More accurate global weather forecasts and a better understanding of climate change are a possibility following new research by engineers at Queen's University Belfast's Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT).
The ECIT team has developed a high performance electronic device - known as a dual polarized Frequency Selective Surface filter - that is to be used in future European Space Agency (ESA) missions.
BOULDER, Colo. – Raising prospects for building a practical quantum computer, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated sustained, reliable information processing operations on electrically charged atoms (ions). The new work, described in the August 6 issue of Science Express,* overcomes significant hurdles in scaling up ion-trapping technology from small demonstrations to larger quantum processors.
Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and Harvard University have opened a new toolbox for building nanoscale structures out of DNA, using complex twisting and curving shapes. In the journal Science they report a series of experiments in which they folded DNA, like origami, into three dimensional objects including a beachball-shaped wireframe capsule just 50 nanometers in diameter.
Washington, DC - (August 6, 2009) – The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has completed a successful flight test of the fuel cell powered XFC (eXperimental Fuel Cell) unmanned aerial system (UAS). During the June 2 flight test, the XFC UAS was airborne for more than six hours. NRL's Chemistry and Tactical Electronic Warfare Divisions are developing the XFC UAS as an expendable, long endurance platform for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR).
Satellite imagery over the last two days has shown Typhoon Morakot to be a monster, and over the last two days, NASA satellites have confirmed the typhoon doubled its size!
So much for high energy physics in 2009. CERN 's Large Hadron Collider is taking a cautious approach, in marked contrast to the rather silly statement by Lyn Evans two years ago, who said they "will commission the machine to full energy in one go" to make up for the two years of delays they had already incurred by 2007.
A process that cleans wastewater and generates electricity can also remove 90 percent of salt from brackish water or seawater, according to an international team of researchers from China and the U.S.
WASHINGTON –Monographs addressing individual mandates, tax exclusion and a public plan option were released today by the American College of Physicians (ACP). The new policy papers are:
On a 104-degree Friday in July when sunlight bathed campus, doctoral student Dio Placencia sat before a noisy vacuum chamber in the Chemical Sciences Building trying to advance the renewable energy revolution.
As a University of Arizona (UA) professor, Neal R. Armstrong's research group, Placencia conducts research aimed at creating a thin, flexible organic solar cell that could power a tent or keep a car charged between trips to work and back home again.
Nationally, about ten percent of women in the US are recalled for a second mammogram after an abnormality is detected on the first one. However, the use of digital breast tomosynthesis and full-field digital mammography combined may be associated with a substantial decrease in recall rate, according to a study performed at UPMC in Pittsburgh, PA. Some researchers believe that digital breast tomosynthesis depicts the breast tissue in a way which may allow radiologists to identify some tumors which could be missed with standard two-dimensional mammography.
Noninvasive imaging (MRI) may aid physicians in the early diagnosis, staging and treatment of diabetes, according to a study performed at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. This is the first study of its kind to apply noninvasive imaging techniques to diabetes research.
Some engineers want to pack hydrogen into a larger molecule, rather than compressing the gas into a tank. A gas flows easily out of a tank, but getting hydrogen out of a molecule requires a catalyst. Now, researchers reveal new details about one such catalyst. The results are a step toward designing catalysts for use in hydrogen energy applications such as fuel cells.
A 1930s house built in 2008 is about to undergo the first of three energy efficiency upgrades which will ultimately convert an energy inefficient house into a zero carbon home designed to meet the Government's 2016 CO2 targets for all new housing. The results of this research will be relevant to millions of householders across the UK.
Regional nerve blocks, an anesthesia technique available at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, are known to improve pain relief, reduce side effects, and allow patients to go home sooner when compared with general anesthesia. With the introduction of ultrasound guidance, nerve blocks have become more accurate, making the technique available in the treatment of an increasing variety of conditions, including breast cancer surgery.
Researchers the world over are striving to develop organic solar cells that can be produced easily and inexpensively as thin films that could be widely used to generate electricity.
But a major obstacle is coaxing these carbon-based materials to reliably form the proper structure at the nanoscale (tinier than 2-millionths of an inch) to be highly efficient in converting light to electricity. The goal is to develop cells made from low-cost plastics that will transform at least 10 percent of the sunlight that they absorb into usable electricity and can be easily manufactured.