Tech

Eutrophication harms the environment in many ways. Unexpectedly, nitrogen fertilizer may also be positive for the environment. And even acidic soils, promoting the destruction of forests, can have a positive effect.

Researchers from the Biogeochemistry Department at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz found out that nitrogen fertilizer indirectly strengthens the self-cleaning capacity of the atmosphere. Their study shows that nitrous acid is formed in fertilized soil and released to the atmosphere, whereby the amount increases with increasing soil acidity.

Computer scientists in the field of artificial intelligence have made an important advance that blends computer vision, machine learning and automated planning, and created a new system that may improve everything from factory efficiency to airport operation or nursing care.

And it’s based on watching the Oregon State University Beavers play football.

Knots can now be tied systematically in the microscopic world. A team of scientists led by Uroš Tkalec from the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana (Slovenia), who has been working at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen (Germany) since September 2010, has now found a way to create every imaginable knot inside a liquid crystal.

A new lower-limb prosthetic developed at Vanderbilt University allows amputees to walk without the leg-dragging gait characteristic of conventional artificial legs.

23andMe, Inc., a leading personal genetics company has replicated over 180 genetic associations from a list of associations curated by the National Human Genome Research Institute's Office of Population Genomics ("GWAS Catalog") demonstrating that self-reported medical data is effective and reliable to validate known genetic associations. The results establish 23andMe's methodology as a significant research platform in a new era of genetic research.

Researchers have developed new computational tools that help computers determine whether faces fall into categories like attractive or threatening, according to a recent paper published in the journal PLoS ONE. Mario Rojas and other researchers at the Computer Vision Center in the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain, in cooperation with researchers from the Department of Psychology of Princeton University, developed software that is able to predict those traits in some cases with accuracies beyond 90%.

Researchers working to fix global positioning system (GPS) errors have devised software to take a more accurate measurement of altitude, particularly in mountainous areas. The software is still under development, but in initial tests it enabled centimeter-scale GPS positioning, including altitude, up to 97 percent of the time.

GPS is most often used by drivers who getting from place-to-place in two dimensions on the earth's surface. The third dimension of altitude has always been available through GPS, just with lower accuracy than that of the horizontal coordinates.

The Naval Research Laboratory and the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) through the support of the Office of Naval Research (ONR), has shown an autonomous multi-sensor motion-tracking and interrogation system that reduces the workload for analysts by automatically finding moving objects, then presenting high-resolution images of those objects with no human input.

Despite growing evidence that biofuels may not be the cure-all once envisioned, many countries are still rushing headlong with biofuels development policies that experts say are having negative as well as positive impacts on the sustainable-energy dream. That's the topic of the cover story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

3D-Metal Forming of Holland can manufacture complex aircraft components, like a cockpit fuselage, but recently demonstrated their explosive forming technology in a successful R&D-project for Airbus. The technology was developed to manufacture components for fusion reactors.

Social welfare is an unconvincing argument to most - you what you pay for is a time-honored fact. But sometimes a product is the same whether you pay a lot or a little. Or nothing at all.

A forthcoming paper in Marketing Science identifies the social-welfare benefits of open source software, despite the existence of free-riding.

In the first moments after a mining accident, first responders work against the clock to assess the situation and save the miners. But countless dangers lurk: poisonous gases, flooded tunnels, explosive vapors and unstable walls and roofs. Such potentially deadly conditions and unknown obstacles can slow rescue efforts to a frustrating pace.

To speed rescue efforts, engineers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a robot that would eliminate some of the unknowns of mine rescue operations and arm first responders with the most valuable tool: information.

Tiny particles made of polymers hold great promise for targeted delivery of drugs and as structural scaffolds for building artificial tissues. However, current production methods for such microparticles yield a limited array of shapes and can only be made with certain materials, restricting their usefulness.

Vapotherm, a privately held manufacturer of respiratory care devices for hospital and home use, announced today that its Precision Flow® system has been validated by Ikaria, Inc. and cleared by the FDA for the administration of nitric oxide via high flow nasal cannula. The product is part of Vapotherm's High Flow Specialty Gas Program for optimal conditioning of breathing gases.

Robotics Trends, a division of EH Publishing, today unveiled robonexus.com, a new website designed to serve people interested in robots and robotics technologies and want to learn about them.