Tech

A preliminary report suggests that virtual nasal surgery has the potential to be a productive tool that may enable surgeons to perform personalized nasal surgery using computer simulation techniques, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the September print issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

AMES, Iowa – David Grewell flipped on the augers that carry corn from a truck to a biorefinery.

Then, with a few more clicks of his computer mouse, he turned on the pumps that send grain all the way through an ethanol plant, from storage to hammer mill to slurry tanks to jet cooker to liquefaction, fermentation, distillation, water separation and ultimately to ethanol storage.

Don't forget the centrifuges, evaporators and driers that recover distillers grains for livestock feed.

PITTSBURGH—A University of Pittsburgh-led team has created a single-electron transistor that provides a building block for new, more powerful computer memories, advanced electronic materials, and the basic components of quantum computers.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that currently available types of synthetic skin may now be good enough to imitate animal skin in laboratory tests, and may be on their way to truly simulating human skin in the future.

Researchers compared the response of synthetic skins to rat skin when they were both exposed to a generic skin cream treatment, and the results indicated they both reacted similarly.

The scientists used high-resolution images of two types of synthetic skin and samples of rat skin to discover similarities on microscopic scales.

With its promise of superfast computers and ultrapowerful optical microscopes among the many possibilities, plasmonics has become one of the hottest fields in high-technology. However, to date plasmonic properties have been limited to nanostructures that feature interfaces between noble metals and dielectrics. Now, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown that plasmonic properties can also be achieved in the semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots.

Companies spend millions to develop their brand's personality, in hopes that it can help sell products. But they've had no way of measuring whether that personality actually appeals to consumers. Now, research from North Carolina State University lays out a system for measuring the appeal of a brand's personality.

On the 5th October 2010 the historic Hastings Pier was set on fire, destroying 95% of the Grade II listed building, leading to concerns over its future. Now scientists from the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) are helping to show that the future of the pier is more positive than expected.

  • Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are infections that patients acquire during their hospitalization and that were not present at the time of admission to the hospital.
  • A new study has found that people with alcohol use disorders who develop HAIs have longer hospital stays, thousands of dollars of higher hospital costs, and much greater odds of dying.

Tips to reduce your carbon footprint frequently include buying compact florescent light bulbs, taking your own bag to the grocery store or buying local produce. But how much difference do these actions make?

A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that who you are and where you live make a big difference in which activities have the largest impact.

Many transportation companies in Germany have a serious problem: their trucks are only carrying part loads or returning to base empty. In the German road freight sector, the number of kilometers driven without a load has stagnated at around 20 percent since 2006. But experts expect the volume of road freight to increase dramatically in the near future, and innovative concepts will be needed to prevent a parallel increase in the number of empty trips.

WASHINGTON -- Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory Materials Science and Technology Division are providing solid evidence that there is a new route towards developing novel, lightweight energy storage devices. By moving away from centuries of caustic, hazardous aqueous-based battery cells and instead using non-volatile, thermally-stable ionic liquids, scientists predict multiple new types of batteries.

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- A new computational study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals how hydrocarbons may be formed from methane in deep Earth at extreme pressures and temperatures.

The thermodynamic and kinetic properties of hydrocarbons at high pressures and temperature are important for understanding carbon reservoirs and fluxes in Earth.

The work provides a basis for understanding experiments that demonstrated polymerization of methane to form high hydrocarbons and earlier methane forming reactions under pressure.

First impressions are important, and they usually contain a healthy dose both of accuracy and misperception. But do people know when their first impressions are correct? They do reasonably well, according to a study in the current Social Psychological and Personality Science (published by SAGE).

Repeated unnecessary 911 calls are a common drain on the manpower and finances of emergency medical services, but a pilot program that identified Baltimore City's top 911 callers and coupled them with a case worker has succeeded in drastically cutting the number of such calls while helping callers get proper care.