Tech

Researchers at the University of Southampton, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Cambridge, have developed a technique to help treat fatal diseases more effectively. Dr Sumeet Mahajan and his group at the Institute for Life Sciences at Southampton are using gold nanoprobes to identify different types of cells, so that they can use the right ones in stem cell therapies.

Scientists have developed a new understanding of how turbulence works, which could help to optimise vehicle performance and save billions in global energy costs.

Dr Ati Sharma, a senior lecturer in aerodynamics and flight mechanics at the University of Southampton, has been working in collaboration with Beverley McKeon, professor of aeronautics and associate director of the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to build models of turbulent flow.

A team of researchers led by Prof. Young-Tae Chang from National University of Singapore and Prof. Yoon-Kyoung Cho from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Korea, developed a fluorescent caffeine detector and a detection kit that lights up like a traffic light when caffeine is present in various drinks and solutions.

The research work was published in Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group) on July 23, 2013.

Once a James Bond fantasy, diamond-based lasers are now becoming a reality.

Ground-breaking research is harnessing the unique properties of diamonds to develop a new generation of lasers that could lead to many benefits, from better treatment of skin complaints and diabetes-related eye conditions to improved pollution monitoring and aeronautical engineering.

For adults infected with HIV in Thailand a monitoring strategy based on CD4 count (a type of white blood cell) is non-inferior to the recommended monitoring strategy measuring the amount of HIV virus in a patient's blood, to determine when to switch from first-line to more costly second-line antiretroviral treatment according to a clinical trial published this week in PLOS Medicine.

More efficient catalytic converters on autos, improved batteries and more sensitive gas sensors are some of the potential benefits of a new system that can directly measure the manner in which nanocrystals adsorb and release hydrogen and other gases.

The technique, which was developed by Vanderbilt University Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Rizia Bardhan, is described in a paper published online Aug. 4 by the journal Nature Materials.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have created a new flexible nano-scaffold for rechargeable lithium ion batteries that could help make cell phone and electric car batteries last longer.

The research, published in Advanced Materials, shows the potential of manufactured sheets of aligned carbon nanotubes coated with silicon, a material with a much higher energy storage capacity than the graphite composites typically used in lithium ion batteries.

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory are helping to create electronics capabilities for electric vehicles, with the development of a high temperature capacitor.

Electric Vehicles (EV) are hoped to represent more than 50% of worldwide light duty vehicle sales by 2050. The absence of suitable capacitors is one of the major barriers to meeting this goal.

The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published a report on the land use requirements of solar power plants based on actual land-use practices from existing solar facilities.

"Having real data from a majority of the solar plants in the United States will help people make proper comparisons and informed decisions," lead author Sean Ong said. The report, "Land-use Requirements for Solar Power Plants in the United States,"PDF was written with NREL colleagues Clinton Campbell, Robert Margolis, Paul Denholm and Garvin Heath.

Mechanical engineers at the University of California, San Diego invented a robot designed to scoot along utility lines, searching for damage and other problems that require repairs. Made of off-the-shelf electronics and plastic parts printed on an inexpensive 3D printer, the SkySweeper prototype could be scaled up for less than $1,000, making it significantly more economical than the two models of robots currently used to inspect power lines.

Australian soils are losing about 1.6 million tonnes of carbon per year from wind erosion and dust storms affecting agricultural productivity, our economy and carbon accounts, according to new research.Top soil is rich in nutrients and carbon but is increasingly being blown away by events such as the 'Red Dawn' in Sydney in 2009.

When wind lifts carbon dust into the atmosphere it changes the amount and location of soil carbon.

Some carbon falls back to the ground while some leaves Australia or ends up in the ocean.

DURHAM, N.H., Aug. 5, 2013 – As sensor networks revolutionize ecological data collection by making it possible to collect high frequency information from remote areas in real time, scientists with the U.S. Forest Service are advocating for automated quality control and quality assurance standards that will make that data reliable.

Dartmouth and UC Berkeley researchers have developed new software to detect faked photos, using a geometric algorithm to locate inconsistent shadows that are not obvious to the naked eye.

The new method is a significant step in the field of digital forensics, which national security agencies, the media, scientific journals and others use to differentiate between authentic images and computerized forgeries.

An iconic moment in the history of Hollywood movie magic was born in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz when Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale stepped out of the black and white world of Kansas into the rainbow colored world of Oz. An iconic moment in the history of infrared imaging may have been born with the announcement of the first technique to offer full color IR tomography.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Now that the Internet's basic protocols are more than 30 years old, network scientists are increasingly turning their attention to ad hoc networks — communications networks set up, on the fly, by wireless devices — where unsolved problems still abound.

Most theoretical analyses of ad hoc networks have assumed that the communications links within the network are stable. But that often isn't the case with real-world wireless devices — as anyone who's used a cellphone knows.