Tech

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When companies restructure, even managers who escape layoffs can wind up on shakier ground, a new study by a University of Illinois labor expert found.

Corporate streamlining shifts the balance of workplace power toward firms, which use the added muscle to impose company-friendly wage and employment standards, said John Dencker, a professor of labor and employment relations.

"For the majority of managers, their careers and compensation become a lot more risky," he said. "They just don't have the guarantees they had in the past."

CAMBRIDGE Mass. -- MIT researchers have developed a powerful new tool for calculating the effects of Casimir forces, complicated quantum forces that affect only objects that are very, very close together, with ramifications for both basic physics and the design of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). One of the researchers' most recent discoveries using the new tool was a way to arrange tiny objects so that the ordinarily attractive Casimir forces become repulsive.

Patients who are critically ill and participate in mild exercise programs led by physical therapists achieve higher functional mobility and spend fewer days in intensive care units (ICU) and hospitals than those who receive less exercise, according to a report published in the April issue of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Scientists have used quantum mechanics to reveal that the most common mineral on Earth is relatively uncommon deep within the planet.

Using several of the largest supercomputers in the nation, a team of physicists led by Ohio State University has been able to simulate the behavior of silica in a high-temperature, high-pressure form that is particularly difficult to study firsthand in the lab.

Professor Alexander Balandin and a team of UC Riverside researchers, including Chun Ning Lau, an associate professor of physics, have taken another step toward new technology that could keep laptops and other electronic devices from overheating.

Physiological signals can nowadays be easily monitored with measurement devices implanted inside a living body. The object – animal or human – is barely aware of the presence of the implant. An example of a device implantable in humans is the pacemaker that has long since become standard treatment for heart patients. Researcher Jarno Riistama from Tampere University of Technology (TUT) believes that the next tech-savvy generation represents a potential customer base for new applications in the field.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have managed, with the help of an advanced X-ray flash, to photograph the movement of atoms during photosynthesis, they write in Science.