Tech

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- When a current passes between two electrodes — one thinner than the other — it creates a wind in the air between. If enough voltage is applied, the resulting wind can produce a thrust without the help of motors or fuel.

Migrations happen for a reason, not randomly. A new study, based on computer simulation, attempts to explain the effect of so-called directional migration – migration for a reason – on cooperative behaviours and social cohesion. These results appear in a study about to be published in EPJ B by Hongyan Cheng from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and colleagues.

In their latest experiment, Prof. Andrea Cavalleri from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter at the Hamburg-based Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) and Dr. Michael Gensch from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) investigated together with other colleagues from the HZDR, the United Kingdom, and Japan if and how superconductivity can be systematically controlled. The objective of their research is to improve the usability of superconducting materials for such new technologies as, for example, the processing of information.

Although bladder cancer is the sixth most common form of cancer in the U.S. and the most expensive to treat, the basic method that doctors use to treat it hasn't changed much in more than 70 years.

Research from the University of Cincinnati shows that perhaps the ancient Puebloans weren't as into the maize craze as once thought.

Nikki Berkebile, a graduate student in anthropology in UC's McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, has been studying the subsistence habits of Puebloans, or Anasazi, who lived on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon in the late 11th century. Traditional ethnographic literature indicates these ancient American Indians were heavily dependent on maize as a food source, but Berkebile isn't so sure about that.

PITTSBURGH—Beekeepers and researchers nationally are reporting growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides may be killing off bumblebees. Now, research at the University of Pittsburgh points toward another potential cause: metal pollution from aluminum and nickel.

Recent technical enhancements at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor are providing researchers with a more comprehensive suite of characterization tools that could help extend the lives of U.S. light-water reactors.

With these new capabilities, scientists can discern microstructural stresses in vessel steels from the microscale – millionths of a meter – to the nanoscale – billionths of a meter.

Olympic swimmers aren't the only ones who change their strokes to escape competitors. To escape from the jaws and claws of predators in cold, viscous water, marine copepods switch from a wave-like swimming stroke to big power strokes, a behavior that has now been revealed thanks to 3-D high-speed digital holography.

Copepods are tiny crustaceans found in nearly every aquatic environment on Earth. By some estimates, they are the most abundant animals on the planet.

A study has been able to accurately determine the age of the Neanderthal remains found in the El Sidrón cave (Asturias, Spain) for which previous studies had provided inexact measurements. The application of a pre-treatment to reduce contamination by modern carbon has managed to lower the margin of error from 40,000 to just 3,200 years.

Washington, D.C.—A research team, led by Carnegie's Anna Michalak, has determined that the 2011 record-breaking algal bloom in Lake Erie was triggered by long-term agricultural practices coupled with extreme precipitation, followed by weak lake circulation and warm temperatures. The team also predicts that, unless agricultural policies change, the lake will continue to experience extreme blooms. The research is published in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of April 1, 2013.

URBANA - Inclusion of corn germ in swine diets can reduce diet costs, depending on the local cost of corn germ and other ingredients. Recent research conducted at the University of Illinois indicates that corn germ can be included at up to 30 percent in diets fed to growing pigs.

"In previous research, we had seen that pigs do very well on diets containing 10 percent corn germ, so we wanted to investigate if higher inclusion rates can be used," said Hans Stein, professor of animal sciences at Illinois.

ANN ARBOR—Surface appearances can be so misleading: In most forests, the amount of carbon held in soils is substantially greater than the amount contained in the trees themselves.

If you're a land manager trying to assess the potential of forests to offset carbon emissions and climate change by soaking up atmospheric carbon and storing it, what's going on beneath the surface is critical.

But while scientists can precisely measure and predict the amount of above-ground carbon accumulating in a forest, the details of soil-carbon accounting have been a bit fuzzy.

Fish oil rich in DHA and EPA is widely believed to help prevent disease by reducing inflammation, but until now, scientists were not entirely sure about its immune enhancing effects. A new report appearing in the April 2013 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, helps provide clarity on this by showing that DHA-rich fish oil enhances B cell activity, a white blood cell, challenging the notion that fish oil is only immunosuppressive.

High fire activity periods in the Amazon region can be predicted months in advance on the basis of water storage data, a new study shows. Chen et al. analyzed satellite observations of terrestrial water storage from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, along with satellite observations of fire activity from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) mission.

GRACE measures the Earth's gravity field by calculating the distance between two satellites as slight variations in density pull on one satellite more than the other.

Daejeon, Republic of Korea, March 29, 2013 -- As the capacity of handheld devices increases to accommodate a greater number of functions, these devices have more memory, larger display screens, and the ability to play higher definition video files. If the users of mobile devices, including smartphones, tablet PCs, and notebooks, want to share or transfer data on one device with that of another device, a great deal of time and effort are needed.