Tech

For years, scientists have been worried about bisphenol A. The chemical is known as an "endocrine disruptor," a substance that interferes with the body's hormone signaling system, and it's found in everything from plastic drink bottles to the linings of food and drink cans to the thermal paper used for cash register receipts — not to mention the urine of 92.6 percent of Americans over the age of six. BPA has been associated with the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes, asthma and ovarian dysfunction.

Research from the University of Southampton has shown that young adults, who are more outgoing or more emotionally stable, are happier in later life than their more introverted or less emotionally stable peers.

The global burden of sickle cell anemia (SCA), a hereditary blood disorder, is increasing, with almost half a million babies estimated to be born with the condition in 2050, according to a study published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The study, conducted by Frédéric Piel and colleagues from the University of Oxford and Imperial College in the United Kingdom, and the KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kenya, suggests that implementing basic health interventions could significantly reduce death rates in children aged less than 5 years with the condition.

More than a decade ago, Thomas Vogt and Yongjae Lee, then colleagues at Brookhaven National Laboratory, uncovered a counter-intuitive property of zeolites. When they put these porous minerals in water, and then put the water under high pressure, the tiny cavities within the zeolites actually grew in size.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– A chemical analysis of oil sheens recently found floating at the ocean's surface near the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster indicates that the source is pockets of oil trapped within the wreckage of the sunken rig.

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland have shown how to make nanoscale measurements of critical properties of plasmonic nanomaterials—the specially engineered nanostructures that modify the interaction of light and matter for a variety of applications, including sensors, cloaking (invisibility), photovoltaics and therapeutics.

Their technique is one of the few that allows researchers to make actual physical measurements of these materials at the nanoscale without affecting the nanomaterial's function.

A chemical analysis indicates that the source of oil sheens recently found floating at the ocean's surface near the site of the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill is pockets of oil trapped within the wreckage of the sunken rig.

First reported to the U.S. Coast Guard by multinational oil and gas company BP in September 2012, the oil sheens raised public concern that the Macondo well, which was capped in July 2010, might be leaking.

A chemical analysis of oil sheens found floating recently at the ocean's surface near the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster indicates that the source is pockets of oil trapped within the wreckage of the sunken rig. Both the Macondo well and natural oil seeps common to the Gulf of Mexico were confidently ruled out.

Imagine a transportation system where vehicles communicate directly with each other in real time, giving drivers warnings about traffic delays, allowing a single driver to control multiple vehicles or routing vehicles around hazardous road conditions. Those are all aspects of the "intelligent transportation" concept. And researchers have developed a model to improve the clarity of the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) transmissions needed to make that concept a reality.

Harvesting waste heat from power stations and even vehicle exhaust pipes could soon provide a valuable supply of electricity.

A small team of Monash University researchers working under the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) has developed an ionic liquid-based thermocell. Thermocells are based on harnessing the thermal energy from the difference in temperature between two surfaces and converting that energy into electrical energy.

Individual ethnic groups use psychiatric and mental health services in Scotland very differently, a study suggests.

Researchers have found that there is a significant difference in the rates of hospitalisations for mental health problems according to ethnic group.

The study also revealed that there are widely differing patterns of hospitalisation for mental health problems among non-White groups. It is the first study of its kind to be carried out in Scotland.

A few months back, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) was proud to publish an article regarding a research accomplishment by Dr. Jim Tour and his research team at Rice University. AFOSR, along with other funding agencies, supported Dr. Tour's research effort to make graphene suitable for a variety of organic chemistry applications -- especially the promise of advanced chemical sensors, nanoscale electronic circuits and metamaterials.

The light they emit is as unique as a fingerprint: random lasers are tiny devices with a light emission pattern governed by random scattering of light. Understanding the underlying details of random lasing action has only been achieved recently. Now scientists at the Vienna University of Technology have presented a method to steer the radiation emitted by a random laser into a pre-determined direction. What has started out as a curious idea now has the potential to become a useful new type of light source.

Randomness instead of Mirrors

The time period of satellite observations of the ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic is still too short to be able to say whether the accelerated loss of ice measured today will persist in the future. This is the result published today in the online edition of "Nature Geosciences" by a research team led by Bert Wouters from the University of Bristol. The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences is also involved in the study.

The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, underscore the need for continuous satellite monitoring of the ice sheets to better identify and predict melting and the corresponding sea-level rise.