A team of University of Pennsylvania engineers has used a pattern of nanoantennas to develop a new way of turning infrared light into mechanical action, opening the door to more sensitive infrared cameras and more compact chemical-analysis techniques. The research was conducted by assistant professor Ertugrul Cubukcu and postdoctoral researcher Fei Yi, along with graduate students Hai Zhu and Jason C. Reed, all of the Department of Material Science and Engineering in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science. It was published in the journal Nano Letters. Detecting ...

HERALDING Entanglement, by general consensus of physicists, is the weirdest part of quantum science. To say that two particles, A and B, are entangled means that they are actually two parts of an inseparable quantum thing. An important consequence of this inherent kinship is that measuring a property of A (say, the particle's polarization) is necessarily to know the corresponding property of B, even if you're not there with a detector to observe B and even if (as explained below) the existence of that property had no prior fixed value until the moment particle ...

LA JOLLA, CA---Discovering that mouse hair has a circadian clock - a 24-hour cycle of growth followed by restorative repair - researchers suspect that hair loss in humans from toxic cancer radiotherapy and chemotherapy might be minimized if these treatments are given late in the day. The study, which appears in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that mice lost 85 percent of their hair if they received radiation therapy in the morning, compared to a 17 percent loss when treatment occurred in the evening. The ...

Imagine a bendable tablet computer or an electronic newspaper that could fold to fit in a pocket. The technology for these devices may not be so far off. Northwestern University researchers have recently developed a graphene-based ink that is highly conductive and tolerant to bending, and they have used it to inkjet-print graphene patterns that could be used for extremely detailed, conductive electrodes. The resulting patterns are 250 times more conductive than previous attempts to print graphene-based electronic patterns and could be a step toward low-cost, foldable ...

New York, NY—May 20, 2013—The miniaturization of electronics continues to create unprecedented capabilities in computer and communications applications, enabling handheld wireless devices with tremendous computing performance operating on battery power. This same miniaturization of electronic systems is also creating new opportunities in biotechnology and biophysics. A team of researchers at Columbia Engineering has used miniaturized electronics to measure the activity of individual ion-channel proteins with temporal resolution as fine as one microsecond, producing the ...

The Amazon rain forest, popularly known as the lungs of the planet, inhales carbon dioxide as it exudes oxygen. Plants use carbon dioxide from the air to grow parts that eventually fall to the ground to decompose or get washed away by the region's plentiful rainfall. Until recently people believed much of the rain forest's carbon floated down the Amazon River and ended up deep in the ocean. University of Washington research showed a decade ago that rivers exhale huge amounts of carbon dioxide – though left open the question of how that was possible, since bark and stems ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that a compound abundant in the Mediterranean diet takes away cancer cells' "superpower" to escape death. By altering a very specific step in gene regulation, this compound essentially re-educates cancer cells into normal cells that die as scheduled. One way that cancer cells thrive is by inhibiting a process that would cause them to die on a regular cycle that is subject to strict programming. This study in cells, led by Ohio State University researchers, found that a compound in certain plant-based foods, called apigenin, could ...

Individuals who learn two languages at an early age seem to switch back and forth between separate "sound systems" for each language, according to new research conducted at the University of Arizona. The research, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, addresses enduring questions in bilingual studies about how bilingual speakers hear and process sound in two different languages. "A lot of research has shown that bilinguals are pretty good at accommodating speech variation across languages, ...

Meeting the demand for more data storage in smaller volumes means using materials made up of ever-smaller magnets, or nanomagnets. One promising material for a potential new generation of recording media is an alloy of iron and platinum with an ordered crystal structure. Researchers led by Professor Kai Liu and graduate student Dustin Gilbert at the University of California, Davis, have now found a convenient way to make these alloys and tailor their properties. "The relatively convenient synthesis conditions, along with the tunable magnetic properties, make these materials ...

Video games that pit players against human-looking characters may be more likely to provoke violent thoughts and words than games where monstrous creatures are the enemy, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Connecticut and Wake Forest University. "The Perception of Human Appearance in Video Games: Toward an Understanding of the Effects of Player Perceptions of Game Features," published in the May 2013 issue of Mass Communication and Society, comes as lawmakers and the public are freshly debating the possible risks that violent games may pose to ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Little is known about the effect of physical education (PE) on child weight, but a new study from Cornell University finds that increasing the amount of time that elementary schoolchildren spent in gym class reduces the probability of obesity. The study represents some of the first evidence of a causal effect of PE on youth obesity, and is forthcoming in the Journal of Health Economics. An early, online version of the study can be viewed at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629613000556 The research offers support for the recommendations ...

VIDEO: This video shows how threads stitched into the fabric can absorb, channel and collect fluids. Click here for more information. Waterproof fabrics that whisk away sweat could be the latest application of microfluidic technology developed by bioengineers at the University of California, Davis. The new fabric works like human skin, forming excess sweat into droplets that drain away by themselves, said inventor Tingrui Pan, professor of biomedical engineering. One ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – May 20, 2013 – Nearly 20 percent of kidneys that are recovered from deceased donors in the U.S. are refused for transplant due to factors ranging from scarring in small blood vessels of the kidney's filtering units to the organ going too long without blood or oxygen. But, what if instead of being discarded, these organs could be "recycled" to help solve the critical shortage of donor organs? Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and colleagues, reporting in the journal Biomaterials, found that human kidneys discarded for transplant can ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Intensity-modulated radiation therapy has become the most commonly used type of radiation in prostate cancer, but research from the University of North Carolina suggests that the therapy may not be more effective than older, less expensive forms of radiation therapy in patients who have had a prostatectomy. The comparative effectiveness study, published online May 20 by JAMA Internal Medicine, evaluated the long-term outcomes of prostate cancer patients who received radiation treatments following prostatectomies using conformal radiation therapy (CRT) ...

Amsterdam, NL, 20 May 2013 – While Huntington's disease (HD) is currently incurable, the HD research community anticipates that new disease-modifying therapies in development may slow or minimize disease progression. The success of HD research depends upon the identification of reliable and sensitive biomarkers to track disease and evaluate therapies, and these biomarkers may eventually be used as outcome measures in clinical trials. Biomarkers could be especially helpful to monitor changes during the time prior to diagnosis and appearance of overt symptomatology. Three ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Turns out, that old "practice makes perfect" adage may be overblown. New research led by Michigan State University's Zach Hambrick finds that a copious amount of practice is not enough to explain why people differ in level of skill in two widely studied activities, chess and music. In other words, it takes more than hard work to become an expert. Hambrick, writing in the research journal Intelligence, said natural talent and other factors likely play a role in mastering a complicated activity. "Practice is indeed important to reach an elite level ...

Herds of wooly mammoths once shook the earth beneath their feet, sending humans scurrying across the landscape of prehistoric Ohio. But then something much larger shook the Earth itself, and at that point these mega mammals' days were numbered. Something – global-scale combustion caused by a comet scraping our planet's atmosphere or a meteorite slamming into its surface – scorched the air, melted bedrock and altered the course of Earth's history. Exactly what it was is unclear, but this event jump-started what Kenneth Tankersley, an assistant professor of anthropology ...

In a new business, sometimes the better part of wisdom is knowing when to quit, a new study concludes. Even though persistence is a key to business success, entrepreneurs might be more successful if they not only knew when to start a business and take risks, but also knew when to abandon it and find something that provides a greater opportunity, researchers said. It may be human nature to want to make an idea work, but it can also be a poor business decision to stay wedded to an idea if the evidence suggests it's not working as well as another potential opportunity. "Entrepreneurs ...

Pulsars have a number of unusual qualities. Like zombies, they shine even though they're technically dead, and they rotate rapidly, emitting powerful and regular beams of radiation that are seen as flashes of light, blinking on and off at intervals from seconds to milliseconds. A NASA team has built a first-of-a-kind testbed that simulates these distinctive pulsations. The pulsar-on-a-table, known as the Goddard X-ray Navigation Laboratory Testbed, was built to test and validate a next-generation X-ray navigation technology to be demonstrated on a dual-use instrument ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (MAY 20, 2013) – University of Minnesota Medical School researchers from the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, in partnership with the University's Brain Tumor Program, have developed a new mouse model of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNST) that allow them to discover new genes and gene pathways driving this type of cancer. The research was published this week in the journal Nature Genetics. Utilizing the Sleeping Beauty transposon method, researchers in the lab of David Largaespada, Ph.D., professor in the Medical School ...

Bacteria resistant to the antibiotic colistin are also commonly resistant to antimicrobial substances made by the human body, according to a study in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. Cross-resistance to colistin and host antimicrobials LL-37 and lysozyme, which help defend the body against bacterial attack, could mean that patients with life-threatening multi-drug resistant infections are also saddled with a crippled immune response. Colistin is a last-line drug for treating several kinds of drug-resistant infections, but colistin ...

This news release is available in German. It is the first time scientists have decoded the genome of a plant pathogen and its plant host from dried herbarium samples. This opens up a new area of research to understand how pathogens evolve and how human activity impacts the spread of plant disease. Phytophthora infestans changed the course of history. Even today, the Irish population has still not recovered to pre-famine levels. "We have finally discovered the identity of the exact strain that caused all this havoc", says Hernán Burbano from the Max Planck Institute ...

CINCINNATI—Early-life exposure to traffic-related air pollution was significantly associated with higher hyperactivity scores at age 7, according to new research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. The research is detailed in a study being published Tuesday, May 21, in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed open access journal published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, an institute within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The research was conducted by faculty members from ...

Are surgical errors a new revenue stream for hospitals? Article provided by Davis & Davis Visit us at http://www.davis-davislaw.com A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reveals a shocking trend: hospitals have greater profit margins when surgical patients suffer complications. The study, led by doctors at Harvard's medical school, the Boston Consulting Group (a renowned management consulting agency) and Texas Health Resources (a nonprofit hospital system running hospitals throughout Texas), showed increased "contribution ...

A delayed cancer diagnosis may prompt a medical malpractice claim Article provided by Cynthia Chihak & Associates Visit us at http://www.chihaklaw.com Misdiagnosis that delays the start of cancer treatment may be fatal. A local cyclist is organizing a race, the Dana Point Grand Prix, to bring more awareness to mesothelioma and treatment of the cancer. The cyclist lost his father at the beginning of last year after his father was initially misdiagnosed. A cancer misdiagnosis also changed the life of a North Carolina woman. She suffered from severe fatigue ...