Tech | Page 1251 | Science Codex

UEA research reveals how farmers could mitigate nitrous oxide emissions

Farmers may be able to help reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) by incorporating copper into crop fertilisation processes – according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

Global agricultural emissions of the gas have increased by 20 per cent in the last century as a result of widespread use of nitrogen-based synthetic fertilizers.

But new research into the processes of nutrient cycling published today reveals how farmers could mitigate the effects of this harmful gas by boosting copper levels in fields.

Optimizing electronic correlations for superconductivity

The decadeslong effort to create practical superconductors moved a step forward with the discovery at Rice University that two distinctly different iron-based compounds share common mechanisms for moving electrons.

Samples from two classes of iron-based superconductors, pnictides and chalcogenides, employ similar coupling between electrons in their superconducting state, said Rice physicist Qimiao Si. Understanding that mechanism may help researchers find even better superconductors, he said.

Pressure cooking to improve electric car batteries

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu) — Batteries that power electric cars have problems. They take a long time to charge. The charge doesn't hold long enough to drive long distances. They don't allow drivers to quickly accelerate. They are big and bulky.

Disney Research algorithms improve animations featuring fog, smoke and underwater scenes

A team led by Disney Research, Zürich has developed a method to more efficiently render animated scenes that involve fog, smoke or other substances that affect the travel of light, significantly reducing the time necessary to produce high-quality images or animations without grain or noise.

Texting your way to weight loss

DURHAM, N.C. -- If the idea of keeping a food and exercise diary keeps you from joining a weight-loss program, there may be a better way.

Texting.

Research shows that when people keep track of their diet and exercise habits, they do better at losing weight. But sticking with detailed monitoring of what you eat and your exercise habits electronically or via traditional pen and paper can prove cumbersome. If people stop doing it, they may stop losing weight.

Respiratory disorder in the ocean

Observations show that in large regions of the tropical oceans, the so-called oxygen minimum zones (OMZ), the oxygen content declined during the last decades. In addition the ocean emitted increasingly climate relevant trace gases to the atmosphere. Based on numerical models it was speculated, that small-scale circulation pattern - so-called eddies - influence sustainably the distribution of oxygen and nutrients in the OMZ's.

More than 600 ancient seals and amulets found

Classical scholars from the Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics" made an unusually large find of seals in an ancient sanctuary in Turkey. They discovered more than 600 stamp seals and cylinder seals at the sacred site of the storm and weather god Jupiter Dolichenus, 100 of which in the current year alone. "Such large amounts of seal consecrations are unheard-of in any comparable sanctuary", said excavation director Prof. Dr. Engelbert Winter and archaeologist Dr. Michael Blömer at the end of the excavation season.

Scientists invent self-healing battery electrode

Researchers have made the first battery electrode that heals itself, opening a new and potentially commercially viable path for making the next generation of lithium ion batteries for electric cars, cell phones and other devices. The secret is a stretchy polymer that coats the electrode, binds it together and spontaneously heals tiny cracks that develop during battery operation, said the team from Stanford University and the Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

They reported the advance in the Nov. 19 issue of Nature Chemistry.

2 for 1 in solar power

Solar cells offer the opportunity to harvest abundant, renewable energy. Although the highest energy light occurs in the ultraviolet and visible spectrum, most solar energy is in the infrared. There is a trade-off in harvesting this light, so that solar cells are efficient in the infrared but waste much of the energy available from the more energetic photons in the visible part of the spectrum.

Overcoming brittleness: New insights into bulk metallic glass

From the production of tougher, more durable smart phones and other electronic devices, to a wider variety of longer lasting biomedical implants, bulk metallic glasses are poised to be mainstay materials for the 21st Century. Featuring a non-crystalline amorphous structure, bulk metallic glasses can be as strong or even stronger than steel, as malleable as plastics, conduct electricity and resist corrosion. These materials would seem to have it all save for one problem: they are often brittle, with a poor and uneven resistance to fatigue that makes their reliability questionable.

A decline in creativity? It depends on how you look

But new research from the University of Washington Information School and Harvard University, closely studying 20 years of student creative writing and visual artworks, hints that the dynamics of creativity may not break down as simply as that.

Instead, it may be that some aspects of creativity — such as those employed in visual arts — are gently rising over the years, while other aspects, such as the nuances of creative writing, could be declining.

How teens choose their friends

EAST LANSING, Mich. — It's a common perception portrayed in movies from "The Breakfast Club" to "Mean Girls." Teenage friendships are formed by joining cliques such as jocks, geeks and goths.

But a national study led by a Michigan State University scholar finds that the courses students take have powerful effects on the friendships they make. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Revisiting quantum effects in MEMS

Micro- and nano-electromechanical devices, referred to as MEMS and NEMS, are ubiquitous. These nanoscale machines with movable parts are used, for example, to trigger cars' airbags following a shock. They can also be found in smartphones, allowing them to detect how to adequately display the screen for the viewer. The trouble is that, as their size decreases, forces typically experienced at the quantum level start to matter in these nanodevices.

New hologram technology created with tiny nanoantennas

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.

Stanford scientists create a low-cost, long-lasting water splitter made of silicon and nickel

Stanford University scientists have created a silicon-based water splitter that is both low-cost and corrosion-free. The novel device – a silicon semiconductor coated in an ultrathin layer of nickel – could help pave the way for large-scale production of clean hydrogen fuel from sunlight, according to the scientists. Their results are published in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Science.