Tech

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan State University research has put the possibility of bomb-detecting lasers at security checkpoints within reach.

In the current issue of Applied Physics Letters, Marcos Dantus, MSU chemistry professor and founder of BioPhotonic Solutions, has developed a laser that can detect micro traces of explosive chemicals on clothing and luggage.

New research to be presented at the 18th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS 2013) this week could result in a sea change in how to secure computations.

The collaborative work between the University of Bristol and Aarhus University (Denmark) will be presented by Bristol PhD student Peter Scholl from the Department of Computer Science.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 9, 2013 — The pavement recipe for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), home of the Indianapolis 500, could be used to improve the smoothness, durability and safety of some of the 2 million miles of paved roads and streets where people move at ordinary speeds, scientists said here today.

You can't saw without producing sawdust – and that can be expensive if, for example, the "dust" comes from wafer manufacturing in the photovoltaic and semiconductor industries, where relatively high kerf loss has been accepted as an unavoidable, if highly regrettable, fact of life.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 9, 2013 — Already noted for saving gasoline and having zero emissions, electric cars have quietly taken on an unlikely new dimension –– the ability to reach blazing speeds that rival the 0-to-60 performance of a typical Porsche or BMW, and compete on some racecourses with the world's best gasoline-powered cars, an authority said here today at a major scientific conference.

Renewable energy holds the promise of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. But there are times when solar and wind farms generate more electricity than is needed by consumers. Storing that surplus energy in batteries for later use seems like an obvious solution, but a new study from Stanford University suggests that might not always be the case.

Boston, Mass. —Employing a unique quality improvement methodology, called Standardized Clinical Assessment and Management Plans (SCAMPs), physicians have demonstrated that chest pain in children, rarely caused by heart disease, can be effectively evaluated in the ambulatory setting using minimal resources, even across a diverse patient population. So found a multi-institutional study, led by cardiologists throughout New England and published September 9 in Pediatrics.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Obese teenagers who lose weight are at risk of developing eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, Mayo Clinic researchers imply in a recent Pediatrics article. Eating disorders among these patients are also not being adequately detected because the weight loss is seen as positive by providers and family members.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — The diets of people in North America shed almost 1.5 billion pounds of unhealthy saturated and trans fat over the last six years thanks to a new phase in an ongoing agricultural revolution, an expert said here today.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — A revolutionary new solar energy technology that turns water into steam without boiling the entire container of water has become the basis for new devices to sanitize medical and dental instruments and human waste in developing countries, scientists said here today.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — An ambitious partnership among more than 100 organizations and governments led by Procter & Gamble's (P&G's) nonprofit program, Children's Safe Drinking Water (CSDW), has helped provide more than 6 billion quarts of clean drinking water to families in developing countries, saving an estimated 32,000 lives. And they're just getting started.

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — With almost 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) released each year from burning coal, gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuels in the United States alone, scientists are seeking ways to turn the tables on the No. 1 greenhouse gas and convert that troublesome CO2 back into fuel.

Most people think of seismometers as ground-based instruments, but earthquakes can be detected by satellites too, as demonstrated by Garcia et al. using data from the European Space Agency's Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission.

They call GOCE "the first seismometer in orbit around the Earth," because it was able to detect infrasonic waves in the atmosphere generated by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.

By blending their expertise, two materials science engineers at Washington University in St. Louis changed the electronic properties of new class of materials — just by exposing it to light.

With funding from the Washington University International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES), Parag Banerjee, PhD, and Srikanth Singamaneni, PhD, and both assistant professors of materials science, brought together their respective areas of research.

North Carolina State University researchers have come up with a new technique for improving the connections between stacked solar cells, which should improve the overall efficiency of solar energy devices and reduce the cost of solar energy production. The new connections can allow these cells to operate at solar concentrations of 70,000 suns worth of energy without losing much voltage as "wasted energy" or heat.