Technology
Field Study Aims to Better Severe Weather Forecasting
May 17, 2013 1:28 pm | by Purdue Univ. | News | CommentsProfessors and students will intercept storms as part of a major field project to improve predictions of severe weather and offer earlier warnings to those in its path.
Artificial Forest Splits Water
May 17, 2013 7:00 am | by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | News | CommentsResearchers have reported the first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis.
Crowd-Sourcing Helps Monitor Japan's Radiation
May 17, 2013 7:00 am | by Univ. of Southampton | News | CommentsResearchers have designed a new tool to intelligently combine nuclear radioactivity data in Japan. The technology harnesses the power of crowd-sourced radiation data.
NASA Says Kepler's Days are Numbered
May 16, 2013 11:58 am | by Associated Press, Alicia Chang | News | CommentsNASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope is broken, potentially jeopardizing the search for other worlds where life could exist outside our solar system.
X-Rays Can Read Fragile Rolled-Up Historical Documents
May 16, 2013 11:53 am | by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council | News | CommentsPioneering X-ray technology is making it possible to read fragile rolled-up historical documents for the first time in centuries.
Hardware Makes Frequency-Hopping Radios Practical
May 16, 2013 7:00 am | by MIT, Larry Hardesty | News | CommentsNew hardware could lead to wireless devices that identify and exploit unused transmission frequencies, using radio spectrum much more efficiently.
China Probes High-Altitude Atmosphere
May 16, 2013 7:00 am | by Chinese Academy of Sciences | News | CommentsChinese scientists have conducted an experiment in the high-altitude atmosphere and near-Earth space with the launch of a sounding rocket.
Hand Gestures Design Printable 3D Shapes
May 16, 2013 7:00 am | by Purdue Univ. | Videos | CommentsA new design tool interprets hand gestures, enabling designers and artists to create and modify three-dimensional shapes using only their hands as a "natural user interface" instead of keyboard and mouse.
Google Introduces a Multitude of New Services
May 15, 2013 12:16 pm | by Associated Press, Michael Liedtke | News | CommentsAnnouncements at Google's sixth annual conference for software developers included new features for online games, maps and search, a new music-streaming service and enhancements to its Google Plus social network, including tools for sharing and enhancing photos.
Paper-Thin Flexible 'Skin' Monitors Heart Health
May 15, 2013 12:13 pm | by Stanford Univ., Thomas Sumner | News | CommentsEngineers have combined layers of flexible materials into pressure sensors to create a wearable heart monitor thinner than a dollar bill.
Brain to be Model for Supercomputers
May 15, 2013 7:00 am | by Sandia National Laboratories | News | CommentsResearchers are considering the brain’s superior ability to send electrical signals along massively parallel channels: if a supercomputer was like a brain it would learn, adapt, hypothesize and then suggest answers.
FDA Launches Contamination-Prevention Software
May 15, 2013 7:00 am | by FDA | News | CommentsThe FDA has released a new tool to help bolster the food industry’s defense measures against an act of intentional food contamination.
Crowd-Sourcing Helps Map Global Emissions
May 15, 2013 7:00 am | by Arizona State Univ. | Videos | CommentsScientists launched an online “game” to better understand the sources of global warming gases. By engaging “citizen scientists,” the researchers hope to locate all the power plants around the world and quantify their CO2 emissions.
Bright Nanoscale Alloys Have Potential Medical Applications
May 15, 2013 7:00 am | by Univ. of Pittsburgh | News | CommentsNanometer-scale alloys possess the ability to emit light so brightly they could have potential applications in medicine.
New Software Spots, Isolates Cyber-Attacks
May 15, 2013 7:00 am | by North Carolina State Univ. | News | CommentsResearchers developed a software algorithm that detects and isolates cyber-attacks on networked control systems– which are used to coordinate transportation, power and other infrastructure across the U.S.
Unmanned Aircraft Launched from Ship
May 15, 2013 7:00 am | by Associated Press, Brock Vergakis | News | CommentsThe Navy, for the first time, launched an unmanned aircraft the size of a fighter jet from a warship in the Atlantic Ocean.
Geophysical Methods Help Find Secret Graves
May 14, 2013 12:47 pm | by American Geophysical Union | News | CommentsIt's hard to convict a murderer if the victim can't be found. And the best way to hide a body is to bury it. Researchers are developing new tools to find those clandestine graves.
Sequester Cuts Impact Volcano Monitoring
May 14, 2013 12:45 pm | by Associated Press, Rachel D'Oro | News | CommentsScientists monitoring Alaska's volcanoes have been forced to shut down stations and forgo repairs of seismic equipment amid ongoing federal budget cuts— moves that could mean delays in getting vital information to airline pilots and emergency planners.
Bubbles Cut Drag in Fluidic Chips
May 14, 2013 12:42 pm | by Univ. of Twente | News | CommentsResearchers have given the first demonstration of how the drag exerted on liquids flowing through tiny “fluidic chips” is affected by the introduction of diminutive gas bubbles.
New Options for Breast Cancer Surgery
May 14, 2013 12:40 pm | by Associated Press, Marilynn Marchione | News | CommentsNew approaches are dramatically changing the way breast cancer operations are done, giving women more options, faster treatment, smaller scars, fewer long-term side effects and better cosmetic results.
Wind Farms Never Prosecuted for Eagle Deaths
May 14, 2013 12:38 pm | by Associated Press, Dina Cappiello | News | CommentsThe government has prosecuted oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines but has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company when birds hit their fans.
Supercomputers Can Fight Car Recalls
May 14, 2013 7:00 am | by Associated Press, Tom Krisher | News | CommentsGeneral Motors Co. says a new supercomputing data center and a fledgling shift to bring software development in-house should help it limit the size of future safety recalls.
Researchers Watch Real-Time Charging of a Lithium-Air Battery
May 14, 2013 7:00 am | by MIT, David Chandler | News | CommentsImaging revealed what happens during battery charging and could lead to improved batteries for electric cars.
Silk is Better than Kevlar
May 13, 2013 2:04 pm | by Northeastern Univ. | News | CommentsAt seven times the toughness of Kevlar, a silk produced by the Caerostris darwini spider of Madagascar is more robust than any other material. Now, it can be produced at an industrial scale.
Project Will Track City Carbon Footprints
May 13, 2013 2:00 pm | by Associated Press, Alicia Chang | News | CommentsA budding effort has begun to track the carbon footprints of megacities, urban hubs with over 10 million people, which are increasingly responsible for human-caused global warming.
