November 12, 2013—Keeping an eye on your child can lower their odds for gambling by young adulthood, according to research conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Adolescents who had poor parental supervision at age 11, and which continued to decline through age 14, were significantly more likely than their peers to be problem gamblers between ages 16-22.
Tech
For solar panels, wringing every drop of energy from as many photons as possible is imperative. This goal has sent chemistry, materials science and electronic engineering researchers on a quest to boost the energy-absorption efficiency of photovoltaic devices, but existing techniques are now running up against limits set by the laws of physics.
HOUSTON – (Nov. 11, 2013) – A study led by Nancy Bergstrom, Ph.D., associate dean at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Nursing, found that nursing homes that utilize high-density foam mattresses may not need to turn residents every two hours to prevent pressure ulcers, a practice that has been used for over 50 years. A randomized controlled trial of at-risk residents demonstrated that there was no difference in the incidence of pressure ulcers for residents turned at intervals of two, three or four hours.
What if certain patients could get a bionic pick-up without undergoing the pain and lengthy recovery of surgery? University of Cincinnati researchers are working on just that idea, with the start of an exoskeleton to support people who – through age or injury – are limited in their movement.
Members of the public would prefer to look at human hands or robotic hands rather than prosthetic hands which they view as eerie, a new study by The University of Manchester has shown.
But prosthetic hands which looked more human-like were rated as less eerie, the academics found.
Researchers hope their study, published in the Journal Perception, and future work in this area will help improve designs for prosthetic limbs.
Some vegetable oils that claim to be healthy may actually increase the risk of heart disease, and Health Canada should reconsider cholesterol-lowering claims on food labelling, states an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
A new Dartmouth-led study suggests the AFL-CIO's plan to partner with progressive non-union groups may be easier said than done.
The AFL-CIO's campaign to align with nontraditional allies is intended to broaden the group's influence – the proportion of American workers belonging to a union fell to 11.3 percent last year, the lowest figure the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has ever recorded – but the study's findings underscore the difficulties the AFL-CIO will likely face when it has to share power and negotiate objectives with its new partners.
Atlanta, GA (November 9, 2013)—Preeclampsia during pregnancy may be associated with an increased risk of developing kidney failure, according to a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2013 November 5-10 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA.
PITTSBURGH—Microvehicles and other devices that can change shape or move with no power source other than a beam of light may be possible through research led by the University of Pittsburgh. The researchers are investigating polymers that "snap" when triggered by light, thereby converting light energy into mechanical work and potentially eliminating the need for traditional machine components such as switches and power sources.
An international team of high-energy physicists says the discovery of an electrically charged subatomic particle called Zc(4020) is a sign that they have begun to unveil a whole new family of four-quark objects.
The Beijing Spectrometer (BESIII) collaboration, which includes scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, previously announced the discovery of a mysterious four-quark particle called Zc(3900) in April 2013.
A new device capable of pumping human waste into the "engine room" of a self-sustaining robot has been created by a group of researchers from Bristol.
Modelled on the human heart, the artificial device incorporates smart materials called shape memory alloys and could be used to deliver human urine to future generations of EcoBot – a robot that can function completely on its own by collecting waste and converting it into electricity.
For nearly 20 years, Professor Eric Fortune has studied glass knifefish, a species of three-inch long electric fish that lives in the Amazon Basin. In his laboratory he tries to understand how their tiny brains control complex electrical behaviors. But he could not help but be intrigued by the special "ribbon fin" that knifefish use to swim back and forth. The fin oscillates at both ends, allowing the fish to move forward or backward. Biologists have long wondered why an animal would produce seemingly wasteful forces that directly oppose each other while not aiding its movement.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Using inexpensive materials configured and tuned to capture microwave signals, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have designed a power-harvesting device with efficiency similar to that of modern solar panels.
The device wirelessly converts the microwave signal to direct current voltage capable of recharging a cell phone battery or other small electronic device, according to a report appearing in the journal Applied Physics Letters in December 2013. (It is now available online.)
PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University computer scientists have developed a new password system that incorporates inkblots to provide an extra measure of protection when, as so often occurs, lists of passwords get stolen from websites.
This new type of password, dubbed a GOTCHA (Generating panOptic Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart), would be suitable for protecting high-value accounts, such as bank accounts, medical records and other sensitive information.
The University of Oklahoma Natural Products Discovery Group has taken an unconventional approach to finding new compounds with therapeutic relevance by launching a crowdsourcing initiative with citizen scientists from around the country. With this approach, OU researchers team with the public to sample soils from all across the United States for the purpose of identifying new microorganisms that produce drug-like compounds.