Tech

CORVALLIS, Ore. –More than 60 percent of the energy produced by cars, machines, and industry around the world is lost as waste heat – an age-old problem - but researchers have found a new way to make "thermoelectric" materials for use in technology that could potentially save vast amounts of energy.

And it's based on a device found everywhere from kitchens to dorm rooms: a microwave oven.

Human devices, from light bulbs to iPods, send information using electrons. Human bodies and all other living things, on the other hand, send signals and perform work using ions or protons.

Materials scientists at the University of Washington have built a novel transistor that uses protons, creating a key piece for devices that can communicate directly with living things. The study is published online this week in the interdisciplinary journal Nature Communications.

A scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is exploring how rangeland ecologists could use high-resolution digital panoramas to track landscape changes.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) hydraulic engineer Mary Nichols uses a digital camera to create a single high-resolution landscape panorama that users can zoom in on to study individual plants, animals or specific features in the landscape.

A grain of salt or two may be all that microbial electrolysis cells need to produce hydrogen from wastewater or organic byproducts, without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere or using grid electricity, according to Penn State engineers.

"This system could produce hydrogen anyplace that there is wastewater near sea water," said Bruce E. Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering. "It uses no grid electricity and is completely carbon neutral. It is an inexhaustible source of energy."

Daejeon, the Republic of Korea, August 8, 2011—Can a flexible LED conformably placed on the human heart, situated on the corrugated surface of the human brain, or rolled upon the blood vessels, diagnose or even treat various diseases? These things might be a reality in the near future.

The team of Professor Keon Jae Lee (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KAIST) has developed a new concept: a biocompatible, flexible Gallium Nitride (GaN) LED that can detect prostate cancer.

To cost‑effectively protect the climate, not only an emissions trading scheme but also financial support for new technologies is needed. Economising on targeted funding, for example for renewable energies, makes climate protection more expensive ‑ as scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) now calculated for the first time, using a complex computer simulation that spans the entire 21st century.

The brightest gamma ray beam ever created- more than a thousand billion times more brilliant than the sun- has been produced in research led at the University of Strathclyde- and could open up new possibilities for medicine.

Physicists have discovered that ultra-short duration laser pulses can interact with ionised gas to give off beams that are so intense they can pass through 20 cm of lead and would take 1.5 m of concrete to be completely absorbed.

SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 19, 2011 – University of Utah engineers who built wireless networks that see through walls now are aiming the technology at a new goal: noninvasively measuring the breathing of surgery patients, adults with sleep apnea and babies at risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Gamers have solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade. The gamers achieved their discovery by playing Foldit, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules.

After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, they called in the Foldit players. The scientists challenged the gamers to produce an accurate model of the enzyme. They did it in only three weeks.

Researchers from the University of Toronto, the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology and Pennsylvania State University have created the most efficient solar cell ever made based on collodial-quantum-dots (CQD), they report in the latest issue of Nature Materials.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A research team at Michigan State University has developed a laser that could detect roadside bombs – the deadliest enemy weapon encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Berkeley, CA — The installed cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States fell in 2010 and into the first half of 2011, according to the latest edition of an annual PV cost tracking report released by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A new "subconscious mode" for smartphones and other WiFi-enabled mobile devices could extend battery life by as much as 54 percent for users on the busiest networks.

University of Michigan computer science and engineering professor Kang Shin and doctoral student Xinyu Zhang will present their new power management approach Sept. 21 at the ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking in Las Vegas. The approach is still in the proof-of-concept stage and is not yet commercially available.

An avatar is really no more than a graphical representation, generally human, which is associated with a user for identification purposes. Avatars can be either photographs or art drawings, and certain technologies enable their use in three dimensions.

Until now, 3D avatars were mainly used as fun objects for diversion and entertainment purposes of the end user. However, the Media Unit at Tecnalia has developed a "Personalised 3D avatars" technology, the aim of which is to facilitate the building of low-cost 3D avatars.