Tech

Here's a new technology that's potentially disruptive precisely because it's non-disruptive: Scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a device that enables NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy, coupled with a powerful molecular sensor, to analyze molecular interactions in viscous solutions and fragile materials such as liquid crystals.

In a first, their method allows the sensor, hyperpolarized xenon gas, to be dissolved into minute samples of substances without disrupting their molecular order.

Heterostructures (referred to as Van der Waals {VdW}) are attracting a great deal of attention due to their diverse physical and chemical properties. A VdW heterostructure is assembled by stacking two or more different 2D semiconducting crystals on top of each other. The structure is grown by repeating the practice, the resulting stack represents an artificial material constructed in a certain sequence, akin to Lego blocks.

Dr. Seungwoo Song with Prof. Hyun Myung Jang and colleagues Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) have clarified why the measured remanent polarization of orthorhombic GaFeO3 (o-GFO), a prominent ferrite owing to its piezoelectricity and ferrimagnetism, is about 50 times smaller than its predicted value. Their research was published in NPG Asia Materials.

Builders of future superconducting quantum computers could learn a thing or two from semiconductors, according to a report in Nature Communications this week. By leveraging the good ideas of the natural world and the semiconductor community, researchers may be able to greatly simplify the operation of quantum devices built from superconductors. They call this a "semiconductor-inspired" approach and suggest that it can provide a useful guide to improving superconducting quantum circuits.

Adults who commute to work via cycling or walking have lower body fat percentage and body mass index (BMI) measures in mid-life compared to adults who commute via car, according to a new study in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal.

Even people who commute via public transport also showed reductions in BMI and percentage body fat compared with those who commuted only by car. This suggests that even the incidental physical activity involved in public transport journeys may be important.

A University of Colorado Boulder study shows that when rounding curves, Paralympic sprinters wearing left-leg prostheses are slowed more than athletes with right-leg amputations -- a disadvantage that could cost them dearly in official competition.

The study showed lower left-leg amputee athletes sprinting in the inside lane of an indoor track ran about 4 percent slower than athletes with right-leg amputations. Based on that, the researchers estimate a 0.2 second difference in an outdoor 200-meter race, said CU-Boulder Research Associate Paolo Taboga, chief study author.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have adapted a technology developed for solar energy in order to selectively remove one of the trickiest and most-difficult-to-remove elements in nuclear waste pools across the country, making the storage of nuclear waste safer and nontoxic -- and solving a decades-old problem.

Through experiments and computer models of gas releases, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have simulated signatures of gases from underground nuclear explosions (UNEs) that may be carried by winds far from the detonation.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 16, 2016 -- Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have combined advanced in-situ microscopy and theoretical calculations to uncover important clues to the properties of a promising next-generation energy storage material for supercapacitors and batteries.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Carrots and apples not only taste different. They make distinct sounds when chewed.

This may seem like trivial knowledge, but it's not in the laboratory of University at Buffalo computer scientist Wenyao Xu, who is creating a library that catalogues the unique sounds that foods make as we bite, grind and swallow them.

The library is part of a software package that supports AutoDietary, a high-tech, food-tracking necklace being developed by Xu and researchers at Northeastern University in China.

In a study published online by JAMA Cardiology, Pierluigi Tricoci, M.D., Ph.D., M.H.S., of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, N.C., and colleagues assessed the cumulative incidence of sudden cardiac death (SCD) during long-term follow-up after non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE ACS; a type of heart attack or unstable angina with certain findings on an electrocardiogram), and developed a risk model and risk score for SCD after NSTE ACS.

HANOVER, N.H. - Warmer, wetter conditions in the Arctic are accelerating the loss of carbon stored in tundra and permafrost soils, creating a potential positive feedback that further boosts global temperatures, a Dartmouth College study finds.

The findings appear in the journal Climate Change Responses.

The antimicrobial arsenal that we count on to save millions of lives each year is alarmingly thin--and these microbes are rapidly evolving resistance to our weapons. But help may be on the way: In a study posted in the AMB Express, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) show that automated techniques commonly used to screen new drugs for mammalian cell toxicity could also dramatically speed up the challenging task of antimicrobial discovery.

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and MIT have combined an innovative microscopy technique with a methodology for building inexpensive mini-microscopes, allowing them to capture images at a resolution that, until now, has only been possible with benchtop microscopes that are orders of magnitude higher in cost. Details about the hybrid technique, known as Expansion Mini-Microscopy (ExMM), are published this week in Scientific Reports.

Amsterdam, March 16, 2016 - A new kind of fuel cell that can turn urine into electricity could revolutionize the way we produce bioenergy, particularly in developing countries. The research, published in Electrochimica Acta, describes a new design of microbial fuel cell that's smaller, cheaper and more powerful than traditional ones.

The world's supply of fossil fuels is being depleted, and there is increasing pressure to develop new renewable sources of energy. Bioenergy is one such source, and microbial fuel cells can produce it.