Tech

A breakthrough in laser science was achieved in Vienna: In the labs of the Photonics Institute at the Vienna University of Technology, a new method of producing bright laser pulses at x-ray energies was developed. The radiation covers a broad energy spectrum and can therefore be used for a wide range of applications, from materials science to medicine. Up until now, similar kinds of radiation could only be produced in particle accelerators (synchrotrons), but now a laser laboratory can also achieve this.

Chemical reactions on the surface of metal oxides, such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, are important for applications such as solar cells that convert the sun's energy to electricity. Now University of Washington scientists have found that a previously unappreciated aspect of those reactions could be key in developing more efficient energy systems.

Such systems could include, for example, solar cells that would produce more electricity from the sun's rays, or hydrogen fuel cells efficient enough for use in automobiles, said James Mayer, a UW chemistry professor.

The quantum computer is a futuristic machine that could operate at speeds even more mind-boggling than the world's fastest super-computers.

Research involving physicist Mike Thewalt of Simon Fraser University offers a new step towards making quantum computing a reality, through the unique properties of highly enriched and highly purified silicon.

Quantum computers right now exist pretty much in physicists' concepts, and theoretical research. There are some basic quantum computers in existence, but nobody yet can build a truly practical one—or really knows how.

URBANA – If someone agreed to buy your home as is a year from now, you'd likely cancel the kitchen remodel. According to a study at the University of Illinois, Kentucky tobacco farmers adopted that same logic when the tobacco companies announced the buyout – also known as the Tobacco Transition Act of 2004 that ended a 66-year-old federal farm program. However, the immediate drop in productivity was followed by startling changes.

WASHINGTON -- Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Electronics Science and Technology Division, dive into underwater photovoltaic research to develop high bandgap solar cells capable of producing sufficient power to operate electronic sensor systems at depths of 9 meters.

New cockroach behavior discovered by University of California, Berkeley, biologists secures the insect's reputation as one of nature's top escape artists, able to skitter away and disappear from sight before any human can swat it.

Geckos and cockroaches share a unique locomotive behavior: both can run off a ledge at full speed and execute a pendulum-like motion to swing themselves fully around to the underside of the platform and continue running. The full report of this new behavior, and an engineered robot that can duplicate the acrobatic move, is reported in the June 6 edition of the open access journal PLoS ONE.

DURHAM, N.H. – Communities of microbial organisms -- species such as nematodes, protists and fungi -- on beaches along the Gulf of Mexico changed significantly following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010, research from the University of New Hampshire's Hubbard Center for Genome Studies (HCGS) and partners found. The findings, which analyzed marine sediments from five Gulf Coast sites prior to and several months following shoreline oiling, are published in the June 6, 2012, issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

For millennia, mankind has discovered new drugs either through educated guesswork or blind luck. But with the proliferation of advanced computing, a new paradigm has emerged whereby one can find drug targets through simulation and modeling.

A combination of modeling, simulation, analysis and visualization, the process is accomplished through the expert application of biophysical algorithms and the high-performance, parallel-processing supercomputers of the Texas Advanced Computing Center's (TACC).

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - U.S. researchers are perfecting simulations that show a nuclear weapon's performance in precise molecular detail, tools that are becoming critical for national defense because international treaties forbid the detonation of nuclear test weapons.

The simulations must be operated on supercomputers containing thousands of processors, but doing so has posed reliability and accuracy problems, said Saurabh Bagchi, an associate professor in Purdue University's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The transformation of a fertilized egg into a functioning animal requires thousands of cell divisions and intricate rearrangements of those cells. That process is captured with unprecedented speed and precision by a new imaging technology developed at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus, which lets users track each cell in an embryo as it takes shape over hours or days.

UPTON, NY - Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified key elements in the biochemical mechanism plants use to limit the production of fatty acids. The results suggest ways scientists might target those biochemical pathways to increase the production of plant oils as a renewable resource for biofuels and industrial processes.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A new Purdue University-developed process for creating biofuels has shown potential to be cost-effective for production scale, opening the door for moving beyond the laboratory setting.

A Purdue economic analysis shows that the cost of the thermo-chemical H2Bioil method is competitive when crude oil is about $100 per barrel when using certain energy methods to create hydrogen needed for the process. If a federal carbon tax were implemented, the biofuel would become even more economical.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a technique to efficiently divide the bandwidth of the wireless spectrum in multi-hop wireless networks to improve operation and provide all users in the network with the best possible performance.

It is not very fun to ride a bicycle on a street plastered with cobblestones. At least the bike has a saddle seat filled with silicone. That lessens the shocks and bumps, and counteracts some of the annoying vibrations. In a professional's eyes, the material in the saddle is an "elastomer" – a material that is yielding and malleable, like a rubber band.