Tech
NIMS and AIST have jointly succeeded in fabricating a giant magnetoresistive (GMR) device comprising single-crystal Heusler alloys on an practical silicon substrate. The team demonstrated for the first time that a single-crystal magnetoresistive device can be bonded onto the surface of a polycrystalline electrode using a wafer bonding technique. The fabrication of high-performance single-crystal devices has proven challenging, and these results may provide new guidance in the development of larger capacity hard disk drives (HDDs).
Scientists at the Universities of Bath and Sussex have developed a new system that slowly releases ant pheromones to attract pests to an insecticide bait. This means that instead of spraying the whole crop with pesticides, traps can be placed in specific areas for more targeted protection.
Leaf-cutting ants are major pest species of agriculture and forestry in many areas of the tropics causing an estimated $8 billion damage each year to eucalyptus forestry in Brazil alone.
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) have discovered that a particular combination of microorganisms in the gut can worsen symptoms in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. The study published in the scientific journal Nature shows that two specific gut bacteria enhance the activity of immune cells that attack the body's own brain and spinal cord.
The practicality of quantum computing hangs on the integrity of the quantum bit, or qubit.
Qubits, the logic elements of quantum computers, are coherent two-level systems that represent quantum information. Each qubit has the strange ability to be in a quantum superposition, carrying aspects of both states simultaneously, enabling a quantum version of parallel computation. Quantum computers, if they can be scaled to accommodate many qubits on one processor, could be dizzyingly faster, and able to handle far more complex problems, than today's conventional computers.
Mandatory vote-by-mail modestly increases voter turnout without advantaging one party over the other, according to a causal inference analysis of 30 years of nationwide U.S. county-level data and more than 40 million individual-level voter records from the states of Washington and Utah. The results support that this alternative to in-person voting - which has recently become a heated partisan issue - would not, in fact, give one party an edge over another in the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election and could offer a safe pathway to a fair election during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A clinical trial at four pediatric diabetes centers in the United States has found that a new artificial pancreas system -- which automatically monitors and regulates blood glucose levels -- is safe and effective at managing blood glucose levels in children as young as age six with type 1 diabetes. The trial was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health. Results from the trial were published August 26 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
ITHACA, N.Y. - A Cornell University-led collaboration has created the first microscopic robots that incorporate semiconductor components, allowing them to be controlled - and made to walk - with standard electronic signals.
These robots, roughly the size of paramecium, provide a template for building even more complex versions that utilize silicon-based intelligence, can be mass produced, and may someday travel through human tissue and blood.
Scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a novel method of using fruit peel waste to extract and reuse precious metals from spent lithium-ion batteries in order to create new batteries.
The team demonstrated their concept using orange peel, which recovered precious metals from battery waste efficiently. They then made functional batteries from these recovered metals, creating minimal waste in the process.
A team at Tohoku University have perfected a new heat treatment technique with rapid heating and asymmetrical cooling processes in metallic glass. This technique enabled the team to induce a gradient of local glassy structure, bringing an apparent work hardening behavior.
Work hardening is the process by which a material is strengthened via plastic deformation and is not generally observed in metallic glasses due to their intrinsic random structure.
NIMS and Tohoku Gakuin University have developed a boron-doped anisotropic Sm(Fe0.8Co0.2)12 thin film containing only small amount of rare earth elements. The compound exhibited 1.2 tesla coercivity, sufficient for use in automotive electric motors. This was achieved by creating a unique granular nanostructure in which Sm(Fe0.8Co0.2)12 grains are uniformly enveloped by an amorphous grain boundary phase approximately 3 nm in thickness. This compound exhibited superior magnetic properties to that of Nd-Fe-B based magnets even when processed into a thin film.
Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on an innovative way of sustainably delivering drugs and influencing nutrient absorption in the gut. The gastrointestinal synthetic epithelial lining (GSEL) system is designed to coat the small intestine, an organ that plays a key role in drug and nutrient absorption.
During experiments on high-performance Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) researchers from Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) produced a metal with unique ductility. The ductility is three times higher than specified in the standard. The research results were published in a prestigious journal - "Materials & Design".
Heavy metals suppress enzyme activity in the soil by 3-3.5 times and have especially prominent effect on the enzymes that support carbon and sulfur circulation. This was discovered by a soil scientist from RUDN together with his colleagues from Chile, Germany, the UK and Venezuela. The data obtained by the team can lead to more efficient use and fertilization of agricultural lands. The results of the study were published in the Science of the Total Environment journal.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station provided images of Hurricane Laura as it continues to strengthen in the Gulf of Mexico. Laura is pushing waters from the Gulf of Mexico that could inundate coastal areas miles inland and evacuations are in progress.
Watches and Warnings on Aug. 25
On Aug. 25, NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) posted several watches and warnings on major Hurricane Laura.
PITTSBURGH--Staying away from those with contagious infections, no matter how lonely it gets, may not only be common sense, but a natural instinct. But that doesn't mean humans or animals will automatically fall in line.