Tech
Inspired by the surface of butterfly wings, researchers have developed a light-activated hydrogen sensor that produces ultra-precise results at room temperature.
The technology can detect hydrogen leaks well before they pose safety risks and can measure tiny amounts of the gas on people's breath, for diagnosing gut disorders.
Commercial hydrogen sensors only work at temperatures of 150C or higher, but the prototype developed by researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, is powered by light instead of heat.
Dropping a cell phone can sometimes cause superficial cracks to appear. But other times, the device can stop working altogether because fractures develop in the material that stores data. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Polymer Materials have made an environmentally friendly, gelatin-based film that can repair itself multiple times and still maintain the electronic signals needed to access a device's data. The material could be used someday in smart electronics and health-monitoring devices.
Race is not biology. As a social construct, race is an unreliable predictor of physiologic variation and a notoriously unreliable marker for biologic differences across populations.
To reflect this growing realization, hospital systems and professional medical organizations have started reconsidering the use of race in clinical calculators that estimate how well a person's kidneys work. Indeed, some hospital systems have already removed race from these commonly used clinical tools.
But what this move might mean for patients remains unclear.
Researchers from Skoltech and the University of Texas at Austin have presented a proof-of-concept for a wearable sensor that can track healing in sores, ulcers, and other kinds of chronic skin wounds, even without the need to remove the bandages. The paper was published in the journal ACS Sensors.
Brexit offers the UK opportunities to strengthen its world-leading tobacco control measures, by creating greater flexibility to respond to industry action and market developments, according to new research from the University of Bath.
The UK is currently bound by EU rules, but will enjoy greater freedom to adopt types of tobacco tax that are more effective at lifting the price of cheap tobacco products, as well as more direct pricing policies such as minimum prices or the imposition of price caps. Higher prices are one of the most effective tobacco control measures.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- When you press the dimpled circles on a fountain drink lid, they become either convex or concave. Materials or structures that have two stable states demonstrate a concept called bistability.
A Purdue team has demonstrated that a patterned sheet of these domes will form an energy-storing skin: strong enough to perform mechanical tasks, and even programmable to store and process data like a mechanical computer.
Expansion microscopy (ExM) enables the imaging of cells and their components with a spatial resolution far below 200 nanometres. For this purpose, the proteins of the sample under investigation are cross-linked into a swellable polymer. Once the interactions between the molecules have been destroyed, the samples can be expanded many times over with water. This allows detailed insights into their structures.
As we move away from fossil fuels and shift to renewable energy to tackle climate change, the need for new ways to capture and store energy becomes increasingly important.
Lancaster University researchers studying a crystalline material have discovered it has properties that allow it to capture energy from the sun. The energy can be stored for several months at room temperature, and it can be released on demand in the form of heat.
An analysis of Geisinger's electronic health records has revealed chronic kidney disease to be the leading risk factor for hospitalization from COVID-19.
A team of Geisinger researchers studied the health records of 12,971 individuals who were tested for COVID-19 within the Geisinger system between March 7 and May 19. Of this group, 1,604 were COVID-positive and 354 required hospitalization. The team analyzed the records for association between specific clinical conditions, including kidney, cardiovascular, respiratory and metabolic conditions, and COVID-19 hospitalization.
A specialist in spacecraft movement control analyzed the process of placing vehicle stages, boosters, and other space debris into the so-called disposal orbit and suggested cleaning lower orbits up with a spacecraft that has modules with engine units on board. These modules will attach to space debris objects and move them away. As for the geostationary orbit, a preferable way to clean it up would be a towing spacecraft that transports space debris objects into the disposal orbit.
New York, NY--December 2, 2020--Graphene, an atomically thin carbon layer through which electrons can travel virtually unimpeded, has been extensively studied since its first successful isolation more than 15 years ago. Among its many unique properties is the ability to support highly confined electromagnetic waves coupled to oscillations of electronic charge--plasmon polaritons--that have potentially broad applications in nanotechnology, including biosensing, quantum information, and solar energy.
DURHAM, N.C. - Engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a dual-mode heating and cooling device for building climate control that, if widely deployed in the U.S., could cut HVAC energy use by nearly 20 percent.
CAMBRIDGE -- About 25 percent of the U.S. population suffers from fatty liver disease, a condition that can lead to fibrosis of the liver and, eventually, liver failure.
Currently there is no easy way to diagnose either fatty liver disease or liver fibrosis. However, MIT engineers have now developed a diagnostic tool, based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), that could be used to detect both of those conditions.
A drug originally developed to treat bacterial infections has proved capable of boosting the metabolism and attenuating the weight gain induced by a fatty diet in tests with mice. The study was conducted at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) with FAPESP's support, and the findings have just been published in the journal Science Advances.
As President-elect Joe Biden and his administrative team officially begin the transition process, only about 20 percent of Republican voters consider him the true winner of the election. Nearly half of all respondents--48 percent--still expect President Donald Trump to be inaugurated for a second term on January 20, despite plenty of indicators to the contrary.