EUGENE, Ore. -- With the help of a new method called "dual-electrode photoelectrochemistry," University of Oregon scientists have provided new insight into how solar water-splitting cells work. An important and overlooked parameter, they report, is the ion-permeability of electrocatalysts used in water-splitting devices.
Tech
TORONTO, ON – University of Toronto researchers have developed a series of techniques to create a variety of very active iron-based catalysts necessary to produce the alcohols and amines used in the drug and perfume industry. The new synthetic methods promise to be safer and more economical and environmentally friendly than traditional industrial processes.
Philadelphia, Pa. (November 27, 2013) – Current laser therapy approaches are effective for treating excessive scars resulting from abnormal wound healing, concludes a special topic paper in the December issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
Major industries such as modern microelectronics are based on the interaction between matter and electromagnetism. Electromagnetic signals can be processed and stored in specially tailored materials. In materials science, electric and magnetic effects have usually been studied separately. There are, however, extraordinary materials called "multiferroics", in which electric and magnetic excitations are closely linked. Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) have now shown in an experiment that magnetic properties and excitations can be influenced by an electric voltage.
WASHINGTON D.C. Nov. 26, 2013 -- Mix together air, fuel, and heat and you get combustion, the chemical reaction that powers most engines in planes, trains and automobiles. And if you throw in some ionized gas (plasma), it turns out, you can sustain combustion even in conditions that would otherwise snuff out the reaction: at low air pressure, in high winds or when there's low fuel.
Creating a computer program to find relationships in networks, such as Google Plus and Facebook, may help users more easily set up and maintain privacy settings, according to researchers.
"We want to help users configure privacy to be better protected," said Anna Squicciarini, assistant professor of information sciences and technology, Penn State. "However not all users are interested or motivated to change their privacy settings,"
Humankind has a weight problem – and not only in the industrialised nations, either: the growing prosperity in many Asian or Latin American countries goes hand in hand with a way of life that quite literally has hefty consequences. Ac-cording to the WHO, over half the population in many industrialised nations is overweight, one in three people extremely so. Not only is high-calorie and fatty food a lifetime on the hips, backside and stomach; it also leaves traces in the blood, where various fats ingested via food circulate.
Halting deforestation in tropical regions requires verification of forest conditions. VTT has developed a new satellite image based method for accurate assessment of tropical forest cover. Part of the EU's seventh framework programme, the ReCover project has involved using satellite imaging to map forest cover in sites in Mexico, Guyana, Columbia, Congo and the Fiji Islands over a period of up to 20 years.
A surprisingly large percentage of very young children in California, including 70 percent of Latino children, eat fast food regularly, according to a new policy brief by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
The study found that 60 percent of all children between the ages of 2 and 5 had eaten fast food at least once in the previous week.
The majority of the state's young children also do not eat enough fruits and vegetables, with only 57 percent of parents reporting that their child ate at least five fruit and vegetable servings the previous day.
REDDING, Calif.—As trees grow larger in even-aged stands, competition develops among them. Competition weakens trees, as they contend for soil moisture, nutrients, and sunlight. Competition also increases trees' risk to bark beetles and diseases, and subsequently leads to a buildup of dead fuels. A recent study, led by Dr. Jianwei Zhang, research forester at the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station, considered if the onset of this risk could be determined.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Illinois researchers have developed a way to heal gaps in wires too small for even the world's tiniest soldering iron.
Led by electrical and computer engineering professor Joseph Lyding and graduate student Jae Won Do, the Illinois team published its results in the journal Nano Letters.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In addition to its already well-documented negative direct effects on a person's well-being, materialism also wields an indirect negative effect by making bad events even worse, according to a paper co-written by a University of Illinois expert in consumption values.
Business professor Aric Rindfleisch says not only is materialism antithetical to individual welfare, it also has a secondary effect of amplifying traumatic events – everything ranging from terrorism to car accidents and life-threatening illness – to make them seem that much worse.
WASHINGTON D.C. Nov. 25, 2013 -- Plants use a variety of methods to spread their seeds, including gravity, forceful ejection, and wind, water, and animal dispersion. But what of the mushrooms, whose spores also need to be strewn far and wide to ensure their propagation?
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Playing violent video games not only increases aggression, it also leads to less self-control and more cheating, a new study finds.
Researchers found that teens who played violent video games ate more chocolate and were more likely to steal raffle tickets in a lab experiment than were teens who played nonviolent games.
The effects were strongest in teens who scored high on a measure of moral disengagement – the ability to convince yourself that ethical standards don't apply to you in a particular situation.
WASHINGTON D.C. Nov. 24, 2013 -- A deadly menace stalks the loons, gulls and other water birds of the Great Lakes region: Type E botulism, a neuromuscular disease caused when birds eat fish infected with toxin-producing bacteria. Cases of the disease are on the rise, killing approximately 10,000 more waterfowl in 2007 than when it was first reported in 1963.