(Press-News.org) TRANSPORTATION – Better, cleaner engines . . .
Air in the United States could be cleaner in years to come because of a laboratory researchers expect will help in the development of new standards for fuel economy and emissions evaluations. The Vehicle Systems Integration Laboratory provides unprecedented capabilities that will be invaluable to manufacturers of diesel and conventional engines, transmissions, and other drivetrain and emissions components. The payoff is that manufacturers can test different designs under real-world conditions, saving time and money. "We can test virtually every parameter of light-duty vehicles to hybrid heavy-duty rigs and everything in between," said David Smith of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Energy and Transportation Science Division. Partners in this Department of Energy project include the Environmental Protection Agency, Cummins, Meritor, the Society of Automotive Engineers and other national laboratories. [Contact: Ron Walli, (865) 576-0226; wallira@ornl.gov]
BIOSURVEILLANCE – Biodetection symposium . . .
Improving point of care diagnostics and decision support capabilities will be among the topics for Oak Ridge National Laboratory's 2nd Annual Biosurveillance Symposium conference in Alexandria, Va., June 17. Medical professionals and industry leaders from around the world will also be discussing point of care DNA sequencing, data standards for interoperability of point of care systems, electronic health records and biosurveillance-related databases. More information is available at http://knowledgefoundation.com/viewevents.php?event_id=295&act=evt. This meeting precedes the Biodetection Technologies Conference (http://www.knowledgefoundation.com/viewevents.php?event_id=290&act=evt) June 18-19, also being held at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center and organized by The Knowledge Foundation. [Contact: Ron Walli, (865) 576-0226; wallira@ornl.gov]
BATTERIES – Manufacturing breakthrough . . .
By using water instead of expensive, flammable and toxic solvents to make lithium-ion batteries, Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have discovered and demonstrated a path to reduce manufacturing costs and removed environmental concerns. The method also eliminates the explosion-proof processing equipment requirement. "Others have done what we're doing to make anodes, but no one has been successful with both anodes and cathodes," said Jianlin Li, one of the developers of the technology, which has a patent pending. The new manufacturing method uses deionized water instead of a slurry containing the solvent N-methylpyrrolidone, which is expensive, toxic and produces flammable vapors during the electrode manufacturing process. ORNL researchers have demonstrated a battery that features excellent performance. [Contact: Ron Walli, (865) 576-0226; wallira@ornl.gov]
NANOSCIENCE -- Chip harnesses mysterious force . . .
A research team that includes scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has for the first time demonstrated a compact integrated silicon chip that harnesses the power of the Casimir effect. This puzzling force, first measured more than a decade ago, is thought to cause objects to stick together at a very small scale, but its behavior is not fully understood because of difficulties in measuring the effect experimentally. "Our results represent the first step toward on-chip exploitation of the Casimir force," said ORNL's Ivan Kravchenko, co-author on the research reported in Nature Communications. Understanding how the different components in microscale integrated chips interact with each other is key for the development of micro- and nano-machinery with applications in devices such as sensors and tiny motors. [Contact: Morgan McCorkle, (865) 574-7308; mccorkleml@ornl.gov]
ENERGY – Safer lithium-ion batteries . . .
Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is addressing the need for better battery technology, demonstrated recently when aircraft were grounded because of safety issues. ORNL researchers used a combination of neutron scattering at NOMAD, the Nanoscale-Ordered Materials Diffractometer at the Spallation Neutron Source, and computational simulation to characterize low-cost lignin-based carbon materials from biomass for a more reliable anode for lithium-ion batteries. The anode is the positive terminal of an electrolytic cell. The combination of neutron scattering experiments and computation provides researchers with a fundamental understanding of the structure-property relationships in batteries. The expected payoff is safer long-lasting batteries. [Contact: Agatha Bardoel, (865) 574-0644; bardoelaa@ornl.gov]
CLIMATE -- Bogs and forests as ecosystem labs . . .
Whole-ecosystem warming technologies for the 10-year Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Climatic and Environmental Change project have been finalized using prototypes designed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Construction has begun in Minnesota to deploy the technologies, which will warm the ecosystem and elevate carbon dioxide levels when experimental treatments begin in FY2014. SPRUCE aims to better understand feedbacks of boreal forests to global warming. In the past year, ORNL supported construction of local access roads and installation of more than three miles of electrical supply lines and extensive "dock" boardwalks to service 17 experimental plots. [Contact: Dawn Levy, (865) 241-4630; levyd@ornl.gov]
INFORMATION: END
To the list of oncogenic drivers of lung cancer that includes ALK, EGFR, ROS1 and RET, results of a University of Colorado Cancer Center study presented at ASCO 2013 show that mutations in the gene NTRK1 cause a subset of lung cancers.
"We're reconceptualizing lung cancer as many, related diseases. And we need to learn to identify and treat each individually. We can treat the forms of the disease that depend on ALK and EGFR mutations. We're getting very close to treating lung cancers that depend on ROS1 and RET. And now we show another oncogenic driver of the disease ...
BALTIMORE -- Smartphones and tablets can make for sleep-disrupting bedfellows. One cause is believed to be the bright light-emitting diodes that allow the use of mobile devices in dimly lit rooms; the light exposure can interfere with melatonin, a hormone that helps control the natural sleep-wake cycle. But there may be a way to check your mobile device in bed and still get a good night's sleep. A Mayo Clinic study suggests dimming the smartphone or tablet brightness settings and holding the device at least 14 inches from your face while using it will reduce its potential ...
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The fate of a species may rest upon a single butterfly captured in late May by University of Florida lepidopterists.
A UF research technician netted a female Schaus swallowtail in Biscayne National Park on Elliott Key, the first capture of a female since a multi-agency work group got a permit to do so last year.
The Schaus population has declined so much that last year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) issued UF an emergency permit to collect eggs.
That effort ended without a single female sighting last summer but got off to a promising ...
Washington, D.C.—Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. The way it responds under extreme pressures and temperatures is crucial to our understanding of matter and the nature of hydrogen-rich planets.
New work from Carnegie scientists using intense infrared radiation shines new light on this fundamental material at extreme pressures and reveals the details of a surprising new form of solid hydrogen.
Under normal conditions hydrogen is a gas consisting of diatomic molecules. The hydrogen molecules start to change as the pressure increases. These different ...
ST. LOUIS -- The time between pregnancies is a golden window for obese women to lose weight, a Saint Louis University study finds.
The research, led by Arun Jain, M.D., visiting scholar in SLU's department of obstetrics, gynecology and women's health, also found that obese women should be counseled not to gain excessive weight during pregnancy.
"This data suggested that the interval between pregnancies is a crucial period for obese women to lose weight," Jain said. "In addition, the pregnancy and postpartum periods provide a unique opportunity for behavior change because ...
VIDEO:
New surveys conducted by NASA's Swift provide the most detailed overviews ever captured in ultraviolet light of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the two closest major galaxies to our...
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Astronomers at NASA and Pennsylvania State University have used NASA's Swift satellite to create the most detailed ultraviolet light surveys ever of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the two closest major galaxies.
"We took thousands of ...
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Black patients are more likely to have surgery performed at low-quality hospitals even though they frequently live closer to better facilities than white patients.
A study that examined Medicare data from 2005-2008 revealed that although black patients live nearly twice as close to high-quality hospitals as white patients, they were between 25-58 percent more likely to receive surgery at low-quality hospitals.
Additionally, black patients in the most segregated areas were between 41-96 percent more likely than white patients to have surgery at the ...
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope will have two opportunities in the next few years to hunt for Earth-sized planets around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.
The opportunities will occur in October 2014 and February 2016 when Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our sun, passes in front of two other stars. Astronomers plotted Proxima Centauri's precise path in the heavens and predicted the two close encounters using data from Hubble.
"Proxima Centauri's trajectory offers a most interesting opportunity because of its extremely close passage to the two stars," said Kailash ...
Urban epidemics resulting from viral diseases, such as West Nile fever and chikungunya fever, are transmitted by infected mosquitoes.
According to Virginia Tech scientists, mosquitoes reared in cooler temperatures have weaker immune systems, making them more susceptible to dangerous viruses and more likely to transmit them to people.
The connection between temperature and the mosquito's immune system, published Friday (May 31, 2013) in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, is significant in light of global climate change, said researchers Kevin Myles and Zach Adelman, ...
Measuring blood flow in the brain may be an easy, noninvasive way to predict stroke or hemorrhage in children receiving cardiac or respiratory support through a machine called ECMO, according to a new study by researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital. Early detection would allow physicians to alter treatment and take steps to prevent these complications—the leading cause of death for patients on ECMO.
Short for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, ECMO is used when a patient is unable to sustain enough oxygen in the blood supply due to heart failure, septic shock, ...
