Tech

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 16, 2013 – By controlling the temperature of silica rods as they grow, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory could be setting the stage for advances in anti-reflective solar cells, computer monitors, TV screens, eye glasses and more.

HOUSTON – (Dec. 16, 2013) – Ribbons of ultrathin graphene combined with polyurethane paint meant for cars is just right for deicing sensitive military radar domes, according to scientists at Rice University.

The Rice lab of chemist James Tour, in collaboration with Lockheed Martin, developed the compound to protect marine and airborne radars with a robust coating that is also transparent to radio frequencies.

The research was published this week in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces.

Scientists from the Hamburg Center for Free-Electron Laser Science have devised a novel way to boil water in less than a trillionth of a second. The theoretical concept, which has not yet been demonstrated in practice, could heat a small amount of water by as much as 600 degrees Celsius in just half a picosecond (a trillionth of a second). That is much less than the proverbial blink of an eye: one picosecond is to a second what one second is to almost 32 millennia. This would make the technique the fastest water-heating method on earth.

Researchers from the University of Houston have found a catalyst that can quickly generate hydrogen from water using sunlight, potentially creating a clean and renewable source of energy.

Their research, published online Sunday in Nature Nanotechnology, involved the use of cobalt oxide nanoparticles to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

By 2017, all of the year's end-of-life refrigerators, TVs, mobile phones, computers, monitors, e-toys and other products with a battery or electrical cord worldwide could fill a line of 40-ton trucks end-to-end on a highway straddling three quarters of the Equator.

That forecast, based on data compiled by "Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) Initiative" — a partnership of UN organizations, industry, governments, non-government and science organizations— represents a global jump of 33% in just five years.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — More intensive screening to identify firearm owners among individuals who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders, and streamlining processes to recover guns at the time those restraining orders are served could help enforce existing laws that prohibit these offenders from having firearms, a pilot study conducted by violence prevention experts at the University of California, Davis, and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has found.

HOUSTON – (Dec. 12, 2013) – Blending more ethanol into fuel to cut air pollution from vehicles carries a hidden risk that toxic or even explosive gases may find their way into buildings, according to researchers at Rice University.

Those problems would likely occur in buildings with cracked foundations that happen to be in the vicinity of fuel spills. Vapors that rise from contaminated groundwater can be sucked inside, according to Rice environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez. Once there, trapped pools of methane could ignite and toxic hydrocarbons could cause health woes, he said.

Istanbul, Turkey – 13 December 2013: Echocardiography with conventional M-mode and 2D modalities is a simple and cost effective way to increases the accuracy of pre-participation sports screening, according to research presented at EuroEcho-Imaging 2013 by Dr Alexander Kisko from Presov, Slovakia.

SAN FRANCISCO—Researchers are developing a new kind of geothermal power plant that will lock away unwanted carbon dioxide (CO2) underground—and use it as a tool to boost electric power generation by at least 10 times compared to existing geothermal energy approaches.

The technology to implement this design already exists in different industries, so the researchers are optimistic that their new approach could expand the use of geothermal energy in the U.S. far beyond the handful of states that can take advantage of it now.

ANN ARBOR— Only about a third of Americans ages 65 and older are fully able to take care of themselves and go about their daily lives completely independently, according to a new study published online in the American Journal of Public Health.

Understanding that there are different ways older adults adapt to disability is a big step in developing public health policies that maximize the quality-of-life for all older Americans, said the study's lead author, Vicki Freedman, a research professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR).

A new type of transistor that could make possible fast and low-power computing devices for energy-constrained applications such as smart sensor networks, implantable medical electronics and ultra-mobile computing is feasible, according to Penn State researchers. Called a near broken-gap tunnel field effect transistor (TFET), the new device uses the quantum mechanical tunneling of electrons through an ultrathin energy barrier to provide high current at low voltage.

Computational work conducted at Northwestern University has led to a new mathematical theory for understanding the global spread of epidemics. The resulting insights could not only help identify an outbreak's origin but could also significantly improve the ability to forecast the global pathways through which a disease might spread.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have combined ultrafast time-resolved experimental measurements with theory to reveal how an explosive responds to a high-impact shock.

The work involved advances in both ultrafast experimental shock wave methods and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation techniques, and the combination of experiment and simulation is a milestone in understanding chemical initiation and detonation.

Could a simple molecule known as methanol become a key energy source for the post-fossil fuel era? 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner George Olah, Ph.D., and Surya Prakash, Ph.D., think so. Their promising alternative fuel concept, known as the "methanol economy," is the focus of the latest episode of the American Chemical Society's (ACS') Bytesize Science series, available at http://www.youtube.com/BytesizeScience.

Perfluorinated compounds are environmental toxins that are found in fire extinguishing foam and water-repellent textiles and, for example. In a new study, a research team led from Uppsala University has seen links between high levels of perfluorinated compounds in the blood and diabetes.