Tech

Scientists have discovered a new enzyme that could prove an important step in the quest to turn waste (such as paper, scrap wood and straw) into liquid fuel. To do this they turned to the destructive power of tiny marine wood-borers called 'gribble', which have been known to destroy seaside piers.

Air in the United States could be cleaner in years to come because of a laboratory researchers expect will help in the development of new standards for fuel economy and emissions evaluations.

The Vehicle Systems Integration Laboratory provides unprecedented capabilities that will be invaluable to manufacturers of diesel and conventional engines, transmissions, and other drivetrain and emissions components.

Boulder, Colorado, USA – In the June issue of GSA Today, Kieran O'Hara of the University of Kentucky and E.K. Esawi of Elizabethtown Community & Technical College propose a new model for the eruption of Yellowstone Park's Old Faithful geyser.

Laser researchers in Munich are challenging a basic assumption of engineering: "You can't have it all." They have shown that for certain kinds of laser applications in biomedical imaging, material processing, and communications, a new approach could deliver the desired capabilities with no problematic tradeoffs: in compact, inexpensive, efficient and long-lived devices that produce ultrashort, high-energy light pulses.

(Edmonton) Baby, keep on rolling. A campaign to put babies to bed on their backs to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome has not impaired infants' rolling abilities, according to University of Alberta research.

If the climate continues to evolve as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United States stands little to no chance of satisfying its current biofuel goals, according to a new study by Rice University and the University of California at Davis.

The study published online in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology suggests that in 40 years, a hotter planet would cut the yield of corn grown for ethanol in the U.S. by an average of 7 percent while increasing the amount of irrigation necessary by 9 percent.

A look at your account balance has just given you a shock: what's going on here? While you have spent the last few weeks in the office and definitely haven't travelled abroad, your account balance shows that you bought electronics in Turkey and ate out in France. In such situations, customers just have to call their banks to get their money back. But this often means that the banks lose the money.

Lignocellulosic waste such as sawdust or straw can be used to produce biofuel – but only if the long cellulose and xylan chains can be successfully broken down into smaller sugar molecules. To do this, fungi are used which, by means of a specific chemical signal, can be made to produce the necessary enzymes. Because this procedure is, however, very expensive, Vienna University of Technology has been investigating the molecular switch that regulates enzyme production in the fungus.

All chefs know that "you have to break some eggs to make an omelet," and that includes engineers at Iowa State University who are using high-frequency sound waves to break down plant materials in order to cook up a better batch of biofuel.

DARIEN, IL – Two new studies show that fatigue may impair strike-zone judgment during the 162 game Major League Baseball season, and a MLB player's sleepiness can predict his longevity in the league.

One study found that MLB players' strike-zone judgment was worse in September than in April in 24 of 30 teams. When averaged across all teams, strike-zone judgment was significantly worse in September compared with April. The statistical model demonstrated strong predictive value through the season.

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana University study that compared the performance of elite track and field athletes younger than 20 and those 20 and older found that only a minority of the star junior athletes saw similar success as senior athletes.

The researchers think physical maturation is behind the disparity, with athletes who mature early reaping the benefits early, seeing their best times, jumps and throws at a younger age than Olympians, many of whom mature later.

Think your antivirus product is keeping your Android safe? Think again.

Northwestern University researchers, working with partners from North Carolina State University, tested 10 of the most popular antiviral products for Android and found each could be easily circumnavigated by even the most simple obfuscation techniques.

Indiana University researchers found that a simple program that uses pedometers to monitor how much people move throughout the day was effective at increasing physical activity, decreasing sitting time, a particular problem for office workers, and helping participants drop some pounds.

PITTSBURGH—The mutual-friends feature on social networks such as Facebook, which displays users' shared friendships, might not be so "friendly."

Often revered for bringing people together, the mutual-friends feature on Facebook actually creates myriad security risks and privacy concerns according to a University of Pittsburgh study published in Computers & Security. The study demonstrates that even though users can tailor their privacy settings, hackers can still find private information through mutual-friends features.

To test the severity of a viral infection, clinicians try to gauge how many viruses are packed into a certain volume of blood or other bodily fluid. This measurement, called viral load, helps doctors diagnose or monitor chronic viral diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. However, the standard methods used for these tests are only able to estimate the number of viruses in a given volume of fluid. Now two independent teams have developed new optics-based methods for determining the exact viral load of a sample by counting individual virus particles.