Today's office workplaces are designed to be as ergonomic as possible. Even so, after hours of hunching over a desk it does you good to stand up, stretch your legs and relax your back. Spending a whole day in practically the same cramped position is a very tiring proposition.
The backrest of the seat shell (seen from behind) is constructed of ribs and joints which simulate the structure of a human torso.
(Photo Credit: Empa)
MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A switch to LED lights in refrigeration units could save the retail meat industry millions of dollars each year, according to research from Kansas State University.
Kyle Steele, recent master's graduate in animal sciences and industry, Silver Lake, Kan., found that using light-emitting diode, or LED, lights in refrigeration units both saves energy for meat retailers and extends the shelf life of some beef products.
An international team of researchers including scientists at Princeton University have achieved a 100-fold increase in the ability to maintain control the spins of electrons in a solid material, a key step in the development of ultrafast quantum computers.
Until recently, the best attempts at such control lasted for only a fraction of a second. But researchers Stephen Lyon and Alexei Tyryshkin have found a way to extend the control over the spins of billions of electrons in a silicon chip for up to 10 seconds, far longer than any previous attempt.
Researchers from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC) have discovered a family of genes that could help us breed grasses with improved properties for diet and bioenergy.
The research was carried out by a team from the University of Cambridge and Rothamsted Research, which receives strategic funding from BBSRC. Their findings are published today (Tuesday 17 Jan) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
A team of four British engineers has returned to the UK after completing a gruelling journey to one of the most remote and hostile locations on the planet to put in place equipment and supplies for an ambitious project later this year. Enduring temperatures of minus 35°C the Subglacial Lake Ellsworth 'Advance Party' has successfully paved the way to explore an ancient lake buried beneath 3 km of Antarctic ice. A powerful 'tractor-train' towed nearly 70 tonnes of equipment across Antarctica's ice over deep snow and steep mountain passes.
CMOS image sensors have long since been the solution of choice for digital photography. They are much cheaper to produce than existing sensors, and they are also superior in terms of power consumption and handling. Consequently, leading manufacturers of cell-phone and digital cameras fit CMOS chips in their products almost without exception. This not only reduces the demands made of the battery, it also makes increasingly smaller cameras possible.
For the first time, a superconducting current limiter based on YBCO strip conductors has now been installed at a power plant. At the Boxberg power plant of Vattenfall, the current limiter protects the grid for own consumption that is designed for 12 000 volts and 800 amperes against damage due to short circuits and voltage peaks. The new technology co-developed by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and made by Nexans SuperConductors enhances the intrinsic safety of the grid and may help reduce the investment costs of plants.
Boston, MA — Dozens of studies, many from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, have shown that low-fat diets are no better for health than moderate- or high-fat diets—and for many people, may be worse.
SANTA CRUZ, CA--Robotics experts at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Washington (UW) have completed a set of seven advanced robotic surgery systems for use by major medical research laboratories throughout the United States. After a round of final tests, five of the systems will be shipped to medical robotics researchers at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Nebraska, UC Berkeley, and UCLA, while the other two systems will remain at UC Santa Cruz and UW.
University of Illinois researchers have shown that by tuning the properties of laser light illuminating arrays of metal nanoantennas, these nano-scale structures allow for dexterous optical tweezing as well as size-sorting of particles.
No less than one third of a car's fuel consumption is spent in overcoming friction, and this friction loss has a direct impact on both fuel consumption and emissions. However, new technology can reduce friction by anything from 10% to 80% in various components of a car, according to a joint study by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in USA. It should thus be possible to reduce car's fuel consumption and emissions by 18% within the next 5 to 10 years and up to 61% within 15 to 25 years.
With a random-looking spatter of paint specks, a pair of cameras and a whole lot of computer processing, engineer Mark Iadicola of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been helping the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), in cooperation with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), to assure the safety of hundreds of truss bridges across the United States.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has developed two new Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) for measurements of human exposure to environmental toxins.
The chemical industry, which touches 96 percent of all manufactured goods, is seeing some positive signs for 2012, although the overall outlook is not very rosy. Growing demand for chemicals used in agriculture, electronics, cars and airplanes will boost an industry that generates $674 billion in sales in the U.S. alone, but expiring patents and global economic woes will take a toll.
With the support of the ULMA Group's innovation area, ULMA Agrícola, following the agreement signed with Tecnalia through its Energy Unit, has installed photovoltaic modules on one of its two glass greenhouse units measuring approximately 400 m2.