Tech | Page 1385 | Science Codex

Bangladeshi women prefer pollution-causing cookstoves

New Haven, Conn.—Women in rural Bangladesh prefer inexpensive, traditional stoves for cooking over modern ones despite significant health risks, according to a Yale study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A large majority of respondents—94 percent—believed that indoor smoke from the traditional stoves is harmful, but less so than polluted water (76 percent) and spoiled food (66 percent). Still, Bangladeshi women opted for traditional cookstove technology so they could afford basic needs.

SACLA draws acclaim for unique XFEL design

A detailed technical introduction to the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free-electron Laser (SACLA) appeared online in Nature Photonics. The attention on the world's second XFEL facility comes in response to its record-breaking size and performance: SACLA boasts the shortest wavelength in the world (0.63 Angstroms), an extremely broad wavelength range (0.63 - 3 Angstroms) and a very high peak output of 10 GW. SACLA achieves this performance despite having an overall length of only 700 meters, a fraction of the 2 - 4 km taken up by XFEL facilities in the United States and Europe.

U-series dating suggests Welsh reindeer is Britain's oldest rock art

A reindeer engraved on the wall of a cave in South Wales has been found to date from at least 14,505 years ago – making it the oldest known rock art in the British Isles.

The engraving was discovered in September 2010 by Dr George Nash from the University of Bristol's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology while he was exploring the rear section of Cathole Cave, a limestone cave on the eastern side of an inland valley on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales.

U of M discovery to improve efficiencies in fuel, chemical and pharmaceutical industries

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/28/2012) — University of Minnesota engineering researchers are leading an international team that has made a major breakthrough in developing a catalyst used during chemical reactions in the production of gasoline, plastics, biofuels, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals. The discovery could lead to major efficiencies and cost-savings in these multibillion-dollar industries.

The research is to be published in the June 29, 2012 issue of the leading scientific journal Science.

Plasma startup creates high-energy light to make smaller microchips

The UW beam lasts up to 1,000 times longer than competing technologies and provides more control over the million-degree plasma that produces the light.

For more than four decades the technology industry has kept up with Moore's Law, a prediction that the number of transistors on a computer chip will double every two years. This trend has allowed ever-smaller, faster, lighter and less energy-intensive electronics. But it's hit a roadblock: the 193-nanometer ultraviolet light now being used cannot etch circuits any smaller.

fMRI leads to mind-reading speller and a way for people in a coma to speak

Researchers have come up with a device that may enable people who are completely unable to speak or move at all to nevertheless manage unscripted back-and-forth conversation. The key to such silent and still communication is the first real-time, brain-scanning speller, according to a in Current Biology.

Hark! Group demonstrates first heralded single photon source made from silicon

In an important step towards more practical quantum information processing, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of California, San Diego; and the Politecnico di Milano in Milan, Italy, have demonstrated the first heralded single photon source made from silicon. This source complements two other recently developed silicon-based technologies—interferometers for manipulating the entanglement of photons and single photon detectors—needed to build a quantum optical circuit or a secure quantum communication system.

Communication scheme makes popular applications 'gracefully mobile'

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The Secure Shell, or SSH, is a popular program that lets computer users log onto remote machines. Software developers use it for large collaborative projects, students use it to work from university servers, customers of commercial cloud-computing services use it access their accounts, and system administrators use it to manage computers on their networks.

Rice researchers develop paintable battery

HOUSTON – (June 28, 2012) – Researchers at Rice University have developed a lithium-ion battery that can be painted on virtually any surface.

The rechargeable battery created in the lab of Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan consists of spray-painted layers, each representing the components in a traditional battery. The research appears today in Nature's online, open-access journal Scientific Reports.

Study calls for drug trial patients to receive more information about effects of placebos

Research carried out at the University of Southampton has concluded that participants in drug trials should be better informed about the potential significant benefits and possible side-effects of placebos.

Placebos are traditionally thought of as 'inert' pills, given in trials to act as a yardstick or constant by which to measure the effects of new 'active' drugs, known in clinical trials as the 'target treatment'. However, placebos themselves have been shown to create substantial health changes in patients.

AgriLife Research study estimates costs of mesquite biomass delivery for bioenergy use

VERNON – Operating on the thought that, if it is not feasible, it's not going to be done, a group of Texas AgriLife Research scientists is studying the costs of getting potential bioenergy sources such as mesquite to the processed stage.

AgriLife Research scientists from the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Service center at Vernon, Dr. Seong Park, economist; Dr. Jim Ansley, range ecologist; Dr. Mustafa Mirik, associate research scientist; and Marc Maindrault, a visiting forestry student intern from France, have completed a study on costs of delivered biomass.

Mining cleanup benefits from Texas A&M expertise

COLLEGE STATION – When Atlantic Richfield Co. was tasked with cleaning up a major superfund site it had purchased in Montana, Dr. Frank Hons, a Texas A&M University professor, got a call to assist the company's consultants, Pioneer Technical Services.

Hons, a soil and crop science professor, spent two years leading a Texas A&M team studying revegetation solutions on land impacted by 100 years of copper mining, mineral processing and smelting in the Anaconda, Mont. area.

New screening test to help people with hearing loss in China

The University of Southampton has developed a new hearing screening test which could help the estimated 100 million people suffering from hearing loss in China.

This new Chinese version is based on a hearing screening test developed by the University's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR), which has already been taken by more than a million people across Europe.

New ACS podcast: Ancient effect harnessed to produce electricity from waste heat

WASHINGTON, June 27, 2012 — The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series describes the first-of-its-kind "pyroelectric nanogenerator," a new device designed to harvest the enormous amounts of energy wasted as heat every year to produce electricity.

DARPA develops technologies for aiding disaster relief

During natural or man-made disasters, the U.S. armed forces' rapidly deployable airlift, sealift, communication, and medical evacuation and care capabilities can supplement lead relief agencies in providing aid to victims. The Department of Defense's 2012 strategic guidance document includes humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations as one of the missions for 21st Century defense.