Tech

Clearing vegetation close to houses is the best way to reduce impacts of severe bushfires, according to a team of scientists from Australia and the USA who examined house loss after as a result of Black Saturday, when a series of fires raged across the Australian state of Victoria, killing 173 and injuring 414.

The research involving 12,000 measurements at 500 houses affected by the Black Saturday fires was only made possible by the sheer size of the devastation of February 7, 2009.

Clearing vegetation close to houses is the best way to reduce impacts of severe bushfires, according to a team of scientists from Australia and the USA who examined house loss after as a result of Black Saturday, when a series of fires raged across the Australian state of Victoria, killing 173 and injuring 414.

The research involving 12,000 measurements at 500 houses affected by the Black Saturday fires was only made possible by the sheer size of the devastation of February 7, 2009.

The Fourier transform is one of the most fundamental concepts in the information sciences. It's a method for representing an irregular signal — such as the voltage fluctuations in the wire that connects an MP3 player to a loudspeaker — as a combination of pure frequencies. It's universal in signal processing, but it can also be used to compress image and audio files, solve differential equations and price stock options, among other things.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) – Researchers in the Computational Materials Group at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) have uncovered the fundamental limits on optical transparency in the class of materials known as transparent conducting oxides. Their discovery will support development of energy efficiency improvements for devices that depend on optoelectronic technology, such as light- emitting diodes and solar cells.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. — Research into biofuel crops such as switchgrass and Miscanthus has focused mainly on how to grow these crops and convert them into fuels. But many steps lead from the farm to the biorefinery, and each could help or hinder the growth of this new industry. A new computer model developed at the University of Illinois can simplify this transition, researchers say. The model can run millions of simulations, optimizing operations to bring down costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions or achieve other goals.

Archaeological finds from cuneiform tablets and remnants of different vessels from over 4,000 years ago show that even around the dawn of civilisation, fermented cereal juice was highly enjoyed by Mesopotamia's inhabitants. However, besides the two basic ingredients, barley and emmer (a species of wheat) the brew produced in the clay jars of the Sumerians is shrouded in mystery.

Today's office workplaces are designed to be as ergonomic as possible. Even so, after hours of hunching over a desk it does you good to stand up, stretch your legs and relax your back. Spending a whole day in practically the same cramped position is a very tiring proposition.

The backrest of the seat shell (seen from behind) is constructed of ribs and joints which simulate the structure of a human torso.

(Photo Credit: Empa)

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A switch to LED lights in refrigeration units could save the retail meat industry millions of dollars each year, according to research from Kansas State University.

Kyle Steele, recent master's graduate in animal sciences and industry, Silver Lake, Kan., found that using light-emitting diode, or LED, lights in refrigeration units both saves energy for meat retailers and extends the shelf life of some beef products.

An international team of researchers including scientists at Princeton University have achieved a 100-fold increase in the ability to maintain control the spins of electrons in a solid material, a key step in the development of ultrafast quantum computers.

Until recently, the best attempts at such control lasted for only a fraction of a second. But researchers Stephen Lyon and Alexei Tyryshkin have found a way to extend the control over the spins of billions of electrons in a silicon chip for up to 10 seconds, far longer than any previous attempt.

Researchers from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC) have discovered a family of genes that could help us breed grasses with improved properties for diet and bioenergy.

The research was carried out by a team from the University of Cambridge and Rothamsted Research, which receives strategic funding from BBSRC. Their findings are published today (Tuesday 17 Jan) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

A team of four British engineers has returned to the UK after completing a gruelling journey to one of the most remote and hostile locations on the planet to put in place equipment and supplies for an ambitious project later this year. Enduring temperatures of minus 35°C the Subglacial Lake Ellsworth 'Advance Party' has successfully paved the way to explore an ancient lake buried beneath 3 km of Antarctic ice. A powerful 'tractor-train' towed nearly 70 tonnes of equipment across Antarctica's ice over deep snow and steep mountain passes.

CMOS image sensors have long since been the solution of choice for digital photography. They are much cheaper to produce than existing sensors, and they are also superior in terms of power consumption and handling. Consequently, leading manufacturers of cell-phone and digital cameras fit CMOS chips in their products almost without exception. This not only reduces the demands made of the battery, it also makes increasingly smaller cameras possible.

For the first time, a superconducting current limiter based on YBCO strip conductors has now been installed at a power plant. At the Boxberg power plant of Vattenfall, the current limiter protects the grid for own consumption that is designed for 12 000 volts and 800 amperes against damage due to short circuits and voltage peaks. The new technology co-developed by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and made by Nexans SuperConductors enhances the intrinsic safety of the grid and may help reduce the investment costs of plants.

Boston, MA — Dozens of studies, many from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, have shown that low-fat diets are no better for health than moderate- or high-fat diets—and for many people, may be worse.

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Robotics experts at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Washington (UW) have completed a set of seven advanced robotic surgery systems for use by major medical research laboratories throughout the United States. After a round of final tests, five of the systems will be shipped to medical robotics researchers at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Nebraska, UC Berkeley, and UCLA, while the other two systems will remain at UC Santa Cruz and UW.