Airline travelers are used to being instructed to turn off computers and cell phones during takeoffs and landings as a precaution against interfering with the plane’s navigational equipment, but outside sources of high-energy interference can be even more dangerous.
Tech
New research on the effects of blast waves could lead to an enhanced understanding of head injuries and improved military helmet design. This is being done using numerical hydrodynamic computer simulations. Lawrence Livermore scientists Willy Moss and Michael King, along with University of Rochester colleague Eric Blackman, have discovered that nonlethal blasts can induce enough skull flexure to generate potentially damaging loads in the brain, even without direct head impact.
A novel electronic sensor array for more rapid, accurate and cost-efficient testing of DNA for disease diagnosis and biological research has been developed by scientists at Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN).
In a recent Journal of the American Chemical Society, IBN scientists reported that based on laboratory results, their Nanogap Sensor Array has shown "excellent" sensitivity at detecting trace amounts of DNA.
Researchers in Singapore are reporting development of a new electronic sensor that shows promise as a faster, less expensive, and more practical alternative than tests now used to detect DNA. Such tests are done for criminal investigation, disease diagnosis, and other purposes. The new lab-on-a-chip test could lead to wider, more convenient use of DNA testing, the researchers say. Their study is scheduled for the Sept. 2 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a weekly publication.
A North Carolina State University researcher has devised a new technology that really does not stink. In fact, it could be the key to eliminating foul odors and air pollutants emitted by industrial chicken rendering facilities and – ultimately – large-scale swine feedlots.
Computer scientists in Taiwan have devised a neural network program that can successfully classify a computerized music file based on its beat and tempo. The system could be a boon for music archivists with large numbers of untagged recordings and for users searching through mislabeled mp3 libraries. Details of tests on ballroom dancing music are reported this month in the International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems.
Researchers are arranging little LEGO pieces shaped like pegs to re-create microscopic activity taking place inside lab-on-a-chip devices at a scale they can more easily observe.
These lab-on-a-chip devices, also known as microfluidic arrays, are commonly used to sort tiny samples by size, shape or composition, but the minuscule forces work at such a small magnitude, they are difficult to measure. To solve this small problem, the Johns Hopkins engineers decided to think big.
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- It takes just seconds for tall buildings to collapse during powerful earthquakes. Knowing precisely what's happening in those seconds can help engineers design buildings that are less prone to sustaining that kind of damage.
But the nature of collapse is not well understood. It hasn't been well-studied experimentally because testing full-scale buildings on shake tables is a massive, expensive and risky undertaking.
Researchers have developed a new technology that helps Parkinson's patients overcome a tendancy to speak too quietly by playing a recording of ambient sound, which resembles the noisy chatter of a restaurant full of patrons.
"People with Parkinson's disease commonly have voice and speech problems," said Jessica Huber, an associate professor in Purdue's Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. "At some point in their disease they will have some form of voice or speech disorder that generally occurs a little later in the disease."
Researchers at INSERM (France) have engineered a chimeric protein that increases cell survival, migration and proliferation to improve stem cell engraftment. The results, which appear in the Experimental Biology and Medicine, show that TAT-Tpr-Met, a cell permeable form of the hepatocyte growth factor receptor can increase the number of hepatic stem cells integrated into the liver of the mouse.
AUSTIN, Texas –Solar cells could soon be produced more cheaply using nanoparticle "inks" that allow them to be printed like newspaper or painted onto the sides of buildings or rooftops to absorb electricity-producing sunlight.
Brian Korgel, a University of Texas at Austin chemical engineer, is hoping to cut costs to one-tenth of their current price by replacing the standard manufacturing process for solar cells – gas-phase deposition in a vacuum chamber, which requires high temperatures and is relatively expensive.
UCSF researchers have identified the two key circuits that control a cell's ability to adapt to changes in its environment, a finding that could have applications ranging from diabetes and autoimmune research to targeted drug development for complex diseases.
The new findings are featured in the journal "Cell" and are available at http://www.cell.com.
NASA and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, or AFOSR, have successfully launched a small rocket using an environmentally-friendly, safe propellant comprised of aluminum powder and water ice, called ALICE.
AMES, Iowa – Srinivas Aluru recently stepped between the two rows of six tall metal racks, opened up the silver doors and showed off the 3,200 computer processor cores that power Cystorm, Iowa State University's second supercomputer.
And there's a lot of raw power in those racks.
Cystorm, a Sun Microsystems machine, boasts a peak performance of 28.16 trillion calculations per second. That's five times the peak of CyBlue, an IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer that's been on campus since early 2006 and uses 2,048 processors to do 5.7 trillion calculations per second.
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (August 21, 2009) – New, delicate surgery techniques to hunt for tumours could benefit from a lighter touch – but from a robot, rather than from a human hand. Canadian researchers have created a touchy-feely robot that detects tougher tumour tissue in half the time, and with 40% more accuracy than a human. The technique also minimises tissue damage.