Tech

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) analyzed more than 50,000 home sales near 67 wind facilities in 27 counties across nine U.S. states, yet was unable to uncover any impacts to nearby home property values.

"This is the second of two major studies we have conducted on this topic [the first was published in 2009, see below], and in both studies [using two different datasets] we find no statistical evidence that operating wind turbines have had any measurable impact on home sales prices," says Ben Hoen, the lead author of the new report.

Widespread wildfires are lighting up Indonesia, but these fires were not started accidentally. These fires were set deliberately to clear land for palm oil companies. This type of "slash-and-burn" agricultural has been used for centuries to clear land for new planting, however, the setting of such fires is now illegal in Indonesia. That doesn't seem to be stopping plantation owners from continuing this practice.

Gelidium corneum is a very common alga along the Basque coast. It grows at a depth of between 3 and 15 metres, and from September onwards can be seen out of the water. It gets broken up by storms and washed up on the beaches where it forms a red carpet. On some parts of the coast, above all in transparent water zones, the fronds of the algae have turned yellowish. The researchers have identified this change as a symptom of stress.

Dartmouth researchers have developed a molecular switch that changes a liquid crystal's readout color based on a chemical input. This new development may open the way for using liquid crystals in detecting harmful gases, pathogens, explosives and other chemical substances.

The findings appear in the journal Angewandte Chemie. A PDF of the study is available on request.

It is a lengthy process before a contaminant is identified as such and its harmful effects are highlighted with a worldwide ban. This is acknowledged by Norbert Heeb, chemist in Empa's Analytical Chemistry Lab. He was involved in uncovering the exact structures of HBCD (hexabromocyclododecane). On closer inspection, the substance turned out to be a whole group of compounds.

Do violent video games such as 'Mortal Kombat,' 'Halo' and 'Grand Theft Auto' trigger teenagers with symptoms of depression or attention deficit disorder to become aggressive bullies or delinquents? No, according to Christopher Ferguson of Stetson University and independent researcher Cheryl Olson from the US in a study published in Springer's Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Basel Physicists in collaboration with Dutch researchers have demonstrated a new method for polarizing nuclear spins in extremely small samples. By Monitoring and controlling spin fluctuations, the method may provide a route for enhancing the resolution of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the nanometer-scale, allowing researchers to make 3D images of smaller objects than ever before. The results have been published in the journal Nature Physics.

COLUMBUS, Ohio—They're not exactly the peanut butter and jelly of semiconductors, but when you put them together, something magical happens.

Alone, neither lanthanum aluminate nor strontium titanate exhibit any particularly notable properties. But when they are layered together, they become not only conductive, but also magnetic.

In the current online edition of Nature Physics, researchers at The Ohio State University report the first-ever theoretical explanation to be offered for this phenomenon since it was discovered in 2004.

A lightweight and field-portable device invented at UCLA that conducts kidney tests and transmits data through a smartphone attachment may significantly reduce the need for frequent office visits by people with diabetes and others with chronic kidney ailments.

A new model to predict the risk of contaminants in groundwater will save those who use it significant time and money, highlighting drinking water quality issues in the process. This model is currently being implemented in China to determine the spread of groundwater contamination by arsenic.

"Arsenic poisoning due to the use of contaminated drinking water is a major health problem in many parts of the world," explained Dr. Luis Rodriguez-Lado, a researcher on the model design team.

Findings from a University of Alberta researcher shed new light on what may be stopping people from recycling more.

Researchers have for the first time created an X-ray laser based on a solid. The method developed at DESY's free-electron laser FLASH opens up new avenues of investigation in materials research, as reported by the team of Prof. Alexander Föhlisch of the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB) in the British scientific journal "Nature." "This technology makes it possible to analyse sensitive samples that otherwise are quickly destroyed by intense X-ray light," notes co-author Prof.

Efforts to promote interdisciplinary research that addresses complex interactions between humans and their environment have become commonplace in recent years, but success is often elusive. To better understand the obstacles facing natural and social scientists attempting such work, Eric D. Roy of Louisiana State University and seven coauthors from a variety of institutions surveyed researchers at all career stages who were interested and experienced in such research. Roy and his coauthors report their findings in the September issue of BioScience.

Food and biofuel crops could be grown and maintained in many places where it wasn't previously possible, such as deserts, landfills and former mining sites, thanks to an inexpensive, non-chemical soil additive.

Powerful x-rays can now be used to rapidly and accurately detect gold in ore samples, thanks to a new technique developed by CSIRO – a move that could save Australia's minerals industry hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

CSIRO has conducted a pilot study that shows that gamma-activation analysis (GAA) offers a much faster, more accurate way to detect gold than traditional chemical analysis methods.