Tech

"We live in a world designed by adults for the convenience of adults, and the safety of children is often not considered," said Gary Smith, MD, DrPH, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital. "Products with easily-accessible battery compartments are everywhere in our homes today.

From man-made toxic chemicals such as industrial by-products to poisons that occur naturally, a water or food supply can be easily contaminated. And for every level of toxic material ingested, there is some level of bodily response, ranging from minor illness to painful certain death.

There's nothing worse than a shonky pool table with an unseen groove or bump that sends your shot off course: a new study has found that the same goes at the nano-scale, where the "billiard balls" are tiny electrons moving across a "table" made of the semiconductor gallium arsenide.

About 45 real-world senior engineering projects from the University of Cincinnati's College of Engineering and will go on display from noon-3 p.m., on Wednesday, May 16, in UC's Tangeman University Center. The projects represent work by seniors in electrical engineering, electrical engineering technology, computer engineering, computer engineering technology and computer science.

Below is a sampling of the projects you will see

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Berkeley—A fleet of 100 floating robots took a trip down the Sacramento River today (Wednesday, May 9) in a field test organized by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley. The smartphone-equipped floating robots demonstrated the next generation of water monitoring technology, promising to transform the way government agencies monitor one of the state's most precious resources.

DETROIT – A Henry Ford Hospital study found that simulation training improved the critical decision-making skills of medical residents performing actual resuscitations in the Emergency Department.

Researchers say the residents performed better in four key skill areas after receiving the simulation training: leadership, problem solving, situational awareness and communication. Their overall performance also sharpened.

A smartphone with GPS functionality is a delightful tool. It guides its owner safely and with certainty through the streets of an unfamiliar city. But after arriving at the destination, all too often the orientation is gone, because as soon as you enter a building, you lose contact with the GPS satellites. Then you are on your own – whether in the interminable hallways of the trade fair complex, or inside one of the branches of the local megaplex shopping mall.

PHILADELPHIA — When the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, 2010, residents feared that their Gulf of Mexico shores would be inundated with oil. And while many wetland habitats and wildlife were oiled during the three-month leak, the environmental damage to coastal Louisiana was less than many expected, in part because much of the crude never made it to the coast.

A carbon nanotube sponge that can soak up oil in water with unparalleled efficiency has been developed with help from computational simulations performed at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Boston, MA— An article, published in Circulation by Laurel K. Leslie, MD, MPH from the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and colleagues from Tufts Medical Center and Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center, has evaluated the lifesaving benefits and costs of screening programs for the prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in children and adolescents.

A detailed description of development of the first practical artificial leaf — a milestone in the drive for sustainable energy that mimics the process, photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert water and sunlight into energy — appears in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research. The article notes that unlike earlier devices, which used costly ingredients, the new device is made from inexpensive materials and employs low-cost engineering and manufacturing processes.

As medical researchers and engineers try to shrink diagnostics to fit in a person's pocket, one question is how to easily move and mix small samples of liquid.

University of Washington researchers have built and patented a surface that, when shaken, moves drops along certain paths to conduct medical or environmental tests.

It was all too evident during the Dust Bowl what a disastrous impact wind can have on dry, unprotected topsoil. Now a new study has uncovered a less obvious, but still troubling, effect of wind: Not only can it carry away soil particles, but also the beneficial microbes that help build soil, detoxify contaminants, and recycle nutrients.

People walking normally, women tottering in high heels and ostriches strutting all exert the same forces on the ground despite very differently-shaped feet, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The finding suggests that prosthetic lower limbs and robots' legs could be made more efficient by making them less human-like and more like the prosthetics used by 'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) — A group of researchers at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering have developed a technique to keep cool a semiconductor material used in everything from traffic lights to electric cars.