Tech

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Cats that live outdoors in the city do their darnedest to steer clear of urban coyotes, a new study says.

The cats cause less damage to wildlife in urban green spaces, such as city parks and nature preserves, because of that dodging, the study suggests. And they live longer and are healthier than previously thought.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Lithium-air batteries have become a hot research area in recent years: They hold the promise of drastically increasing power per battery weight, which could lead, for example, to electric cars with a much greater driving range. But bringing that promise to reality has faced a number of challenges, including the need to develop better, more durable materials for the batteries' electrodes and improving the number of charging-discharging cycles the batteries can withstand.

Identifying the individual's transportation behavior is a fundamental problem, as it reveals information about the user's physical activity, personal CO2 -footprint and preferred transit type. On a larger scale, this information could be aggregated to discover information about the utilization of different transportation options to aid urban planning.

Semiconductors, the foundation of modern electronics used in flat-screen TVs and fighter jets, could become even more versatile as researchers make headway on a novel, inexpensive way to turn them into thin films. Their report on a new liquid that can quickly dissolve nine types of key semiconductors appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Triggered by the recession that began in 2008, major chemical companies are aggressively re-inventing themselves through multi-billion dollar overhauls, reports Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Rather than growing through the expansion of existing operations into emerging economies, which continue to suffer from the downturn, large chemical firms are now shedding some of those operations and investing in specialty areas with higher growth.

Advanced plasma-based etching is a key enabler of Moore's Law that observes that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles nearly every two years. It is the plasma's ability to reproduce fine patterns on silicon that makes this scaling possible and has made plasma sources ubiquitous in microchip manufacturing.

November 12, 2013—Keeping an eye on your child can lower their odds for gambling by young adulthood, according to research conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Adolescents who had poor parental supervision at age 11, and which continued to decline through age 14, were significantly more likely than their peers to be problem gamblers between ages 16-22.

For solar panels, wringing every drop of energy from as many photons as possible is imperative. This goal has sent chemistry, materials science and electronic engineering researchers on a quest to boost the energy-absorption efficiency of photovoltaic devices, but existing techniques are now running up against limits set by the laws of physics.

HOUSTON – (Nov. 11, 2013) – A study led by Nancy Bergstrom, Ph.D., associate dean at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Nursing, found that nursing homes that utilize high-density foam mattresses may not need to turn residents every two hours to prevent pressure ulcers, a practice that has been used for over 50 years. A randomized controlled trial of at-risk residents demonstrated that there was no difference in the incidence of pressure ulcers for residents turned at intervals of two, three or four hours.

What if certain patients could get a bionic pick-up without undergoing the pain and lengthy recovery of surgery? University of Cincinnati researchers are working on just that idea, with the start of an exoskeleton to support people who – through age or injury – are limited in their movement.

Members of the public would prefer to look at human hands or robotic hands rather than prosthetic hands which they view as eerie, a new study by The University of Manchester has shown.

But prosthetic hands which looked more human-like were rated as less eerie, the academics found.

Researchers hope their study, published in the Journal Perception, and future work in this area will help improve designs for prosthetic limbs.

Some vegetable oils that claim to be healthy may actually increase the risk of heart disease, and Health Canada should reconsider cholesterol-lowering claims on food labelling, states an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

A new Dartmouth-led study suggests the AFL-CIO's plan to partner with progressive non-union groups may be easier said than done.

The AFL-CIO's campaign to align with nontraditional allies is intended to broaden the group's influence – the proportion of American workers belonging to a union fell to 11.3 percent last year, the lowest figure the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has ever recorded – but the study's findings underscore the difficulties the AFL-CIO will likely face when it has to share power and negotiate objectives with its new partners.

Atlanta, GA (November 9, 2013)—Preeclampsia during pregnancy may be associated with an increased risk of developing kidney failure, according to a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2013 November 5-10 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA.

PITTSBURGH—Microvehicles and other devices that can change shape or move with no power source other than a beam of light may be possible through research led by the University of Pittsburgh. The researchers are investigating polymers that "snap" when triggered by light, thereby converting light energy into mechanical work and potentially eliminating the need for traditional machine components such as switches and power sources.