Technologies & Strategies That Enable R&D
The dance of the atoms
June 10, 2013 9:41 am | News | CommentsCatalysts can stop working when atoms on the surface of those materials start moving. At the Vienna University of Technology, this “dance” of the atoms has been observed and explained: A certain type of molecule initiates a clustering process, which causes the catalyst atoms, like palladium, to ball together and disappear from contact with the surrounding gas.
How do you feed 9 billion people?
June 10, 2013 9:23 am | News | CommentsAn international team of scientists has developed crop models to better forecast food production to feed a growing population—projected to reach 9 billion by mid-century—in the face of climate change. The team recently unveiled an all-encompassing modeling system that integrates multiple crop simulations with improved climate change models.
Weapons testing data determines brain makes new neurons into adulthood
June 10, 2013 8:36 am | News | CommentsUsing data derived from nuclear weapons testing of the 1950s and '60s, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have found that a small portion of the human brain involved in memory makes new neurons well into adulthood. The research may have profound impacts on human behavior and mental health.
New experiment opens window on glasses
June 10, 2013 8:25 am | News | CommentsFor the first time, scientists have mapped the structure of a metallic glass on the atomic scale, bringing them closer to understanding where the liquid ends and the solid begins in glassy materials. A study led by Monash Univ. researchers has used a newly developed technique on one of the world’s highest-resolution electron microscopes to understand the structure of a zirconium-based metallic glass.
Xenon Light Source for Spectroscopy
June 10, 2013 8:04 am | Product Releases | CommentsOcean Optics has introduced the HPX-2000-HP-DUV xenon light source, a powerful, 75-W short-arc lamp suitable for UV-Vis absorbance spectroscopy and other applications where a high-intensity lamp is necessary. The lamp provides continuous spectral output from 185 to 2,000 nm and has up to 2,000 hrs of bulb life.
2-D Gas Chromatography Combines with High-Sensitivity Mass Spectrometer
June 10, 2013 8:00 am | Product Releases | CommentsJEOL USA Inc. has concluded an OEM agreement with Zoex Corp. to offer the Zoex 2-D gas chromatography (GC x GC) technology with the JEOL AccuTOF GCV 4G high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer system.
Man-made material shows magnetic personality
June 10, 2013 7:39 am | News | CommentsScientists from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford Univ. have used finely tuned x-rays at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource to pin down the source of a mysterious magnetism that appears when two materials are sandwiched together. Why is this mysterious? Neither material shows a hint of magnetism on its own.
Securing the cloud
June 10, 2013 7:21 am | by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office | News | CommentsA team of researchers has developed a new encryption scheme, known as a functional-encryption scheme, that solves a major problem with homomorphic encryption. The scheme would let the cloud server to run a single, specified computation on the homomorphically encrypted result, without being able to extract any other information about it.
U.S. intelligence chief backs Internet spy program
June 8, 2013 11:53 pm | by JIM KUHNHENN - Associated Press - Associated Press | News | CommentsThe top U.S. intelligence official stressed Saturday that a previously undisclosed program for tapping into Internet usage is authorized by Congress, falls under strict supervision of a secret court and cannot intentionally target an American citizen. He decried the revelation of that and another intelligence-gathering program as reckless.
Study provides framework for understanding the energetics of ionic liquids
June 7, 2013 4:25 pm | News | CommentsA new study by researchers at Univ. of California, Santa Barbara provides clues into the understanding of the behavior of the charged molecules or particles in ionic liquids. The new framework may lead to the creation of cleaner, more sustainable and nontoxic batteries, and other sources of chemical power.
$18 million to study deadly secrets of viruses
June 7, 2013 4:01 pm | News | CommentsIn an effort to sort out why some viruses such as influenza, Ebola and West Nile are so lethal, a team of U.S. researchers plans a comprehensive effort to model how humans respond to these viral pathogens. The study will be led by a Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison professor. Teams from Washington Univ. in St. Louis and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, also will play key roles in the study.
Rice Alliance named top global university business incubator
June 7, 2013 3:42 pm | News | CommentsRice Univ.’s Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship has been named the top global university business incubator of 2013, according to the first in-depth study by the University Business Incubator (UBI) Index, based in Sweden. The UBI Index reviewed 550 university incubators around the world and performed a study of 150 university business incubators in 22 countries.
New model explains mysterious effects in high-temperature superconductors
June 7, 2013 12:16 pm | News | CommentsIn the superconducting state, electrons travel in so-called Cooper pairs through the crystal lattice. An energy gap accounts for the difference in energy needed to break up these pairs into free electrons. In high-temperature superconductors, a similar energy gap also occurs above the superconducting transition temperature: the pseudogap. A German-French research team has constructed a new model that explains how this pseudogap state forms.
Study: Earthquake acoustics can indicate if a massive tsunami is imminent
June 7, 2013 12:07 pm | by Bjorn Carey, Stanford University | News | CommentsOn March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake occurred 43 miles off the shore of Japan. It generated an unexpectedly massive tsunami that washed over eastern Japan roughly 30 minutes later. Scientists at Stanford University have identified key acoustic characteristics of this quake that indicated it would cause a large tsunami.
Whispering light hears liquids talk
June 7, 2013 12:02 pm | News | CommentsEver been to a whispering gallery—a quiet, circular space underneath an old cathedral dome that captures and amplifies sounds as quiet as a whisper? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Michigan are applying similar principles in the development optomechanical sensors that will help unlock vibrational secrets of chemical and biological samples at the nanoscale.
