EurekAlert! - Chemistry, Physics and Materials Sciences
Sun Apr 24 04:23:12 EDT 2011
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Virginia Tech researcher seeks to improve emergency hospital, community evacuations - (Virginia Tech) When a hurricane or another major threat requires an emergency evacuation of a hospital, or an entire coastal community, the logistics can be a nightmare fraught with dangers, missed cues, and the likelihood of traffic congestion and other problems that can halt or slow an evacuation. Douglas Bish, an assistant professor in the Virginia Tech College of Engineering, is doing research to alleviate some of uncertainties.

SDSC to venture capitalists: Data-intensive supercomputing is here - (University of California - San Diego) The exponentially increasing amount of digital information, along with new challenges in storing valuable data and massive datasets, are changing the architecture of today's newest supercomputers as well as how researchers will use them to accelerate scientific discovery, said Michael Norman, director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego.

The ultimate camo: Team to mimic camouflage skill of marine animals in high-tech materials - (Marine Biological Laboratory) Camouflage expert Roger Hanlon of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is co-recipient of a $6 million grant from the Office of Naval Research to study and ultimately emulate the exquisite ability of some marine animals to instantly change their skin color and pattern to blend into their environment.

17th Annual International Sustainable Development Research Conference - (The Earth Institute at Columbia University) “Moving Toward a Sustainable Future: Opportunities and Challenges” is the theme of this three-day annual gathering of the International Sustainable Development Research Society, bringing together experts in agriculture, urban development, climate, business, education, architecture, public health and other fields. The fundamental question: how can global society’s aspiration for continued economic growth be harmonized with the limits imposed by earth’s resources? Speakers include Nina Federoff, Lester Brown, Sanjeev Chadha, Christiana Figueres, Achim Steiner and Jeffrey D. Sachs.

Optical microscope without lenses produces high-resolution 3-D images on a chip - (University of California - Los Angeles) UCLA researchers have redesigned the concept of a microscope, by removing the lens, to create a system small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, but powerful enough to create 3-D tomographic, or sectional, images of miniscule samples. The advance, published online this week in PNAS, represents the first demonstration of lens-free optical tomographic imaging on a chip, a technique capable of producing high resolution 3-D images of large volumes of microscopic objects.

UGA compound offers new hope for treatment of painful adult shingles - (University of Georgia) Researchers at the University of Georgia and Yale University have discovered a compound with the potential to be more effective than existing agents in treating the very painful blisters known as shingles -- a condition that affects up to 30 percent of Americans, mostly elderly, and for which no specific treatment exists.

Researchers create functioning synapse using carbon nanotubes - (University of Southern California) Engineering researchers at the University of Southern California have made a significant breakthrough in the use of nanotechnologies for the construction of a synthetic brain. They have built a carbon nanotube synapse circuit whose behavior in tests reproduces the function of a neuron, the building block of the brain.

Scientists engineer nanoscale vaults to encapsulate 'nanodisks' for drug delivery - (University of California - Los Angeles) The first steps toward the development of the vault nanoparticle into a versatile and effective DDS are reported in this paper. The ability to encapsulate therapeutic compounds into the vault is a critical and fundamental obstacle in their development for small-molecule drug delivery. Recombinant vaults are engineered to encapsulate the highly insoluble and toxic hydrophobic compound all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) using a vault-binding lipoprotein complex that forms a lipid bilayer nanodisk.

Data miners dig for corrosion resistance - (Penn State) A better understanding of corrosion resistance may be possible using a data-mining tool, according to Penn State material scientists. This tool may also aid research in other areas where massive amounts of information exist.

Early warning system for Alzheimer's disease - (University of Strathclyde) Scientists at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are developing a technique based on a new discovery which could pave the way towards detecting Alzheimer's disease in its earliest stages - and could help to develop urgently-needed treatments.The technique uses the ratio of detected fluorescence signals to indicate that clusters of peptide associated with the disease are beginning to gather and to have an impact on the brain.

MIT: Development in fog harvesting process - (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Shreerang Chhatre is an engineer and aspiring entrepreneur at MIT who works on fog harvesting, the deployment of devices that, like the beetle, attract water droplets and corral the runoff. This way, poor villagers could collect clean water near their homes, instead of spending hours carrying water from distant wells or streams.

Berkeley Lab study finds that photovoltaic systems boost the sales price of California homes - (DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) New research by the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory finds strong evidence that homes with solar photovoltaic (PV) systems sell for a premium over homes without solar systems. The Berkeley Lab research is the first to empirically explore the existence and magnitude of residential PV sales price impacts across a large number of homes and over a wide geographic area.

Parasite strategy offers insight to help tackle sleeping sickness - (University of Edinburgh) Fresh insight into the survival strategy of the parasite that causes sleeping sickness could help inform new treatments for the disease.

Researchers find fat turns into soap in sewers, contributes to overflows - (North Carolina State University) Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered how fat, oil and grease can create hardened deposits in sewer lines: it turns into soap! The hardened deposits, which can look like stalactites, contribute to sewer overflows.

DFG establishes 4 new research units - (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft has established four new Research Units. This decision has just been made by the Senate of the DFG at its meeting in Bonn in April. In Research Units, outstanding researchers work together on a current research topic, often at different locations and across disciplines.

UC Berkeley launches Synthetic Biology Institute to advance research in biological engineering - (Pontifex Marketing and Communications) Aiming to create "an industrial revolution in biological engineering," the Synthetic Biology Institute is launching a collaborative effort with its first Industry Member, Agilent Technologies Inc., a leader in measurement technologies and products to advance science and engineering research. Agilent is helping to initiate SBI research with a multi-year, multi-million dollar commitment, including early access to Agilent technologies through the active participation of the company's research scientists and engineers.

In time for spring, biologist illuminates how seedlings regulate growth - (Brown University) All kinds of organisms, from plants to people, regulate growth via networks of proteins that add on and lop off phosphate molecules. In a new study, Brown professor Alison DeLong explains key steps that allow seedlings to make it past the surface of the soil.

Columbia engineering study links ozone hole to climate change all the way to the equator - (Columbia University) In a study in the April 21 issue of Science, researchers at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science report their findings that the ozone hole, which is located over the South Pole, has affected the entire circulation of the Southern Hemisphere all the way to the equator. This is the first time that ozone depletion, an upper atmospheric phenomenon confined to the polar regions, has been linked to climate change from the Pole to the equator.

Bacteria interrupted: Disabling coordinated behavior and virulence gene expression - (Cell Press) New research reveals a strategy for disrupting the ability of bacteria to communicate and coordinate the expression of virulence factors. The study, published by Cell Press in the April 22 issue of the journal Molecular Cell, may lead to the development of new antibacterial therapeutics.

Say hello to cheaper hydrogen fuel cells - (DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory) Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have developed a way to avoid the use of expensive platinum in hydrogen fuel cells, the environmentally friendly devices that might replace current power sources in everything from personal data devices to automobiles.In a paper published today in Science, Los Alamos researchers Gang Wu, Christina Johnston, and Piotr Zelenay, joined by researcher Karren More of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, describe the use of a platinum-free catalyst in the cathode of a hydrogen fuel cell.

Starting a new metabolic path - (DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) JBEI researchers have demonstrated a new technique that speeds up and improves the identification and quantification of proteins within a cell or micoorganism. Called "targeted proteomics," the new technique is expected to be an important new tool for the fields of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.

Worm studies shed light on human cancers - (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Research in the worm is shedding light on a protein associated with a number of different human cancers, and may point to a highly targeted way to treat them.

Engineering professor wins award for pioneering work expected to improve electronic devices - (University of California - Riverside) A professor at the University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering will receive an international award for his pioneering work in nanotechnology that could have far-reaching impacts on electronic devices.

Primordial weirdness: Did the early universe have 1 dimension? - (University at Buffalo) Did the early universe have just one spatial dimension? That's the mind-boggling concept at the heart of a theory that University at Buffalo physicist Dejan Stojkovic and colleagues proposed in 2010.

Researchers combine active proteins with material derived from fruit fly - (Rice University) The new work from the Rice lab of biochemist Kathleen Matthews, in collaboration with former Rice faculty fellow and current Texas A&M assistant professor Sarah Bondos, simplifies the process of making materials with fully functional proteins.