BERKELEY, CA – Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have demonstrated a way to fabricate efficient solar cells from low-cost and flexible materials. The new design grows optically active semiconductors in arrays of nanoscale pillars, each a single crystal, with dimensions measured in billionths of a meter.
Tech
Troy, N.Y. – A destructive earthquake will strike a lone, wooden condominium in Japan next week, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Michael Symans will be on site to watch it happen.
Iron and manganese compounds, in addition to sulfate, may play an important role in converting methane to carbon dioxide and eventually carbonates in the Earth's oceans, according to a team of researchers looking at anaerobic sediments. These same compounds may have been key to methane reduction in the early, oxygenless days of the planet's atmosphere.
July 9, 2009 (Honolulu) – Specialty care physicians can improve the health of high-risk patients by reviewing electronic health records and proactively providing e-consultations and treatment plan recommendations with primary care physicians, according to a Kaiser Permanente paper published online in the British Medical Journal.
The use of cardiac CT for low-risk chest pain patients in the emergency department, instead of the traditional standard of care (SOC) workup, reduces a patient's length of stay and hospital charges, according to a study performed at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA. The SOC workup, which is timely and expensive, consists of a series of cardiac enzyme tests, ECGs and stress testing.
Investigators from Hospital for Special Surgery have shown that a biodegradable scaffold or plug can be used to treat patients with damaged knee cartilage. The study is unique in that it used serial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and newer quantitative T2 mapping to examine how the plug incorporated itself into the knee. The research, abstract 8372, will be presented during the annual meeting of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, June 9-12, in Keystone, Colo.
Stirling Energy Systems (SES) and Tessera Solar recently unveiled four newly designed solar power collection dishes at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF).
A hyper-realistic Einstein robot at the University of California, San Diego has learned to smile and make facial expressions through a process of self-guided learning. The UC San Diego researchers used machine learning to "empower" their robot to learn to make realistic facial expressions.
Dennis J. Fasbinder, DDS, MAGD, ABGD will help dentists decrease the amount of time that patients spend in the office by leading a discussion and providing information about using computer-assisted design and computer-assisted machining (CAD/CAM) technology at the Academy of General Dentistry's (AGD) 57th Annual Meeting, which takes place in Baltimore, Md., July 8 – 12, 2009.
Grand Rapids, Mich. (July 8, 2009) – Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) investigators have identified a gene that could be an important therapeutic target in the treatment of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer. Currently, patients with these cancers have few treatment options.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Widely sought efforts to reduce fuels that increase catastrophic fire in Pacific Northwest forests will be counterproductive to another important societal goal of sequestering carbon to help offset global warming, forestry researchers at Oregon State University conclude in a new report.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State University researchers have developed a new method for making extremely pure, very small metal-oxide nanoparticles.
They are using this simple, fast, and low-temperature process to make materials for gas sensors that detect toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) and biological warfare agents.
The researchers described their work in a recent issue of the journal Materials Chemistry and Physics.
(Boston) - Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have shown that patients with uncontrolled hypertension respond to treatment intensification regardless of their degree of adherence to antihypertensive medications. This study, which has been published online in Hypertension could have an immediate impact on clinical care, as it challenges a widely held assumption.
(Boston) – Boston Medical Center (BMC) researchers have identified potential safety risks among methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) patients due to the quantity and accuracy of medical record documentation. Improved communication and coordination among substance use treatment and medical providers could mitigate and manage the potential adverse effects of methadone and interacting medications. The BMC study appears in the July issue of Journal of General Internal Medicine.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A study comparing how two common dietary oil supplements affect body composition suggests that both oils, by themselves, can lower body fat in obese postmenopausal women with Type 2 diabetes.