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Scientists develop painless and inexpensive microneedle system to monitor drugs

Researchers at the University of British Columbia and the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) in Switzerland have created a microneedle drug monitoring system that could one day replace costly, invasive blood draws and improve patient comfort.

The new system consists of a small, thin patch that is pressed against a patient's arm during medical treatment and measures drugs in their bloodstream painlessly without drawing any blood. The tiny needle-like projection, less than half a milimetre long, resembles a hollow cone and doesn't pierce the skin like a standard hypodermic needle.

Newly discovered material property may lead to high temp superconductivity

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Ames Laboratory have discovered an unusual property of purple bronze that may point to new ways to achieve high temperature superconductivity.

While studying purple bronze, a molybdenum oxide, researchers discovered an unconventional charge density wave on its surface.

Hey robot, shimmy like a centipede

Kyoto, Japan -- Centipedes move quickly. And when one is coming directly at you, you might not care to spend a moment pondering its agility.

So perhaps our lack of understanding about just why centipedes move with such dexterity, even over obstacles, has been related to fear. But undeterred, researchers at Kyoto University have asked precisely this question, and have turned to computer simulations and ultimately robotics to find an answer.

US land capacity for feeding people could expand with dietary changes

BOSTON (July 22, 2016)--A new "food-print" model that measures the per-person land requirements of different diets suggests that, with dietary changes, the U.S. could feed significantly more people from existing agricultural land. Using ten different scenarios ranging from the average American diet to a purely vegan one, a team led by scientists from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University estimated that agricultural land in the contiguous U.S.

Attosecond physics: Mapping electromagnetic waveforms

Munich physicists have developed a novel electron microscope that can visualize electromagnetic fields oscillating at frequencies of billions of cycles per second.

New remote-controlled microrobots for medical operations

For the past few years, scientists around the world have been studying ways to use miniature robots to better treat a variety of diseases. The robots are designed to enter the human body, where they can deliver drugs at specific locations or perform precise operations like clearing clogged-up arteries. By replacing invasive, often complicated surgery, they could optimize medicine.

A missing link in water modeling

A process that is largely overlooked in earth system models may shape large-scale soil evaporation and plant transpiration more than scientists thought, a new study suggests, helping quantify the global water cycle. The results provide insights that current approaches into complex water cycle interactions are lacking. Evapotranspiration, or ET, is the sum of evaporation from the soil (E) and transpiration (T) from plants - and it represents a critical part of the water cycle on Earth.

Mines hydrology research provides 'missing link' in water modeling

GOLDEN, Colo., July 21, 2016 ? Groundbreaking research on global water supply co-authored by Colorado School of Mines Hydrology Professor Reed Maxwell and alumna Laura Condon, now assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Syracuse University, appears in the July 22 issue of Science Magazine.

Why Americans waste so much food

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Even though American consumers throw away about 80 billion pounds of food a year, only about half are aware that food waste is a problem. Even more, researchers have identified that most people perceive benefits to throwing food away, some of which have limited basis in fact.

A study published today in PLOS ONE is just the second peer-reviewed large-scale consumer survey about food waste and is the first in the U.S. to identify patterns regarding how Americans form attitudes on food waste.

Here's why run-down schools trigger low test scores

ITHACA, N.Y. - Social scientists have known for several years that kids enrolled in run-down schools miss more classes and have lower test scores than students at well-maintained schools. But they haven't been able to pin down why.

A Cornell University environmental psychologist has an answer.

One-third of students report elevated psychological distress, CAMH survey shows

TORONTO (July 21, 2016) - More than one in three - an estimated 328,000 -- Ontario students in grades seven to 12 report moderate-to-serious psychological distress, according to new survey results from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Girls are twice as likely as boys to experience psychological distress.

Artificial muscle for soft robotics: Low voltage, high hopes

Soft robots do a lot of things well but they're not exactly known for their speed. The artificial muscles that move soft robots, called actuators, tend to rely on hydraulics or pneumatics, which are slow to respond and difficult to store.

Dielectric elastomers, soft materials that have good insulating properties, could offer an alternative to pneumatic actuators but they currently require complex and inefficient circuitry to deliver high voltage as well as rigid components to maintain their form -- both of which defeat the purpose of a soft robot.

Computer scientists find way to make all that glitters more realistic in computer graphics

Iron Man's suit. Captain America's shield. The Batmobile. These all could look a lot more realistic thanks to a new algorithm developed by a team of U.S. computer graphics experts.

The researchers, led by Professor Ravi Ramamoorthi at the University of California San Diego, have created a method to improve how computer graphics software reproduces the way light interacts with extremely small details, called glints, on the surface of a wide range of materials, including metallic car paints, metal finishes for electronics and injection-molded plastic finishes.

Can palm oil be sustainable?

Land used for palm oil production could be nearly doubled without expanding into protected or high-biodiversity forests, according to a new study published in the journal Global Environmental Change. The study is the first to map land suitable for palm oil production on a global scale, while taking into account environmental and climate considerations.

"There is room to expand palm oil production and to do it in a sustainable way," says IIASA researcher Johannes Pirker, who led the study.

Integration of novel materials with silicon chips makes new 'smart' devices possible

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the U.S. Army Research Office have developed a way to integrate novel functional materials onto a computer chip, allowing the creation of new smart devices and systems.