Nanoreporters tell ‘sour’ oil from ‘sweet’

Rice University’s hydrogen sulfide nanoreporters gather intel on oil before pumping 

Scientists at Rice University have created a nanoscale detector that checks for and reports on the presence of hydrogen sulfide in crude oil and natural gas while they’re still in the ground.

The nanoreporter is based on nanometer-sized carbon material developed by a consortium of Rice labs led by chemist James Tour and is the subject of a new paper published this month in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

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Scripps Florida Scientists Identify Critical New Protein Complex Involved in Learning and Memory

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified a protein complex that plays a critical but previously unknown role in learning and memory formation.

The study, which showed a novel role for a protein known as RGS7, was published April 22, 2014 in the journal eLife, a publisher supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust.

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LEDs Get Seal of Approval: Safe for Skin

There was a time when no one thought about light bulbs—one blew, you screwed another one in. Nowadays, it’s more complicated, as energy efficiency concerns have given rise to a slew of options, including incandescent, compact fluorescent lights, and light emitting diodes.

LEDs are the most expensive option, but they are also the most energy efficient, are getting more cost-efficient, and they are growing in popularity. With this increasing acceptance, concerns have arisen about long-  or short-term direct skin exposure—especially since a 2012 SBU study found that contact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs can harm skin cells due to UV-light emittance.

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Visions of the future: Links between science, technology and social issues

Science and technology is the vital driving force for economic and social development.

However, the fundamental links between science, technology, and society are unclear because of their complexity and hidden relationships.

Now, Yuya Kajikawa and colleagues at Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed methodology to explore the roles of technology for resolving social issues.

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Computer-Assisted Accelerator Design

Stephen Brooks uses his own custom software tool to fire electron beams into a virtual model of proposed accelerator designs for eRHIC. The goal: Keep the cost down and be sure the beams will circulate in this proposed next-generation machine.

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A New Key to Unlocking the Mysteries of Physics? Quantum Turbulence

The recent discovery of the Higgs boson has confirmed theories about the origin of mass and, with it, offered the potential to explain other scientific mysteries.

But, scientists are continually studying other, less-understood forces that may also shed light on matters not yet uncovered. Among these is quantum turbulence, writes Katepalli Sreenivasan, an NYU University Professor, in a special issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Study casts doubt on climate benefit of biofuels from corn residue

Using corn crop residue to make ethanol and other biofuels reduces soil carbon and can generate more greenhouse gases than gasoline, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The findings by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln team of researchers cast doubt on whether corn residue can be used to meet federal mandates to ramp up ethanol production and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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University of Zurich tests immune cells on the International Space Station

The human body is fine-tuned to Earth’s gravity. A team headed by Professor Oliver Ullrich from the University of Zurich’s Institute of Anatomy is now conducting an experiment on the International Space Station (ISS) to study whether this also applies to human cells. On the evening of April 18, the transporter spaceship Dragon lifted off from the Cape Canaveral launch center in Florida with a cargo of UZH immune cells on board.

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Collider reveals sharp change from ‘quark soup’ to atoms

Using the atom-smasher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and its ability to scan to lower collision energies, scientists have observed a sharp phase transition — different from the smooth change in the early universe — from a “hot soup” of quarks and gluons, into the protons, neutrons and electrons in atoms that are the building blocks of matter.

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Gecko-like Adhesives Now Useful for Real World Surfaces

The ability to stick objects to a wide range of surfaces such as drywall, wood, metal and glass with a single adhesive has been the elusive goal of many research teams across the world, but now a team of University of Massachusetts Amherst inventors describe a new, more versatile version of their invention, Geckskin, that can adhere strongly to a wider range of surfaces, yet releases easily, like a gecko’s feet.

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Stanford research shows benefits of crystallization

Stanford scientists help create a novel way to do time-lapse studies of crystallization that will lead to more flexible and effective electronic displays, circuits and pharmaceutical drugs.

Sometimes engineers invent something before they fully comprehend why it works. To understand the "why," they must often create new tools and techniques in a virtuous cycle that improves the original invention while also advancing basic scientific knowledge.

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'Dressed' Laser Aimed at Clouds May be Key to Inducing Rain, Lightning

The adage “Everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it,” may one day be obsolete if researchers at the University of Central Florida’s College of Optics & Photonics and the University of Arizona further develop a new technique to aim a high-energy laser beam into clouds to make it rain or trigger lightning.

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Impurity Size Affects Performance of Emerging Superconductive Material

Research from North Carolina State University finds that impurities can hurt performance – or possibly provide benefits – in a key superconductive material that is expected to find use in a host of applications, including future particle colliders. The size of the impurities determines whether they help or hinder the material’s performance.

At issue is a superconductive material called bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide (Bi2212). A superconductor is a material that can carry electricity without any loss – none of the energy is dissipated as heat, for example. Superconductive materials are currently used in medical MRI technology, and are expected to play a prominent role in emerging power technologies.

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LG-SWISS RESEARCHERS ANNOUNCE GRAPHENE MEMBRANE BREAKTHROUGH IN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE

Joint Research Advances Gas, Liquid and Air Purification Technology for Future Commercialization

Researchers from LG Electronics (LG) and Swiss university ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) have developed a method to greatly increase the speed and efficient transmission of gas, liquid and water vapor through perforated graphene, a material that has seen an explosion of scientific interest in recent years. The findings open up the possibility in the future to develop highly efficient filters to treat air and water.

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Vitamin B3 Might Have Been Made in Space, Delivered to Earth by Meteorites

Ancient Earth might have had an extraterrestrial supply of vitamin B3 delivered by carbon-rich meteorites, according to a new analysis by NASA-funded researchers. The result supports a theory that the origin of life may have been assisted by a supply of key molecules created in space and brought to Earth by comet and meteor impacts.

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Surprising Material Could Play Role in Saving Energy

One strategy for addressing the world’s energy crisis is to stop wasting so much energy when producing and using it, which can happen in coal-fired power plants or transportation. Nearly two-thirds of energy input is lost as waste heat.

Now Northwestern University scientists have discovered a surprising material that is the best in the world at converting waste heat to useful electricity. This outstanding property could be exploited in solid-state thermoelectric devices in a variety of industries, with potentially enormous energy savings.

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Found: An Earth-sized planet that might hold liquid water

In a dim and faraway solar system, astronomers have for the first time discovered a rocky, Earth-sized planet that might hold liquid water—a necessary ingredient for life as we know it.

The planet Kepler-186f is the fifth and outermost world orbiting the red dwarf Kepler-186. The slow-burning sun is smaller and cooler than our own. Too faint to be seen without a telescope, it's roughly 500 light years away in the direction of the northern constellation Cygnus (a light year is the distance light travels in a year).

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Wireless power transfer achieved at five-meter distance

The way electronic devices receive their power has changed tremendously over the past few decades, from wired to non-wired. Users today enjoy all kinds of wireless electronic gadgets including cell phones, mobile displays, tablet PCs, and even batteries. The Internet has also shifted from wired to wireless. Now, researchers and engineers are trying to remove the last remaining wires altogether by developing wireless power transfer technology.

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Conceptual representation in the brain: towards mind-reading

Your measured brain signals can reveal whether you are thinking about an animal or a tool. That’s what neuroscientist Irina Simanova discovered during her PhD at Radboud University, where she investigated the conceptual representation of words and objects in the human brain. This knowledge is useful for the development of tools that convert brain signals into speech.

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Chiral breathing: Electrically controlled polymer changes its optical properties

Electrically controlled glasses with continuously adjustable transparency, new polarisation filters, and even chemosensors capable of detecting single molecules of specific chemicals could be fabricated thanks to a new polymer unprecedentedly combining optical and electrical properties.

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Searching for Dark Energy with Neutrons

It does not always take a huge accelerator to do particle physics: First results from a low energy, table top alterative takes validity of Newtonian gravity down by five orders of magnitude and narrows the potential properties of the forces and particles that may exist beyond it by more than one hundred thousand times. Gravity resonance spectroscopy, a method developed at the Vienna University of Technology, is so sensitive that it can now be used to search for Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

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Information storage for the next generation of plastic computers

Efficient conversion from magnetic storage to light is key

Inexpensive computers, cell phones and other systems that substitute flexible plastic for silicon chips may be one step closer to reality, thanks to research published on April 16 in the journal Nature Communications.

The paper describes a new proposal by University of Iowa researchers and their colleagues at New York University for overcoming a major obstacle to the development of such plastic devices—the large amount of energy required to read stored information.

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Scientists Capture Ultrafast Snapshots of Light-Driven Superconductivity

X-rays reveal how rapidly vanishing 'charge stripes' may be behind laser-induced high-temperature superconductivity

A new study pins down a major factor behind the appearance of superconductivity—the ability to conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency—in a promising copper-oxide material.

Scientists used carefully timed pairs of laser pulses at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) to trigger superconductivity in the material and immediately take x-ray snapshots of its atomic and electronic structure as superconductivity emerged.

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State of the World 2014: Governing for Sustainability

Citizens expect their governments to lead on sustainability. But from largely disappointing international conferences like Rio II to the U.S.’s failure to pass meaningful climate legislation, governments’ progress has been lackluster. That’s not to say leadership is absent; it just often comes from the bottom up rather than the top down. Action—on climate, species loss, inequity, and other sustainability crises—is being driven by local, people’s, women’s, and grassroots movements around the world, often in opposition to the agendas pursued by governments and big corporations.

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Making radiation-proof materials for electronics, power plants

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster made the dangers of radiation all too real. To avoid similar tragedies in the future, scientists are working to develop new radiation-proof materials for nuclear power plants, as well as for less obvious applications such as medical devices and airplanes. An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the American Chemical Society’s weekly news magazine, explores the latest developments.

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Environmentally Compatible Organic Solar Cells

KIT Coordinates “MatHero” Project Related to Sustainable and Low-cost Production Methods – EC Funds Project with EUR 3.5 Million

Environmentally compatible production methods for organic solar cells from novel materials are in the focus of “MatHero”. The new project coordinated by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) aims at making organic photovoltaics competitive to their inorganic counterparts by enhancing the efficiency of organic solar cells, reducing their production costs and increasing their life-time. “Green” processes for materials synthesis and coating play a key role. “MatHero” is funded by the European Commission with an amount of EUR 3.5 million.

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Excitons observed in action for the first time

Technique developed at MIT reveals the motion of energy-carrying quasiparticles in solid material.

A quasiparticle called an exciton — responsible for the transfer of energy within devices such as solar cells, LEDs, and semiconductor circuits — has been understood theoretically for decades. But exciton movement within materials has never been directly observed.

Now scientists at MIT and the City College of New York have achieved that feat, imaging excitons’ motions directly. This could enable research leading to significant advances in electronics, they say, as well as a better understanding of natural energy-transfer processes, such as photosynthesis.

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Better memory at ideal temperature

People’s working memory functions better if they are working in an ambient temperature where they feel most comfortable. That is what Leiden psychologists Lorenza Colzato and Roberta Sellaro conclude after having conducted research. They are publishing their findings in Psychological Research.

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NEW DESIGN FOR MOBILE PHONE MASTS COULD CUT CARBON EMISSIONS

A breakthrough in the design of signal amplifiers for mobile phone masts could deliver a massive 200MW cut in the load on UK power stations, reducing CO2 emissions by around 0.5 million tonnes a year.

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Universities of Bristol and Cardiff have designed an amplifier that works at 50 per cent efficiency compared with the 30 per cent now typically achieved.

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Loughborough scientists come up with method of reducing solar panel glare

The glare from solar farms could be a thing of the past, thanks to scientists at Loughborough University.

Researchers have developed a multi-layer anti-reflection (AR) coating for glass surfaces, which reduces the sun’s reflection from photovoltaic panels while at the same time improving their efficiency.

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Wind tunnel tests support improved aerodynamic design of B61-12 bomb

Sandia National Laboratories has finished eight days of testing a full-scale mock unit representing the aerodynamic characteristics of the B61-12 gravity bomb in a wind tunnel.

The tests on the mock-up were done to establish the configuration that will deliver the necessary spin motion of the bomb during freefall and are an important milestone in the Life Extension Program to deliver a new version of the aging system, the B61-12.

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RETHINK EDUCATION TO FUEL BIOECONOMY SAYS REPORT

Microbes can be highly efficient, versatile and sophisticated manufacturing tools, and have the potential to form the basis of a vibrant economic sector.  In order to take full advantage of the opportunity microbial-based industry can offer, though, educators need to rethink how future microbiologists are trained, according to a report by the American Academy of Microbiology.

“Industrial microbiology is experiencing a Renaissance; microorganisms make products ranging from the tightly regulated pharmaceuticals industry to large-scale production of commodity chemicals and biofuels. Educating and training the next generation of employees for these rapidly expanding industries is critically important to their survival,” says Joy Doran-Peterson of the University of Georgia who chaired the steering committee that produced the report.

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Nanocrystalline cellulose modified into an efficient viral inhibitor

Researchers have succeeded in creating a surface on nano-sized cellulose crystals that imitates a biological structure. The surface adsorbs viruses and disables them. The results can prove useful in the development of antiviral ointments and surfaces, for instance.

There are many viral diseases in the world for which no pharmaceutical treatment exists. These include, among others, dengue fever, which is spread by mosquitoes in the tropics, as well as a type of diarrhea, which is more familiar in Finland and is easily spread by the hands and can be dangerous especially for small children and the elderly.

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Engineers develop new materials for hydrogen storage

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have created new ceramic materials that could be used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently.

The researchers have created for the first time compounds made from mixtures of calcium hexaboride, strontium and barium hexaboride. They also have demonstrated that the compounds could be manufactured using a simple, low-cost manufacturing method known as combustion synthesis.

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Biologists Develop Nanosensors to Visualize Movements and Distribution of Plant Stress Hormone

Biologists at UC San Diego have succeeded in visualizing the movement within plants of a key hormone responsible for growth and resistance to drought. The achievement will allow researchers to conduct further studies to determine how the hormone helps plants respond to drought and other environmental stresses driven by the continuing increase in the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide, or CO2, concentration.

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Earthquake simulation tops one quadrillion flops: Computational record on SuperMUC

A team of computer scientists, mathematicians and geophysicists at Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and Ludwig-Maximillians Universitaet Muenchen (LMU) have – with the support of the Leibniz Supercomputing Center of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (LRZ) – optimized the SeisSol earthquake simulation software on the SuperMUC high performance computer at the LRZ to push its performance beyond the “magical” one petaflop/s mark – one quadrillion floating point operations per second.

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Combs of Light Accelerate Communication

Researchers Exploit Optical Frequency Comb Sources on a Silicon Chip for Data Transmission in the Terabit Range

Miniaturized optical frequency comb sources allow for transmission of data streams of several terabits per second over hundreds of kilometers – this has now been demonstrated by researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Swiss École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in a experiment presented in the journal “Nature Photonics”. The results may contribute to accelerating data transmission in large computing centers and worldwide communication networks.

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Determining the Translocation of Nanoparticles

Understanding the factors determining the translocation of nanoparticles (NPs) across membranes is the key to designing versatile NPs for applications in nanotechnology and biomedicine. NP functionalization, for example coating with polymers or ligands, can directly change the NP-membrane interaction and open a way to control the NP cytotoxicity and translocation. Now, reporting in Nanotechnology, researchers at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in China have revealed the important role of grafted polymers on the NP surface in its translocation through a fluidic membrane channel.

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Developing Phosphor-free White Light from Nanopyramid LEDs

Researchers in China have used nitride semiconductor nanopyramid structures to create light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with spectra that are similar to those provided by ‘white light’ LEDs with yellow phosphors [Kui Wu et al, J. Appl. Phys., vol115, p123101, 2014]. The researchers are at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s institutes of Semiconductors and Mechanics, and Tsinghua University. A similar CAS/Tsinghua team previously reported such devices, using a polystyrene nanosphere mask to make holes for selective-area growth of nanopyramids.

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Genetically modified tobacco plants as an alternative for producing bioethanol

 

The study has been conducted by researchers at the Public University of Navarre and the IdAB-Institute of Agrobiotechnology

Researchers at the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre and the IdAB-Institute of Agrobiotechnology have conducted a study into genetically modified tobacco plants from which it is possible to produce between 20 and 40 per cent more ethanol; this would increase their viability as a raw material for producing biofuels.

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Let the Sun Shine In: Redirecting Sunlight to Urban Alleyways

Optical devices could bring natural light into dark, highly populated areas

In dense, urban centers around the world, many people live and work in dim and narrow streets surrounded by tall buildings that block sunlight. And as the global population continues to rise and buildings are jammed closer together, the darkness will only spread.

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Shiny quantum dots brighten future of solar cells

The project demonstrates that superior light-emitting properties of quantum dots can be applied in solar energy by helping more efficiently harvest sunlight.

Photovoltaic solar-panel windows could be next for your house

A house window that doubles as a solar panel could be on the horizon, thanks to recent quantum-dot work by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers in collaboration with scientists from University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB), Italy. Their project demonstrates that superior light-emitting properties of quantum dots can be applied in solar energy by helping more efficiently harvest sunlight.

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Dog Ownership Benefits Families of Children with Autism, MU Researcher Finds

Parents should consider the sensitivities of their children with autism when choosing a pet

Many families face the decision of whether to get a dog. For families of children with autism, the decision can be even more challenging. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has studied dog ownership decisions in families of children with autism and found, regardless of whether they owned dogs, the parents reported the benefits of dog ownership included companionship, stress relief and opportunities for their children to learn responsibility.

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Pioneering findings on the dual role of carbon dioxide in photosynthesis

Researchers at Umeå University have found that carbon dioxide, in its ionic form bicarbonate, has a regulating function in the splitting of water in photosynthesis. This means that carbon dioxide has an additional role to being reduced to sugar. The pioneering work is published in the latest issue of the scientific journal PNAS.

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New Technique Takes Cues from Astronomy and Ophthalmology to Sharpen Microscope Images

The complexity of biology can befuddle even the most sophisticated light microscopes. Biological samples bend light in unpredictable ways, returning difficult-to-interpret information to the microscope and distorting the resulting image. New imaging technology developed at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus rapidly corrects for these distortions and sharpens high-resolution images over large volumes of tissue.

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Glasses strong as steel: A fast way to find the best

Scientists at Yale University have devised a dramatically faster way of identifying and characterizing complex alloys known as bulk metallic glasses (BMGs), a versatile type of pliable glass that's stronger than steel.

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Tiny particles could help verify goods

Chemical engineers hope smartphone-readable microparticles could crack down on counterfeiting.

Some 2 to 5 percent of all international trade involves counterfeit goods, according to a 2013 United Nations report. These illicit products — which include electronics, automotive and aircraft parts, pharmaceuticals, and food — can pose safety risks and cost governments and private companies hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

Many strategies have been developed to try to label legitimate products and prevent illegal trade — but these tags are often too easy to fake, are unreliable, or cost too much to implement, according to MIT researchers who have developed a new alternative.

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A molecular approach to solar power

Switchable material could harness the power of the sun — even when it’s not shining.

It’s an obvious truism, but one that may soon be outdated: The problem with solar power is that sometimes the sun doesn’t shine.

Now a team at MIT and Harvard University has come up with an ingenious workaround — a material that can absorb the sun’s heat and store that energy in chemical form, ready to be released again on demand.

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Methods could improve cell therapy in cancer treatment

Cell therapy is emerging as a promising cancer treatment of last resort. KTH researcher Björn Önfelt and his team in SciLifeLab are working to identify and strengthen cells that can counter the disease.

“We are developing methods so that, on a single-cell level, we can study how immune cells interact with other cells to predict the outcome of stem cell transplantation, and develop cells that could be used to kill tumours in cell therapy,” says Önfelt, whose research just received SEK 32 million (EUR 3.5 million) over five years from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, in the field of medical technology.

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Graduate student brings extinct plants to life

Jeff Benca is an admitted über-geek when it comes to prehistoric plants, so it was no surprise that, when he submitted a paper describing a new species of long-extinct lycopod for publication, he ditched the standard line drawing and insisted on a detailed and beautifully rendered color reconstruction of the plant. This piece earned the cover of March’s centennial issue of the American Journal of Botany.

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