WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Researchers have shown theoretically how to control or eliminate the formation of "dendrites" that cause lithium-ion batteries to fail, an advance that if realized would improve safety and might enable the batteries to be charged within a matter of minutes instead of hours.The dendrites are lithium deposits that form on electrode surfaces and may continue to grow until they cause an internal short circuit, which results in battery failure and possible fire.
Tech
New research from North Carolina State University finds that older adults who play video games report higher levels of emotional well-being.
Researchers asked 140 people aged 63 and older how often they played video games, if at all. The study participants then took a battery of tests to assess their emotional and social well-being. 61 percent of study participants played video games at least occasionally, with 35 percent of participants saying they played at least once per week.
Ultrasound technology could soon experience a significant upgrade that would enable it to produce high-quality, high-resolution images, thanks to the development of a new key material by a team of researchers that includes a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Dining on field grasses would be ruinous to human teeth, but mammals such as horses, rhinos and gazelles evolved long, strong teeth that are up to the task.
New research led by the University of Washington challenges the 140-year-old assumption that finding fossilized remains of prehistoric animals with such teeth meant the animals were living in grasslands and savannas. Instead it appears certain South American mammals evolved the teeth in response to the gritty dust and volcanic ash they encountered while feeding in an ancient tropical forest.
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Bringing the concept of an "artificial leaf" closer to reality, a team of researchers at MIT has published a detailed analysis of all the factors that could limit the efficiency of such a system. The new analysis lays out a roadmap for a research program to improve the efficiency of these systems, and could quickly lead to the production of a practical, inexpensive and commercially viable prototype.
CHICAGO --- A new mother may constantly worry and check to see if her baby is still breathing. Or she may fret about germs, obsessing whether she's properly sterilized the bottles, then wash and rewash them.
A new Northwestern Medicine® study found that women who have recently given birth have a much higher rate of obsessive-compulsive symptoms than the general population.
Humidity measurements in the atmosphere are of essential importance, since water vapour, as the most important natural greenhouse gas, has a strong influence on the Earth's atmospheric radiation balance and, thus, decisively influences our climate. In addition, water is responsible for meteorological phenomena such as the formation of clouds and precipitation.
A century after Western explorers first crossed the dangerous landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctic, researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) have successfully deployed a self-guided robot that uses ground-penetrating radar to map deadly crevasses hidden in ice-covered terrains.
Deployment of the robot--dubbed Yeti--could make Arctic and Antarctic explorations safer by revealing unseen fissures buried beneath ice and snow that could potentially claim human lives and expensive equipment.
Humidity measurements in the atmosphere are of essential importance, since water vapour, as the most important natural greenhouse gas, has a strong influence on the Earth's atmospheric radiation balance and, thus, decisively influences our climate. In addition, water is responsible for meteorological phenomena such as the formation of clouds and precipitation.
CAMBRIGDE, MA -- In the last decade, theoretical computer science has seen remarkable progress on the problem of solving graph Laplacians — the esoteric name for a calculation with hordes of familiar applications in scheduling, image processing, online product recommendation, network analysis, and scientific computing, to name just a few. Only in 2004 did researchers first propose an algorithm that solved graph Laplacians in "nearly linear time," meaning that the algorithm's running time didn't increase exponentially with the size of the problem.
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissues, resulting in inflammation and tissue damage.
Scientists at the Universities of Liverpool have found evidence of an ancient micro-continent buried beneath the Indian Ocean.
The ancient continent extends more than 1500 km in length from the Seychelles to the island of Mauritius and contains rocks as old as 2,000 million years, much older than the Indian Ocean which has formed only in the last 165 million years.
The computer is increasingly used to help in complex situations. The latest innovations in this area will be presented by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the FZI Research Center for Information Technology at the CeBIT in early March (hall 9, stand G33). User-friendly systems display all facts to surgeons during operation and simultaneously translate university lectures for foreign students. In addition, smart living environments that support comfort, safety, and care services and software for the relocation of e-mails will be presented.
WASHINGTON (Feb. 28, 2013) –The American College of Cardiology and the Heart Rhythm Society, along with key specialty societies, today released appropriate use criteria for implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). The document provides assessed levels of appropriateness for implanting the devices in 369 real-life clinical scenarios, with the goal of enhancing physician and patient decision making and improving care and health outcomes.