When a power company wants to build a new wind farm, it generally hires a consultant to make wind speed measurements at the proposed site for eight to 12 months. Those measurements are correlated with historical data and used to assess the site's power-generation capacity. At the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence later this month, MIT researchers will present a new statistical technique that yields better wind-speed predictions than existing techniques do -- even when it uses only three months' worth of data. That could save power companies time ...

Researchers at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego, have developed a new user-friendly resource to accompany the powerful gene editing tool called CRISPR/Cas9, which has been widely adopted to make precise, targeted changes in DNA. This breakthrough has the potential to facilitate new discoveries in gene therapies and basic genetics research. The research was published in the July 13 issue of Nature Methods. The study describes an approach to simplify a laborious part of the gene editing process using the CRISPR/Cas9 system: choosing the best ...

ROSEMONT, IL - Teaching coaches about injury prevention and contact restrictions pays off, say researchers who tracked injury rates among youth football players during the 2014 season. "With an estimated three million youth aged 7 to 14 years old playing tackle football each year, preventing injuries is key. Our study showed that kids who received a comprehensive education from a coach had fewer injuries," said lead author Zachary Y. Kerr, PhD, MPH of the Datalys Center for Injury Research and Prevention. Kerr and his team had athletic trainers evaluate and track ...

Genetic differences between hemp and marijuana determine whether Cannabis plants have the potential for psychoactivity, a new study by University of Minnesota scientists shows. "Given the diversity of cultivated forms of Cannabis, we wanted to identify the genes responsible for differences in drug content," says U of M plant biologist George Weiblen. While marijuana is rich in psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), hemp produces mostly a non-euphoric cannabidiol (CBD), but the genetic basis for this difference was a matter of speculation until now. The study was published ...

A solar cell that produces fuel rather than electricity. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and FOM Foundation today present a very promising prototype of this in the journal Nature Communications. The material gallium phosphide enables their solar cell to produce the clean fuel hydrogen gas from liquid water. Processing the gallium phosphide in the form of very small nanowires is novel and helps to boost the yield by a factor of ten. And does so using ten thousand times less precious material. The electricity produced by a solar cell can be used ...

This article describes the effect of the preparation method of binary oxide supports (TiO2-Al2O3) on catalytic performance of V2O5/TiO2-Al2O3 catalysts for methanol selective oxidation to dimethoxymethane (DMM). The optimized catalyst exhibits a methanol conversion of 48.9% and a high DMM selectivity of 89.9% at 393 K, superior to V2O5/TiO2 and V2O5/Al2O3 catalysts. Reported by Prof. Gong Jinlong of Tianjin University, the research article titled "Selective Oxidation of Methanol to Dimethoxymethane over V2O5/TiO2-Al2O3 Catalysts" was published on Science Bulletin June ...

Time synchronization between ground and satellites is a key technology for satellite navigation system. With dual-channel satellite, a method called Two-Way Common-View (TWCV) satellite time transfer for Compass system is proposed in recent study. The title of the paper related to the study is "The method and experiment analysis of two-way common-view satellite time transfer for compass system", which is written by LIU Li from Beijing Satellite Navigation Center and published in SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy 2015, 58. The researcher combines both characteristics ...

Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, a small group of otolaryngologists have repeatedly testified, on behalf of the tobacco industry, that heavy smoking did not cause the cancer in cases of dying patients suing for damages, according to a study by a Stanford University School of Medicine researcher. "I was shocked by the degree to which these physicians were willing to testify, in my opinion in an unscientific way, to deny a dying plaintiff -- suffering the aftermath of a lifetime of smoking -- of a fair trial," said Robert Jackler, MD, professor and chair of ...

PHILADELPHIA (July 17, 2015) - A new study from the Monell Center and collaborating institutions suggests that a single set of genes affects a person's perception of sweet taste, regardless of whether the sweetener is a natural sugar or a non-caloric sugar substitute. "Eating too much sugar is often seen as a personal weakness. However, our work suggests that part of what determines our perception of sweetness is inborn in our genetic makeup," said study author Danielle Reed, PhD, a behavioral geneticist at Monell. "Just as people born with a poor sense of hearing may ...

New research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) shows how investors can significantly reduce the cost of implementing portfolio strategies - in some cases by more than 90 per cent. The study, published today in the journal Financial Review, shows that many modern investment strategies often lead to low returns or even lose money in practice, as they are prone to large trading costs. Such costs include bid-ask spreads, brokerage fees and capital gain taxes and can dramatically affect investment returns, turning an otherwise winning strategy into a losing one. Many ...

The location of the second largest volcanic eruption in human history, the waters off Greece's Santorini are the site of newly discovered opalescent pools forming at 250 meters depth. The interconnected series of meandering, iridescent white pools contain high concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and may hold answers to questions related to deepsea carbon storage as well as provide a means of monitoring the volcano for future eruptions. "The volcanic eruption at Santorini in 1600 B.C. wiped out the Minoan civilization living along the Aegean Sea," said Woods Hole Oceanographic ...

Certain patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) may have specific genetic risk factors that put them at higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease (AD), according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published recently in Molecular Aspects of Medicine. Under the leadership of Giulio Maria Pasinetti, MD, PhD, Saunders Family Chair and Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of Biomedical Training in the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Centers at J.J. Peters Bronx VA Medical Center, ...

New Haven, Conn. -- Researchers at the Aortic Institute at Yale have tested the genomes of more than 100 patients with thoracic aortic aneurysms, a potentially lethal condition, and provided genetically personalized care. Their work will also lead to the development of a "dictionary" of genes specific to the disease, according to researchers. The study published early online in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. Experts have known for more than a decade that thoracic aortic aneurysms -- abnormal enlargements of the aorta in the chest area --run in families and are caused ...

A newly discovered family of chemical structures, published in Nature today, could increase the value of biogas and natural gas that contains carbon dioxide. The new chemical structures, known as zeolites, have been created by an international team of researchers including Professor Xiaodong Zou and co-workers from the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry at Stockholm University. The zeolites -- crystalline aluminosilicates with frameworks that contain windows and cavities the size of small molecules -- can separate out carbon dioxide more effectively ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--Part of a 1929 prediction by physicist Hermann Weyl -- of a kind of massless particle that features a singular point in its energy spectrum called the "Weyl point," -- has finally been confirmed by direct observation for the first time, says an international team of physicists led by researchers at MIT. The finding could lead to new kinds of high-power single-mode lasers and other optical devices, the team says. For decades, physicists thought that the subatomic particles called neutrinos were, in fact, the massless particles that Weyl had predicted -- ...

EDMONTON (July 16, 2015)--Humans depend on high levels of ecosystem biodiversity, but due to climate change and changes in land use, biodiversity loss is now greater than at any time in human history. Five University of Alberta researchers, including students, participated in a leading global initiative to determine whether there are widespread and consistent patterns in plant biodiversity. Sixty-two scientists from 19 countries spanning six continents studied the relationships between plant biomass production and species diversity, culminating in a paper appearing in ...

PITTSBURGH--When it comes to developing efficient, robust networks, the brain may often know best. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have, for the first time, determined the rate at which the developing brain eliminates unneeded connections between neurons during early childhood. Though engineers use a dramatically different approach to build distributed networks of computers and sensors, the research team of computer scientists discovered that their newfound insights could be used to improve the robustness and ...

The Ebola epidemic and resulting international public health emergency is referred to as a "Black Swan" event in medical circles because of its unpredictable and impactful nature. However, a paper in the June 30 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, a leading journal in the field of infectious diseases, suggests that the response of the Chicago Ebola Response Network (CERN) in 2014-2015 has laid a foundation and a roadmap for how a regional public health network can anticipate, manage and prevent the next Black Swan public health event. By sharing the expertise, risk ...

New Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research finds new evidence that an extremely high number of people in southern India are exposed to two mosquito-borne viruses -- dengue and chikungunya. These findings, the researchers say, reinforce the need for officials to be on the lookout for these diseases and to find ways to control its spread not only in India but also around the world. The researchers, reporting July 16 in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, tested blood samples from 1,010 people across 50 locations in Chennai, a city with over 6 million people ...

When Should Genome Researchers Disclose Misattributed Parentage? Amulya Mandava, Joseph Millum, and Benjamin E. Berkman As genome sequencing improves, researchers will increasingly use it on parents and their children when the children have rare or undiagnosed diseases that might be genetic. However, researchers are sure to discover that, in a growing number of cases, the assumed biological relationships between the individuals do not exist. Consequently, the researchers will have to decide whether to disclose incidental findings of misattributed parentage on a much ...

Researchers have sniffed out an unspoken rule among women when it comes to fragrances: Women don't buy perfume for other women, and they certainly don't share them. Like boyfriends, current fragrance choices are hands off, forbidden--neither touch, nor smell. You can look, but that's all, says BYU industrial design professor and study coauthor Bryan Howell. "Women treasure fragrances as a vital pillar of their personal identity," said Howell, who caught wind of the finding while researching fragrance-packaging preferences. "They may use the same fragrance for many years, ...

Typhoon Nangka was knocking on Japan's door when NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead early on July 16. Satellite imagery showed that Nangka's northern quadrant began spreading over southeastern Japan. The GPM core satellite spotted towering thunderstorms in Nangka's western side. NASA/JAXA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) core observatory satellite passed above Typhoon Nangka on July 15, 2015 at 1621 UTC (12:21 p.m. EDT) as the weakening typhoon approached the Japanese island of Shikoku. GPM's Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) instrument revealed that ...

A physical education program that brings commercial-grade fitness equipment to under-resourced schools, along with a curriculum based on boosting confidence and making participation more enjoyable, dramatically increases students' performance on California's standardized physical fitness test, a UCLA study has found. Publishing in the July issue of the Journal of Education and Training Studies, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor of urban planning and associate dean in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, reported that the UCLA Health Sound Body Sound Mind curriculum ...

Light becomes trapped as it orbits within tiny granules of a crystalline material that has increasingly intrigued physicists, a team led by University of California, San Diego, physics professor Michael Fogler has found. Hexagonal boron nitride, stacked layers of boron and nitrogen atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, has recently been found to bend electromagnetic energy in unusual and potentially useful ways. Last year Fogler and colleagues demonstrated that light could be stored within nanoscale granules of hexagonal boron nitride. Now Fogler's research group ...

Washington, DC, July 16, 2015 - Fewer than one in six (4/30) healthcare workers (HCW) followed all CDC recommendations for the removal of personal protective equipment (PPE) after patient care, according to a brief report published in the July issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). In this study undertaken by researchers from the University of Wisconsin, a trained observer watched healthcare personnel entering and exiting patient rooms specified as ...