Tech

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Deaf and hard of hearing (DHoH) people must overcome significant professional barriers, particularly in health care professions. A number of accommodations are available for hearing-impaired physicians, such as electronic stethoscopes and closed-captioning technologies, but are these approaches making a difference?

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have devised a way to detect whether cells previously transplanted into a living animal are alive or dead, an innovation they say is likely to speed the development of cell replacement therapies for conditions such as liver failure and type 1 diabetes. As reported in the March issue of Nature Materials, the study used nanoscale pH sensors and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines to tell if liver cells injected into mice survived over time.

ANN ARBOR—Iridescence, or sheen that shifts color depending on your viewing angle, is pretty in peacock feathers. But it's been a nuisance for engineers trying to mimic the birds' unique color mechanism to make high-resolution, reflective, color display screens.

Now, researchers at the University of Michigan have found a way to lock in so-called structural color, which is made with texture rather than chemicals. A paper on the work is published online in the current edition of the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

Modern telecommunications happens because of fast electrons and fast photons. Can it get better? Can Moore's law---the doubling of computing power ever 18 months or so---be sustained? Can the compactness (nm-scale components) of electronics be combined with the speed of photonics? Well, one such hybrid approach is being explored at the Joint Quantum Institute (*), where scientists bring together three marvelous physics research fields: microfluidics, quantum dots, and plasmonics to probe and study optical nanostructures with spatial accuracy as fine as 12 nm.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a classroom design that gives instructors increased flexibility in how to teach their courses and improves accessibility for students, while slashing administrative costs.

Specifically, the new classrooms take advantage of the fact that students are bringing their own technology – such as laptops – to class. The classrooms also include mobile infrastructure, where whiteboards, desks and tables can be reconfigured according to the needs of students and instructors.

San Diego, CA, February 5, 2013 – Understanding the relationships between lifestyle behaviors and health outcomes can be enhanced by the use of wearable cameras, concludes a collection of studies in a special theme issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Three studies report on the latest preventive medicine research using Microsoft's wearable camera, the SenseCam.

The theory that the last Neanderthals –Homo neanderthalensis– persisted in southern Iberia at the same time that modern humans –Homo sapiens– advanced in the northern part of the peninsula, has been widely accepted by the scientific community during the last twenty years. An international study, in which researchers of the Spanish National Distance Education University (UNED) participate, questions this hypothesis.

More precise optical imaging is vital for better diagnosis of breast cancer, which strikes one in eight women annually in the United States alone.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee are using the neutron imaging beam line at ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor to evaluate neutron imaging as a powerful new tool for early detection. The study, led by Dr. Maria Cekanova of UT, working with imaging instrument scientist Hassina Bilheux, is using tissue from dogs treated at the UT College of Veterinary Medicine.

State and local health departments face significant barriers and usually do not get involved when confronted with public health concerns resulting from food animal production sites, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

January 31, 2013 - At the HiPEAC 2013 conference in Berlin, KALRAY demonstrated MPPA256, the world's first supercomputer-on-a-chip, consisting of 256 computing cores. This innovative processor combines the ultimate in several processor types and will enable a whole new class of embedded and industrial applications in the fields of image processing, signal processing, control, communications and data security.

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Businesses must deal with weary-eyed office workers who are sitting behind computer screens and watching cat videos, shopping online and updating their Facebook statuses.

A Kansas State University researcher studied cyberloafing -- wasting time at work on the Internet -- and the effects of Internet use policies and punishment on reducing cyberloafing.

A recent discovery funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) may very well lead to a process that not only benefits every uniformed service member of the Department of Defense, but everyone else as well: protection from Chemical/Biological agents, to self-cleaning apparel, to effortless thermal management, to fuel purification as well as enhanced control of leaks—especially oil and fuels.

This press release is available in Spanish.

Corn crop residues are often left on harvested fields to protect soil quality, but they could become an important raw material in cellulosic ethanol production. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) research indicates that soil quality would not decline if post-harvest corn cob residues were removed from fields.

Simple 'blast' fences called baffles could deliver improvements in air quality for people living near airports, new research has found.

Placed behind a runway, the baffles could serve as a 'virtual chimney', funnelling emissions from aircraft engines upwards where they can disperse more effectively, thereby reducing the environmental impact on people living nearby.

If you give people superpowers, will they use those abilities for good?

Researchers at Stanford recently investigated the subject by giving people the ability of Superman-like flight in the university's Virtual Human Interaction Laboratory (VHIL). While several studies have shown that playing violent videogames can encourage aggressive behavior, the new research suggests that games could be designed to train people to be more empathetic in the real world.