Tech | Page 1002 | Science Codex

Friends help friends on Facebook feel better

PITTSBURGH--Personal interactions on Facebook can have a major impact on a person's feelings of well-being and satisfaction with life just as much as getting married or having a baby, a new study by Carnegie Mellon University and Facebook researchers shows.

But not just any interaction has these positive effects. Passively reading posts or one-click feedback such as "likes" don't move the needle. What really makes people feel good is when those they know and care about write personalized posts or comments.

High utility bills trigger anxiety and depression in low-income households

NEW YORK (September 6, 2016)--A researcher at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health studied a hidden source of hardship: energy insecurity, the inability to adequately meet basic household energy needs, and its adverse environmental, health, and social consequences.

Researchers use hardware to accelerate core-to-core on-chip communication

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the Intel Corporation have developed a new way to significantly accelerate core-to-core communication. Their advance relies on hardware to coordinate efforts between cores for multiprocessor operations.

Many computer functions require multiple processors, or cores, to work together in a coordinated way. Currently, this coordination is achieved by sending and receiving software commands between cores. But this requires cores to read and execute the software, which takes time.

Body heat as a power source

Electronics integrated into textiles are gaining in popularity: Systems like smartphone displays in a sleeve or sensors to detect physical performance in athletic wear have already been produced. The main problem with these systems tends to be the lack of a comfortable, equally wearable source of power. Chinese scientists are now aiming to obtain the necessary energy from body heat. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, they have introduced a flexible, wearable thermocell based on two different gel electrolytes.

Rice University-led team morphs nanotubes into tougher carbon for spacecraft, satellites

Superman can famously make a diamond by crushing a chunk of coal in his hand, but Rice University scientists are employing a different tactic.

Rice materials scientists are making nanodiamonds and other forms of carbon by smashing nanotubes against a target at high speeds. Nanodiamonds won't make anyone rich, but the process of making them will enrich the knowledge of engineers who design structures that resist damage from high-speed impacts.

Cyber Security Survey reveals darknet use higher among 18-24 year olds

A recent survey by the Cyber Security Centre at the University of Kent has revealed that 5% of British adults have browsed the darknet, with 1% acknowledging they have bought items from it, but this percentage is much higher (14%) for 18-24 year olds.

The survey, now in its third year, also revealed that:

Researchers Make Key Discovery Toward Engineering Functional Breast Tissue

Each year, tens of thousands of women receive mastectomies as a way to treat or prevent breast cancer. Many of them opt to receive reconstructive surgery to restore their original shape and form. Thanks to a new study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, reconstructive surgery may soon also restore mothers’ ability to nurse their children.

Personnel selection, training could mitigate effects of cognitive lock-up in automation operators

Automation failures have been the cause of such widely reported disasters as the crash of Air France Flight 447 in 2009, with most of the focus placed on deficiencies in the automated system. Although automation does help in avoiding human error in completing tasks, people are still needed to monitor how well the automated system is operating.

Iowa State engineers treat printed graphene with lasers to enable paper electronics

AMES, Iowa - The researchers in Jonathan Claussen's lab at Iowa State University (who like to call themselves nanoengineers) have been looking for ways to use graphene and its amazing properties in their sensors and other technologies.

Graphene is a wonder material: The carbon honeycomb is just an atom thick. It's great at conducting electricity and heat; it's strong and stable. But researchers have struggled to move beyond tiny lab samples for studying its material properties to larger pieces for real-world applications.

Drugs in the water? Don't blame the students

With nearly sixty percent of American adults now taking prescription medications--from antidepressants to cholesterol treatments--there is growing concern about how many drugs are flowing through wastewater treatment facilities and into rivers and lakes. Research confirms that pharmaceutical pollution can cause damage to fish and other ecological problems--and may pose risks to human health too.

Scientists have assumed that people flushing their unused medications down the drain or toilet was a major source of these drugs in the water.

A new technique opens up advanced solar cells

In a photovoltaic cell, light generates opposite charges in the active layer. The charges must then be separated as quickly as possible to keep them from recombining. Positive charges are driven by a built-in electric field to one metallic contact, while negative charges migrate in the opposite direction to another electrode. Using a unique ultra-fast spectroscopic technique, EPFL scientists have now been able to track the fate of charged pairs in an advanced type of solar cells currently under intense research. The work is published in Nature Communications.

London air pollution policies are starting to have impact, but more work to be done

New research by scientists at King's College London suggests that air pollution from London's roads is improving overall but more work may be needed to tackle some sources of traffic pollution, which continue to breach limits in many parts of the city.

The study looked at trends in air pollution over a ten-year period spanning 2005 to 2014, using data collected from 65 roads. Researchers looked at changes in a number of pollutants including nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter as fine (PM2.5) and coarser (PM10) particles, carbon dioxide (CO2) and black carbon.

For first time, carbon nanotube transistors outperform silicon

MADISON -- For decades, scientists have tried to harness the unique properties of carbon nanotubes to create high-performance electronics that are faster or consume less power -- resulting in longer battery life, faster wireless communication and faster processing speeds for devices like smartphones and laptops.

Study: Safety net programs don't support high rates of trauma in participants

New research by the Center for Hunger-Free Communities at Drexel University shows that participants in a federal assistance program for families living in poverty have overwhelmingly high levels of adversity and exposure to violence that can limit their success in the workplace. In spite of that, employment is a requirement to qualify for many of these programs.

Stanford-hosted study examines how AI might affect urban life in 2030

A panel of academic and industrial thinkers has looked ahead to 2030 to forecast how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) might affect life in a typical North American city - in areas as diverse as transportation, health care and education ¬- and to spur discussion about how to ensure the safe, fair and beneficial development of these rapidly emerging technologies.