College Park, MD (June 22, 2010) -- Most motorcycles in the world today use engines that burn gasoline, contributing to greenhouse gasses and adding air pollution to the surrounding area. Now two scientists in India have conceptually designed a new, cleaner motorcycle engine that uses compressed air to turn a small air turbine, generating enough power to run a motorcycle for up to 40 minutes.
Tech
Hoarding friends on Facebook – or followers on Twitter – won't do much to stave off loneliness if those relationships lack any kind of strong connection, new research finds.
Two newly published University of Arizona studies suggest that superficial relationships can not only result in feelings of detachment, but also contribute to certain health-related problems.
OAK BROOK, Ill. – By combining two relatively inexpensive technologies based on sound and light waves, researchers hope to lower the rate at which women undergo breast biopsies for suspicious lesions. Results of the study on ultrasound-guided optical tomography are published in the online edition and the August print issue of Radiology.
Consumers learn how to use new products best if they get a chance to try them out repeatedly, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Cutaneous appendageal carcinomas—tumors of the skin appendages such as hair, nails, sweat glands and mammary glands—are rare but rates appear to be increasing in the United States, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"Cutaneous appendageal carcinomas are a rare and diverse group of complex neoplasms with diverse differentiation that frequently present a diagnostic challenge," the authors write as background information in the article. Because of their rarity, studies of these cancers have been limited.
A team of researchers from the University of Alberta and the National Institute for Nanotechnology has extended the operating life of an unsealed plastic solar cell, from mere hours to eight months.
The research groups' development of an inexpensive, readily available plastic solar cell technology hit a wall because of a chemical leeching problem within the body of the prototype. A chemical coating on an electrode was unstable and migrated through the circuitry of the cell.
CLEVELAND – Electronic health record systems likely will soon become a fixture in medical settings. Advocates claim they will reduce health care costs and improve medical outcomes, which could be critical since the new health care reform law increases access for millions of Americans. Although benefits of bringing information technology to health records can be substantial, EHR systems also give rise to increased liability risks for health care providers due to possible software or hardware problems or user errors.
Tropical cyclones Blas and Celia are both spinning in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, and two NASA satellites captured them in visible and infrared imagery.
Four unmanned autonomous vehicles designed and built by a team of engineering students at Virginia Tech using the TORC Robotic Building Blocks product line, are headed to Hawaii to participate in the 2010 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) war games in July.
The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), located at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has run over two billion processor-hours of computations at a mind-boggling speed of over 557 trillion calculations a second as it enables scientists and engineers to conduct cutting-edge research in just weeks or months rather than years.
It is clear that the future of manufacturing and automation is sustained on two fundamental premises —portable machinery and cooperative robotics—, according to the Machine-Tool Biennial (BIEMH), held recently at the BEC Trade Fair Centre in Bilbao. The Industrial Systems Unit at Tecnalia demonstrated its latest technological advances at the BIEMH, including novelties related to these basic pillars — besides those of unattended machinery, advanced processes of manufacture and intelligent machine.
New experiments are casting doubt on previously reported observations of supersolid helium. In a paper appearing in the current issue of Physical Review Letters (PRL), John Reppy (Cornell University) presents research suggesting that prior experiments that seemed to show signs of supersolidity were in fact the result of the plastic deformation of normal helium.
INDIANAPOLIS – A new study of homicides of 797 children younger than age five has found that these deaths occur uniformly throughout the year, dispelling the widely held anecdotal notion that the winter months, and especially winter holidays, are a time of increased child abuse.
Boaters increasingly require convenience and quieter boats. Boating is unpleasant for the skipper and passengers if it is difficult to hear normal conversation in the cockpit. VTT's Quiet boats project examined both short-term solutions applicable to existing boats and factors affecting noise level that can be taken into account in the design of new boats.