Tech

Millions of people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries or amputees could soon interact with their computers and surroundings using just their eyes, thanks to a new device that costs less than £40.

Composed from off-the-shelf materials, the new device can work out exactly where a person is looking by tracking their eye movements, allowing them to control a cursor on a screen just like a normal computer mouse.

"Fracking" stories about shale gas extraction hit the news daily, fueling a growing conflagration between environmental protectionism and economic interests. Otherwise known as hydraulic fracturing, fracking has become a profitable venture thanks to advances in horizontal drilling technology, opening up large US reservoirs and vastly changing the natural gas market. Touted as a clean energy source and a bridge fuel to transition from fossil fuels, natural gas via fracking is also frought with public health and environmental concerns.

Since the early days of iris recognition technologies, it has been assumed that the iris was a "stable" biometric over a person's lifetime — "one enrollment for life." However, new research from University of Notre Dame researchers has found that iris biometric enrollment is susceptible to an aging process that causes recognition performance to degrade slowly over time.

Pressure to be more involved in their children's lives has many middle class men turning to sports as a way to nurture their kids. This softening of gender roles might be seen on the field, but researchers found it doesn't change traditional behavior at home – where household chores and other parenting responsibilities are still seen as mom's job.

The constant hunger to break new records has turned boat building into a high-tech business. The racing yachts that compete at international regattas today are sporting machines designed to reach top speeds. The process of optimizing the boats has been ongoing for decades. However, just a short while ago it looked as if a limit had been reached.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed highly conductive and elastic conductors made from silver nanoscale wires (nanowires). These elastic conductors could be used to develop stretchable electronic devices.

Batteries provide the "fuel" that drives electric cars – in effect, the vehicles' lifeblood. If batteries are to have a long service life, overheating must be avoided. A battery's "comfort zone" lies between 20°C and 35°C. But even a Sunday drive in the midday heat of summer can push a battery's temperature well beyond that range. The damage caused can be serious: operating a battery at a temperature of 45°C instead of 35°C halves its service life. And batteries are expensive – a new one can cost as much as half the price of the entire vehicle.

Fuel cells are inefficient because the catalyst most commonly used to convert chemical energy to electricity is made of the wrong material, a researcher at Case Western Reserve University argues. Rather than continue the futile effort to tweak that material - platinum - to make it work better, Chemistry Professor Alfred Anderson urges his colleagues to start anew.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the second-round draft version of its updated security standard for identity credentials in the Personal Identity Verification cards (PIV cards) that all federal employees and contractors must use. NIST is requesting comments from the public on the document, which is intended to be the last draft before the final version is published.

Scientists are reporting new evidence that a white rot fungus shows promise in the search for a way to use waste corn stalks, cobs and leaves – rather than corn itself – to produce ethanol to extend supplies of gasoline. Their study on using the fungus to break down the tough cellulose and related material in this so-called "corn stover" to free up sugars for ethanol fermentation appears in the ACS' journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Researchers who are studying a new magnetic effect that converts heat to electricity have discovered how to amplify it a thousand times over - a first step in making the technology more practical.

In the so-called spin Seebeck effect, the spin of electrons creates a current in magnetic materials, which is detected as a voltage in an adjacent metal. Ohio State University researchers have figured out how to create a similar effect in a non-magnetic semiconductor while producing more electrical power.

HARLINGEN, Texas (July 11, 2012) — Air samples from homes of Hispanic mothers-to-be along the Texas-Mexico border contained multiple pesticides in a majority of the houses, according to a study conducted by the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.

PHILADELPHIA – In the aftermath of the recent United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, the focus of many industrialized nations is beginning to shift toward planning for a sustainable future. One of the foremost challenges for sustainability is efficient use of renewable energy resources, a goal that hinges on the ability to store this energy when it is produced and disburse it when it is needed.

A team of scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and University of Cambridge has made a significant advance in using nano-devices to create accurate electrical currents. Electrical current is composed of billions and billions of tiny particles called electrons. NPL scientists have developed an electron pump – a nano-device – which picks these electrons up one at a time and moves them across a barrier, creating a very well-defined electrical current.

Tiny magnetic particles may help doctors track cells in the body to better determine if treatments work, according to research reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, an American Heart Association journal.

Researchers showed that injecting immune cells containing magnetic particles into the bloodstream was safe and did not interfere with cell function. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans can then track the cells moving through the body.