SPOKANE, Wash.— Washington State University sleep researchers have determined that the air traffic controller in the crash of a Lexington, Ky., commuter flight was substantially fatigued when he failed to detect that the plane was on the wrong runway and cleared it for takeoff.
Tech
ARLINGTON, Va.-Scientists at Los Alamos National Lab, N.M., have achieved a remarkable breakthrough with the Office of Naval Research's Free Electron Laser (FEL) program, demonstrating an injector capable of producing the electrons needed to generate megawatt-class laser beams for the Navy's next-generation weapon system.
LIVERMORE, Calif. – Using seawater and calcium to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) in a natural gas power plant's flue stream, and then pumping the resulting calcium bicarbonate in the sea, could be beneficial to the oceans' marine life.
Researcher Walker Smith of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, has been conducting shipboard studies of biological productivity in Antarctica's Ross Sea for the last three decades. This year he's letting underwater robots do some of the work.
A multifaceted quality improvement intervention that included education, reminders and feedback through a collaborative telecommunication network improved the adoption of evidenced-based care practices in intensive care units at community hospitals for practices such as preventing catheter-related bloodstream infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia, according to a study that will appear in the January 26 issue of JAMA. The study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at the annual meeting of the Society of Critical Care Medicine.
The blood test procedure used on newborn infants for 40 years is finding a second life in the search for new lifesaving medications, according to an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine.
In the materials science equivalent of a football fan jumping onto the field and scoring a touchdown, scientists are documenting that one fundamental component of computer chips, long regarded as a passive bystander, can actually be made to act like a switch. That potentially allows it to take part in the electronic processes that power cell phones, iPads, computers, and thousands of other products.
TORONTO, Ont., Jan. 19, 2011–Health care systems around the world are failing to use evidence obtained through research when making decisions, causing inefficiencies and reduced quantity and quality of life, according to a leading expert in the field of "knowledge translation."
"Failures to use research evidence to inform decision-making are apparent across all key decision-maker groups," said Dr. Sharon Straus, a geriatrician and director of knowledge translation at St. Michael's Hospital.
High school students are more likely to retake the SAT if they score just below a round number, such as 1290, than if they score just above it. That's the conclusion of a study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, which found that round numbers are strong motivators.
PITTSBURGH, Jan. 18 – Family caregivers who had not discussed life support measures with critically ill patients took nearly two weeks longer to decide to forego further medical intervention than those who had prior conversations about the issues, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Public Health. They share their findings in a poster presentation at the Society of Critical Care Medicine congress this week in San Diego.
Serious traffic gridlocks, like the jam on Beijing's national expressway a few months ago which brought vehicles to a halt for days, are a real-world issue needing attention. Unfortunately, such standstills are not uncommon in Beijing, or in other cities around the world.
Researchers at Northwestern University have created a robotic fish that can move from swimming forward and backward to swimming vertically almost instantaneously by using a sophisticated, ribbon-like fin.
The robot -- created after observing and creating computer simulations of the black ghost knifefish -- could pave the way for nimble robots that could perform underwater recovery operations or long-term monitoring of coral reefs.