Tech

Taking their cue from the humble leaf, researchers have used microscopic folds on the surface of photovoltaic material to significantly increase the power output of flexible, low-cost solar cells.

Like a lead actress on the red carpet, nanowires—those superstars of nanotechnology—can be enhanced by a little jewelry, too. Not the diamonds and pearls variety, but the sort formed of sinuous chains of metal oxide or noble metal nanoparticles.

Environmental vibrations induced by urban railway traffic are mainly generated from uneven wheel–rail contact in the short wavelength range, according to a study in the 4th issue of SCIENCE CHINA Technological Sciences, 2012.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 will have "severe implications" for collecting and monitoring data about the health needs of the population in England, warn experts today.

In a paper published on bmj.com, Professor Allyson Pollock, Professor Alison Macfarlane and Sylvia Godden argue that the new legislation will make it "extremely difficult" to monitor health inequalities and access to care locally or nationally.

Quebec City, April 26, 2012 – Ultra fast, robust, stable, and high precision: these are some of the characteristics of a new laser developed by an international research team. This ultra-small laser paves the way for a new generation of highly powerful, ultra-stable integrated lasers. Professor Roberto Morandotti and his team at the INRS University's Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre played a leading role in the design of this versatile laser that recently made the front page of the prestigious scientific journal Nature Communications.

Levels of copper, cadmium, lead and other metals in Southern California's coastal waters have plummeted over the past four decades, according to new research from USC.

Samples taken off the coast reveal that the waters have seen a 100-fold decrease in lead and a 400-fold decrease in copper and cadmium. Concentrations of metals in the surface waters off Los Angeles are now comparable to levels found in surface waters along a remote stretch of Mexico's Baja Peninsula.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have developed a new X-ray technique to identify tissue fibres in the heart that ensure the muscle beats in a regular rhythm.

The new 3D images could further understanding of how the body's heartbeat can be disturbed, which may help medics develop ways to reduce the risk of fibrillation – a condition in which heart muscle contracts chaotically and fails to pump blood rhythmically around the body.

Alexandria, VA – A new generation of lidar, or Light Detection and Ranging technology, is bringing the laser-based survey method down to Earth. The new technology involves mounting instruments atop cars, boats and even backpacks. These new mobile mapping systems will give geoscientists a whole new way to map and study the world.

Continued expansion of industrial-scale oil palm plantations on the island of Borneo will become a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 unless strong forest and peatland protections are enacted and enforced, according to a National Academy of Sciences study.

A research team at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has succeeded in describing the structure and function of the outermost layer of the skin – the stratum corneum – at a molecular level. This opens the way not only for the large-scale delivery of drugs via the skin, but also for a deeper understanding of skin diseases.

"You could say that we've solved the puzzle of the skin barrier, something that has great potential significance for dermatology," says principal investigator Lars Norlén, associate professor at Karolinska Institutet's Dermatology and Venereology Unit.

A plant disease normally found in subarctic climates has been identified for the first time in the UK in buttercups as far south as Herefordshire.

Sclerotinia subarctica, a fungus known to affect both crops and wild plants, has also been found in carrots and meadow buttercups in Perthshire by plant scientists at the Warwick Crop Centre in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick.

It is closely related to Sclerotinia sclerotiorum which commonly causes disease in crop plants such as lettuce, carrot and oilseed rape.

SAN DIEGO—Sickle cell disease (SCD), an inherited condition that causes red blood cells to sometimes deform into a crescent shape, affects an estimated 100,000 Americans, typically those of African descent. However, far more have sickle cell trait (SCT), caused when individuals carry just a single copy of the disease-causing mutation in their genes. Rather than all their red blood cells being affected, those with SCT carry a mix of affected red blood cells and normal ones.

While working on a research sailboat gliding over glassy seas in the Pacific Ocean, oceanographer Giora Proskurowski noticed something new: The water was littered with confetti-size pieces of plastic debris, until the moment the wind picked up and most of the particles disappeared.

DENVER (April 25, 2012) – A team of scientists from University of Colorado Denver has developed a novel energy system that increases the amount of energy harvested from microbial fuel cells (MFCs) by more than 70 times. The new approach also greatly improves energy efficiency. MFCs are emerging as a way to use bacteria to directly harvest electricity from biodegradable materials, such as wastewater or marine sediments

BOULDER, Colo.— Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built a quantum simulator that can engineer interactions among hundreds of quantum bits (qubits)—10 times more than previous devices. As described in the April 26 issue of Nature*, the simulator has passed a series of important benchmarking tests and scientists are poised to study problems in material science that are impossible to model on conventional computers.