Tech
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborators have demonstrated an atom-based sensor that can determine the direction of an incoming radio signal, another key part for a potential atomic communications system that could be smaller and work better in noisy environments than conventional technology.
A recent study proposed a three-dimensional LotusMenu that can "bloom in the palm". With this menu, even if you are not Nezha, you can also control your own lotus.
The Bureau of Reclamation today released final technical reports supporting the Water Reliability in the West - 2021 SECURE Water Act Report. Reclamation's 2021 West-Wide Climate and Hydrology Assessment and seven individual basin reports provide detailed information on climate change impacts and adaptation strategies to increase water supply reliability in the West. A new 2021 SECURE Report Web Portal is also available to provide a user-friendly, web-based format for delivery of information in the reports.
Humans have long explored three big scientific questions: evolution of the universe, evolution of Earth, and evolution of life. Geoscientists have embraced the mission of elucidating the evolution of Earth and life, which are preserved in the information-rich but incomplete geological record that spans more than 4.5 billion years of Earth history. Delving into Earth's deep-time history helps geoscientists decipher mechanisms and rates of Earth's evolution, unravel the rates and mechanisms of climate change, locate natural resources, and envision the future of Earth.
ITHACA, N.Y. - The cost of harvesting solar energy has dropped so much in recent years that it's giving traditional energy sources a run for their money. However, the challenges of energy storage - which require the capacity to bank an intermittent and seasonally variable supply of solar energy - have kept the technology from being economically competitive.
AMHERST, Mass. - A team of polymer science and engineering researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has demonstrated for the first time that the positions of tiny, flat, solid objects integrated in nanometrically thin membranes - resembling those of biological cells - can be controlled by mechanically varying the elastic forces in the membrane itself. This research milestone is a significant step toward the goal of creating ultrathin flexible materials that self-organize and respond immediately to mechanical force.
In the fight against cancers, activating mutations in the RAS family of genes stand in the way of finding viable treatment options. Now, scientists at the University of Missouri and Yale University have discovered that one of these mutations -- oncogenic RAS or RASV12 -- is also responsible for the regrowth of cancer cells following genotoxic therapy treatment, or drugs that cause damage to a cancer cell's DNA in order to eliminate it from the body.
URBANA, Ill. ¬- If your day started with a cup of coffee, there's a good chance your morning brew came from Colombia. Home to some of the finest Arabica beans, the country is the world's third largest coffee producer. Climate change poses new challenges to coffee production in Colombia, as it does to agricultural production anywhere in the world, but a new University of Illinois study shows effects vary widely depending on where the coffee beans grow.
Developing new materials and novel processes has continued to change the world. The M3I3 Initiative at KAIST has led to new insights into advancing materials development by implementing breakthroughs in materials imaging that have created a paradigm shift in the discovery of materials. The Initiative features the multiscale modeling and imaging of structure and property relationships and materials hierarchies combined with the latest material-processing data.
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2021 -- Polyurethanes, a type of plastic, are nearly everywhere -- in shoes, clothes, refrigerators and construction materials. But these highly versatile materials can have a major downside. Derived from crude oil, toxic to synthesize, and slow to break down, conventional polyurethanes are not environmentally friendly. Today, researchers discuss devising what they say should be a safer, biodegradable alternative derived from fish waste -- heads, bones, skin and guts -- that would otherwise likely be discarded.
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2021 -- For centuries, people in Baltic nations have used ancient amber for medicinal purposes. Even today, infants are given amber necklaces that they chew to relieve teething pain, and people put pulverized amber in elixirs and ointments for its purported anti-inflammatory and anti-infective properties. Now, scientists have pinpointed compounds that help explain Baltic amber's therapeutic effects and that could lead to new medicines to combat antibiotic-resistant infections.
A new automated process prints a peptide-based hydrogel scaffold containing uniformly distributed cells. The scaffolds hold their shapes well and successfully facilitate cell growth that lasts for weeks.
Ishikawa, Japan - One of the most important classes of problems that all scientists and mathematicians aspire to solve, due to their relevance in both science and real life, are optimization problems. From esoteric computer science puzzles to the more realistic problems of vehicle routing, investment portfolio design, and digital marketing--at the heart of it all lies an optimization problem that needs to be solved.
INDIANAPOLIS -- The high incidence of COVID-19 and resulting sudden changes in the health of many long-stay nursing home residents across the country have amplified the importance of advance care planning and the need for periodic review of the process, especially as widespread vaccination changes the calculus of the disease.
Researchers from Kumamoto University (Japan) have found that adult nocturnal fishflies (Neochauliodes amamioshimanus), which are typically aquatic insects, feed on pollen at night. They also present circumstantial evidence suggesting that this species not only forages in flowers, but is also a supplementary pollinator. Their work sheds light on the terrestrial life of adult fishflies, which has been a mystery until now.