Tech

EpicGenetics Releases Fibromyalgia app

EpicGenetics, Inc, a medical diagnostic company which claims to have developed an accurate test for Fibromyalgia (FM), has released a new My FM/a® app for iOS and Android devices which makes it easy to track conditions and medications on a daily basis, and provides graphical tracking and other features to share with your medical practitioner.

The new app is now available free of charge and captures information and displays it back in graphical, calendar-like form.

Available exclusively through the Apple and Android App Stores in the medical category.

A new model can predict a woman's risk of breast, ovarian and womb cancer

The probability (absolute risk) of a woman developing breast, ovarian, and endometrial (womb) cancer can all be predicted using easily obtainable information on known risk factors for these cancers, according to a paper in PLOS Medicine.

Ruth Pfeiffer from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, USA and colleagues from institutions throughout the US, developed statistical models based on risk factors of these three common cancers that could help with clinical decision making.

Printing silver onto fibers could pave the way for flexible, wearable electronics

A new technique for depositing silver onto clothing fibres could open up huge opportunities in wearable electronics.

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the UK's National Measurement Institute, have developed a way to print silver directly onto fibres. This new technique could make integrating electronics into all types of clothing simple and practical. This has many potential applications in sports, health, medicine, consumer electronics and fashion.

Rensselaer researchers identify cause of LED 'efficiency droop'

Troy, N.Y. – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers have identified the mechanism behind a plague of LED light bulbs: a flaw called "efficiency droop" that causes LEDs to lose up to 20 percent of their efficiency as they are subjected to greater electrical currents. Efficiency droop, first reported in 1999, has been a key obstacle in the development of LED lighting for situations, like household lighting, that call for economical sources of versatile and bright light.

American Chemical Society podcast: Cotton is an eco-friendly way to clean up oil spills

The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series describes a report demonstrating that unprocessed, raw cotton has an amazing ability to sop up oil while also being eco-friendly.

Lawrence Livermore engineering team makes breakthrough in solar energy research

LIVERMORE, Calif. – The use of plasmonic black metals could someday provide a pathway to more efficient photovoltaics (PV) --- the use of solar panels containing photovoltaic solar cells --- to improve solar energy harvesting, according to researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

Fat digestibility in pigs study looks at oils in soybeans, corn co-products

URBANA. Ill. – Pork producers need accurate information on the energy value of fat in feed ingredients to ensure that diets are formulated economically and in a way that maximizes pork fat quality. Researchers at the University of Illinois have determined the true ileal and total tract digestibility of fat in four corn co-products, as well as in full fat soybeans and corn oil.

Hardness, in depth

WASHINGTON D.C. -- In today's precision manufacturing environment, designers of products as diverse as car airbag sensors, computer microchips, drill bits and paint often need to know the mechanical properties of their materials' down to the nanometer scale. Scientists have now built a machine that sets a new standard of accuracy for testing one of those properties: a material's hardness, which is a measure of its resistance to bumps and scratches.

Researchers overcome technical hurdles in quest for inexpensive, durable electronics and solar cells

Electronic touch pads that cost just a few dollars and solar cells that cost the same as roof shingles are one step closer to reality today.

Researchers in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., have overcome technical hurdles in the quest for inexpensive, durable electronics and solar cells made with non-toxic chemicals. The research was published in the most recent issue of Nature Communications, an international online research journal.

Water clears path for nanoribbon development

HOUSTON – (July 30, 2013) – New research at Rice University shows how water makes it practical to form long graphene nanoribbons less than 10 nanometers wide.

And it's unlikely that many of the other labs currently trying to harness the potential of graphene, a single-atom sheet of carbon, for microelectronics would have come up with the technique the Rice researchers found while they were looking for something else.

Picosecond accurate slow-motion confirms oxide materials exhibit considerably faster switching properties than do semi-conductor

Materials that have the ability to switch between being good conductors and being good insula-tors are considered good potential candidates for electronic building blocks – for use in transis-tors, for example.

The iron oxide magnetite is the best known representative of this class of ma-terials. At low temperatures, magnetite has insulating properties; at high temperatures, the oxide is a good conductor. This switching mechanism however happens so quickly that it's been im-possible until now to fully grasp it on an atomic level.

Stress early in life leads to adulthood anxiety and preference for 'comfort foods'

7/30/13, New Orleans, LA. Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, suggests that exposure to stress in the first few days of life increases stress responses, anxiety and the consumption of palatable "comfort" foods in adulthood.

Computer scientists develop 'mathematical jigsaw puzzles' to encrypt software

UCLA computer science professor Amit Sahai and a team of researchers have designed a system to encrypt software so that it only allows someone to use a program as intended while preventing any deciphering of the code behind it. This is known in computer science as "software obfuscation," and it is the first time it has been accomplished.

Like water for batteries

PITTSBURGH—Objects made from graphite—such as lithium-ion batteries—are "hydrophobic," meaning that they "dislike" water. For decades this lack of likeability has presented significant challenges in terms of building more durable technological devices made with graphite—until now.

New study finds increase in nonfatal food-related choking among children in the US

Choking is a leading cause of injury among children, especially for children 4 years of age and younger. A new study by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined nonfatal food-related choking among children 14 years of age or younger from 2001through 2009. During the nine-year study period, more than 12,000 children were treated each year in U.S. emergency departments for injuries from choking on food, which equals 34 children each day.