OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 18, 2011 – A new approach to growing graphene greatly reduces problems that have plagued researchers in the past and clears a path to the crystalline form of graphite's use in sophisticated electronic devices of tomorrow.
Tech
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Quantum dots made from cadmium and selenium degrade in soil, unleashing toxic cadmium and selenium ions into their surroundings, a University at Buffalo study has found.
The research, accepted for publication in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, demonstrates the importance of learning more about how quantum dots -- and other nanomaterials -- interact with the environment after disposal, said Diana Aga, the chemistry professor who led the study.
For the first time, scientists gathered oil and gas directly as it escaped from a deep ocean wellhead — that of the damaged Deepwater Horizon oil rig. What they found allows a better understanding of how pollution is partitioned and transported in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico and permits superior estimation of the environmental impact of escaping oil, allowing for a more precise evaluation of previously estimated repercussions on seafloor life in the future.
Taking another major step in sleuthing the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has determined what chemicals were contained in a deep, hydrocarbon-containing plume at least 22 miles long that WHOI scientists mapped and sampled last summer in the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Moreover, they have taken a big step in explaining why some chemicals, but not others, made their way into the plume.
A new study describes how hyperactivation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) promotes neurodegeneration in Huntington's disease (HD). The article appears online on July 18, 2011, in The Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org).
WASHINGTON – A new report from the National Research Council recommends steps the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies and professional associations can take to ensure that the medical devices and health information technology used in home health care are easy and safe for laypeople to use and that caregivers, whether formal or informal, are well-trained.
Boston, MA – Using nanotechnology to engineer sensors onto the surface of cells, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have developed a platform technology for monitoring single-cell interactions in real-time. This innovation addresses needs in both science and medicine by providing the ability to further understand complex cell biology, track transplanted cells, and develop effective therapeutics. These findings are published in the July 17 issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
The best way for autonomous machines, networks and robots to improve in future will be for them to publish their own upgrade suggestions on the Internet. This transparent dialogue will help humans to both guide and trust them, according to research published today in Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part I: Journal of Systems and Control Engineering, published by SAGE.
Graphene, a sheet of carbon only a single atom thick, was an object of theoretical speculation long before it was actually made. Theory predicts extraordinary properties for graphene, but testing the predictions against experimental results is often challenging.
Now researchers using the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have taken an important step toward confirming that graphene is every bit as unusual as expected – perhaps even more so.
Tel Aviv — Modern electronics as we know them, from televisions to computers, depend on conducting materials that can control electronic properties. As technology shrinks down to pocket sized communications devices and microchips that can fit on the head of a pin, nano-sized conducting materials are in big demand.
Rice University scientists have achieved a pivotal breakthrough in the development of a cable that will make an efficient electric grid of the future possible.
WALNUT CREEK, Calif.—Feared by realtors and homeowners alike, dry rot due to the fungus Serpula lacrymans causes millions of dollars worth of damage to homes and buildings around the world. This brown rot fungus' capacity to break down the cellulose in wood led to its selection for sequencing by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) in 2007, with the goal of identifying the enzymes involved in the degradation process and using the information to improve cellulosic biofuels production.
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Recent advances in computer science at the University of Maryland's Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics cast fresh light on terrorism in India, such as yesterday's coordinated attacks in Mumbai. Some important conclusions from two forthcoming papers, accepted for publication at the 2011 European Conference on Intelligence Security Informatics and the 2011 Open Source Intelligence Conference in September 2011, suggest that reining in terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), who carried out the devastating Mumbai attacks in Nov.
There is literally a way to undercut dust emissions in the very driest parts of the Pacific Northwest's Columbia Plateau region, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist.
Brenton Sharratt, research leader at the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Land Management and Water Conservation Research Unit in Pullman, Wash., found that undercutting is a promising conservation tillage technique on fallow fields. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency.
Prototypes of the device have not yet been optimized to hold significant amounts of memory, but work well in environments that would be hostile to traditional electronics. The devices are made using a liquid alloy of gallium and indium metals set into water-based gels, similar to gels used in biological research.