WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2016 -- The new iPhone is slimmer and faster than ever. But like most new generations of smartphones, its battery has pretty much stayed the same over the years. Short of carrying an external battery all the time, is there any way to extend the life of your smartphone battery? In the latest Reactions episode, we explain the chemistry of lithium-ion batteries, why they occasionally explode, and share some tips to get the most from that smartphone battery.
Tech
In today's computer chips, memory management is based on what computer scientists call the principle of locality: If a program needs a chunk of data stored at some memory location, it probably needs the neighboring chunks as well.
But that assumption breaks down in the age of big data, now that computer programs more frequently act on just a few data items scattered arbitrarily across huge data sets. Since fetching data from their main memory banks is the major performance bottleneck in today's chips, having to fetch it more frequently can dramatically slow program execution.
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 13, 2016 -- Clinking your glass of beer often leaves its contents sloshing back and forth. Soon, though, the motion stops, your drink settles down, and you can take a sip without getting foam on your nose. It turns out that the foam helps stop the sloshing. Now, physicists have figured out why.
The analysis, published this week in Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, reveals a surprising effect on the surface of the water that contradicts conventional thought and deepens our understanding of the role of capillary forces.
WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 13, 2016 -- Materials with large dielectric constants -- aka "high-K materials" -- have recently garnered attention for their potential use within future generations of reduced-dimension semiconductor devices.
Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego, in collaboration with the Materials Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), have created the world's largest database of elemental crystal surfaces and shapes to date.
It is a very unusual kind of laser: researchers at the photonics institute at TU Wien (Vienna) have built a device which emits ultrashort flashes of infrared light with extremely high energy. "It is very hard to combine these three properties - long infrared wavelength, short duration and high energy", says Valentina Shumakova. "But this combination is exactly what we need for many interesting strong-field applications."
A study presented at this year's European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting in Munich, Germany (12-16 September), shows that UK commercial airline pilots with insulin-treated diabetes can fly safely, with almost all of their blood sugar readings at safe levels. The study is by medical staff at Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, Surrey, UK and the UK Civil Aviation Authority, Gatwick Airport, UK.
New research presented at this year's European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) meeting in Munich, Germany (12-16 Sept) shows that both gestational diabetes (which develops during pregnancy) and pre-gestational diabetes (present before conception) in a pregnant woman are associated with a range of poor outcomes for her child. The study is by Dr Basilio Pintuadi, Niguarda Ca' Granda Hospital, Milan, Italy, and colleagues.
A team of chemists has developed a method to yield highly detailed, three-dimensional images of the insides of batteries. The technique, based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), offers an enhanced approach to monitor the condition of these power sources in real time.
If Canadian parents are going to get their kids to exercise more, they need more than just public awareness campaigns.
Parents exposed to one such national campaign were actually less confident they could increase their children's activity levels, according to a recent UBC study.
Currently, in Belgium, photovoltaic systems coupled with lead-acid batteries do not ensure the electrical self-sufficiency of a residence at a reasonable cost. This is the summary conclusion of the study two ULB researchers: their simulations reveal that the maximum rate of self-sufficiency of solar panels would only be about 40%, while the addition of complementary lead-acid batteries would result in a considerable increase of the energy prices.
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new design for harvesting body heat and converting it into electricity for use in wearable electronics. The experimental prototypes are lightweight, conform to the shape of the body, and can generate far more electricity than previous lightweight heat harvesting technologies.
The researchers also identified the optimal site on the body for heat harvesting.
A team of North Carolina-based researchers helped unearth more clues this summer about the ancient Nabatean city of Petra in Jordan.
As part of a larger excavation at the site, the group of North Carolina State University and East Carolina University faculty and students discovered two marble statues of the mythological goddess Aphrodite -- artifacts that dig co-director Tom Parker describes as "absolutely exquisite."
Liquid crystals are strange substances, both fish and fowl. They can flow like a liquid, but have the orderly molecular structure of a crystalline solid. And that internal structure can be changed by small cues from outside.
Lomonosov MSU physicists found a way to "force" silicon nanoparticles to glow in response to radiation strongly enough to replace expensive semiconductors used in display business. According to Maxim Shcherbakov, researcher at the Department of Quantum Electronics of the Moscow State University and one of the authors of the study, the developed method considerably enhances the efficiency of nanoparticle photoluminescence.