Data mining Twitter "tweets" may produce a gold mine for two University of Cincinnati computer science students.
William Clifton and Alex Padgett have developed a web-based application called The Tweetographer that allows users to learn about events in their cities or neighborhoods. The app works by collecting tweets sent by large numbers of Twitter users and extracting information about events – parties, concerts, games, etc. – happening nearby. It's like a real-time events guide.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are leading the way in learning more about "biochar," the charred biomass created from wood, other plant material, and manure.
The studies by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists at laboratories across the country support the USDA priorities of promoting international food security and responding to global climate change. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency.
Fuel made from wood could become a competitive commercial alternative to fuel made from corn by 2020 if the wood biofuel industry is supported, according to a new University of British Columbia study.
Corn ethanol is currently blended with gasoline to satisfy government-mandated targets to include renewable content in transportation fuel. Compared to corn, wood-based biofuel is considered more sustainable but is not currently produced in large commercial quantities in Canada and the United States because the costs are too great.
University of Constance physicists Daniel Mutter and Peter Nielaba have visualized changes in shape memory materials down to the nanometric scale in an article about to be published in EPJ B¹.
Metallic alloys can be stretched or compressed in such a way that they stay deformed once the strain on the material has been released. Only shape memory alloys, however, can return to their original shape after being heated above a specific temperature.
Prejudiced attitudes are based on generalised suppositions about certain social groups and could well be a personality trait. Researchers at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) have confirmed the link between two types of discriminatory behaviour: sexism and racism. They also advise of the need for education in encouraging equality.
The production of ethanol from lignocellulose-rich materials such as wood residues, waste paper, used cardboard and straw cannot yet be achieved at the same efficiency and cost as from corn starch. A cost comparison has concluded that using lignocellulose materials is unlikely to be competitive with starch until 2020 at the earliest.
High-performance loudspeaker manufacturers have been able to improve sound quality dramatically over the years, but still face the issue of dead spots.
CHICAGO – A web-based computer-tailored intervention aiming to increase physical activity, decrease sedentary behavior, and promote healthy eating among adolescents was not associated with positive long-term outcome measures, but may have positive short-term effects on eating behaviors, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
The rules of school are simple: it is all about watching the kid nearest to you and making sure you do what they do. Researchers at the mathematics department at Uppsala University, together with biologists at Sydney University have shown that fish apply similar rules when traveling in small shoals.
Researchers studying the nature of crowds playing Foldit called some strategies "shocking" in how well they mimicked some of the methods already used by protein scientists.
Gamers made headlines in September for unraveling the structure of a protein central to research on AIDS. Today, in a paper published online at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Washington researchers reveal the creative power of Foldit players' strategies and compare them to the best-known scientist-developed methods.
Getting trapped oil out of porous layers of sandstone and limestone is a tricky and costly operation for energy exploration companies the world over. But now, University of Alberta researchers have developed a way to replicate oil-trapping rock layers in a laboratory and show energy producers the best way to recover every last bit of oil from these reservoirs.
Breathing. Anyone reading this article is doing it right now. But what chemicals are we breathing in, and out? A group of Virginia Tech College of Engineering researchers has published a paper in the journal Environmental Science & Technology that details how to learn just that, using microelectromechanical systems to focus on toxins and everyday impurities that enter the body through the air we intake.
Robotics researchers in Munich have joined forces with Japanese scientists to develop an ingenious technical solution that gives robots a human face. By using a projector to beam the 3D image of a face onto the back of a plastic mask, and a computer to control voice and facial expressions, the researchers have succeeded in creating Mask-bot, a startlingly human-like plastic head. Yet even before this technology is used to give robots of the future a human face, it may well soon be used to create avatars for participants in video conferences.
"Instant runoff" voting – which San Franciscans will use next week to choose their new mayor, county sheriff and district attorney – requires voters to rank their three top choices in each race, instead of simply voting for their first choice.
Advocates say instant runoff does a better than job of producing a winner who truly represents most of the voters' preference; opponents say the opposite. It all boils down to what you think of the math, which raises an obvious question: What does a mathematician think?