CORVALLIS, Ore. – Although declining streamflows and half-full reservoirs have gotten most of the attention in water conflicts around the United States, some of the worst battles of the next century may be over groundwater, experts say – a critical resource often taken for granted until it begins to run out.
Tech
Scientists monitor passive radio-wave emissions from diverse objects such as hurricanes and distant galaxies to study Earth's environment and climate and learn more about the universe. However, the radio spectrum is also used by radiating or "active" services -- ranging from aircraft radars to consumer products such as cellular telephones and wireless Internet -- which can interfere with or drown out the weak signals from these passive natural transmissions used for scientific research.
DURHAM, N.C. -- By taking advantage of the vagaries of the natural world,Duke University engineers have developed a novel approach that they believecan more efficiently harvest electricity from the motions of everyday life.
Energy harvesting is the process of converting one form of energy, such asmotion, into another form of energy, in this case electricity. Strategiesrange from the development of massive wind farms to produce large amountsof electricity to using the vibrations of walking to power small electronicdevices.
Every year, scientists learn something new about the inner workings of lightning.
With satellites, they have discovered that more than 1.2 billion lightning flashes occur around the world every year. (Rwanda has the most flashes per square kilometer, while flashes are rare in polar regions.) Laboratory and field experiments have revealed that the core of some lightning bolts reaches 30,000 Kelvin (53,540 ºF), a temperature hot enough to instantly melt sand and break oxygen and nitrogen molecules into individual atoms.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) – A team of researchers led by University of California, Riverside (UCR) Professor of Chemical Engineering Wilfred Chen has constructed for the first time a synthetic cellulosome in yeast, which is much more ethanol-tolerant than the bacteria in which these structures are normally found.
The recent creation of live mice from induced pluripotent stem cells(iPSCs) not only represents a remarkable scientific achievement, but also raises important issues, according to bioethicists at The Johns Hopkins University's Berman Institute of Bioethics.
In a letter published Oct. 28 in Regenerative Medicine, the authors advocate for clear ethical oversight of this research and pose key questions that warrant careful consideration.
The odds triple for premature child delivery pregnant women with a history of depression who used psychiatric medication, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of Washington, University of Michigan and Michigan State University found that a combination of medication use and depression – either before or during pregnancy – was strongly linked to delivery before 35 weeks' gestation.
ST. LOUIS -- Cellular phones - once a luxury used strictly for talking - have taken on many new roles in recent years. Now researchers at Saint Louis University and Old Dominion University in Virginia say smartphones can be used to help elderly diabetics manage their health and learn more about their condition.
Mobile phones are on the verge of becoming powerful tools to collect data on many issues, ranging from global health to the environment.
Computer scientists at the University of Washington have used Android, the open-source mobile operating system championed by Google, to turn a cell phone into a versatile data-collection device. Organizations that want a fully customizable way to, say, snap pictures of a deforested area, add the location coordinates and instantly submit that information to a global environmental database now have a flexible and free way to do it.
PITTSBURGH—Preventing the havoc wrought when freezing rain collects on roads, power lines, and aircrafts could be only a few nanometers away. A University of Pittsburgh-led team demonstrates in the Nov. 3 edition of Langmuir a nanoparticle-based coating developed in the lab of Di Gao, a chemical and petroleum engineering professor in Pitt's Swanson School of Engineering, that thwarts the buildup of ice on solid surfaces and can be easily applied.
Does your laptop sometimes get so hot that it can almost be used to fry eggs? New technology may help cool it and give information technology a unique twist, says Jairo Sinova, a Texas A&M University physics professor.
Sinova and colleagues from Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory, Institute of Physics ASCR, University of Cambridge and University of Nottingham have had their research published in the renowned journal Nature Physics.
An adhesive used in products like laminate countertops may also help cement a place for economically viable biofuels, according to a Kansas State University researcher.
Susan Sun directs K-State's Bio Materials and Technology Laboratory, where she studies bio-based materials. Her research group is studying adhesives made from by-products of soybean, corn, sorghum and biomass fuels.
A new European Earth observation satellite will be launched in the early hours of Monday morning (2 November 2009) from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.
The European Space Agency Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS - pronounced SMOSS) satellite aims to measure both moisture levels in the Earth's soils and the saltiness (salinity) of the surface waters of the world's oceans from space for the very first time. British scientists and engineers have been involved in the mission from the start.
New research from Queen Mary, University of London and Harvard Medical School has revealed precisely why taking fish oils can help with conditions like rheumatoid arthritis.
In a paper published in Nature today*, researchers describe how the body converts an ingredient found in fish oils into another chemical called Resolvin D2 and how this chemical reduces the inflammation that leads to a variety of diseases.
Where Latinos are born and their immigration status affect the quality of health care they receive in the US, according to Professor Michael Rodríguez and colleagues from the UCLA Department of Family Medicine and the Network for Multicultural Research on Health and Healthcare based in Los Angeles, California. New information from this just-released study highlights the need for improved health systems for immigrants – documented or undocumented, US-born or foreign-born.