths and operate at room temperature. They now have documented this breakthrough in the journal Nature Communications and, in Nano Letters, have disclosed further results showing enhanced optical and electronic performance.

Love them or hate them, cockroaches are notoriously good escape artists and can flee at astonishing speeds. However, this speed can make it difficult to sense the world around them: 'When animals move slowly they rely mostly on their nervous system for accomplishing tasks, but as the animals are pushed to more extreme performances they face potential constraints in their nervous system, for example sensory conduction delays', explains Jean-Michel Mongeau, a researcher from the University of California, Berkeley, USA.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 27, 2013 – Human beings don't come with power sockets, but a growing numbers of us have medical implants that run off electricity. To keep our bionic body parts from powering down, a group of Arizona researchers is developing a safe, noninvasive, and efficient means of wireless power transmission through body tissue. The team presents their findings at the 166th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, held Dec. 2 – 6 in San Francisco, Calif.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The first long-term U.S. field trials of Miscanthus x giganteus, a towering perennial grass used in bioenergy production, reveal that its exceptional yields, though reduced somewhat after five years of growth, are still more than twice those of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), another perennial grass used as a bioenergy feedstock. Miscanthus grown in Illinois also outperforms even the high yields found in earlier studies of the crop in Europe, the researchers found.

Oil-based compounds are referred to as low-surface tension liquids because they tend to spread on the surface of a researcher's microscope slides or microarrays where the liquids are placed. Additionally, as can be seen from oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, oil can stick and easily spread out on any surface. Using specially designed oil-repellent surfaces, Kwon and his group demonstrated invisible "virtual walls" which block spreading of low-surface tension liquids at the boundary line with microscopic features already created in the device.

PITTSBURGH—It turns out that the way to keep track of your many passwords to online accounts is the same as how to get to Carnegie Hall — practice, practice, practice. So researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have devised a scheme that enables users to create 100 or more passwords by remembering — and regularly rehearsing — a small number of one-sentence stories.

Some companies could economically convert their operations to wood boilers for heat and power, according to a team of forestry researchers.

The conversion to wood-powered burners would make the most sense for larger commercial and industrial operations in areas that have access to large timber resources and a friendly regulatory environment, said Charles Ray, assistant professor of wood operations, Penn State.

Wood is a renewable resource that could help contribute to the nation's energy needs for an indefinite period, according to Ray.

WASHINGTON D.C. Dec. 3, 2013 -- Through a process known as thermionic conversion, heat energy -- such as light from the sun or heat from burned fossil fuels -- can be converted into electricity with very high efficiency. Because of its promise, researchers have been trying for more than half a century to develop a practical thermionic generator, with little luck. That luck may soon change, thanks to a new design -- dubbed a thermoelectronic generator -- described in AIP Publishing's Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE).

A commonly used heart monitor may be a simple tool for predicting the risk of atrial fibrillation, the most frequently diagnosed type of irregular heart rhythm, according to researchers at UC San Francisco.

A biologist in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences has developed a system of techniques for tracking ships and monitoring underwater noise levels in a protected marine mammal habitat. The techniques are the subject of a groundbreaking article in Marine Pollution Bulletin, focusing on the bottlenose dolphin population in Scotland's Moray Firth.