Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will be taking on some of the periodic table’s latest heavyweight champions to see how their masses measure up to predictions.

Posted on May 4, 2017 by

New tool at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will be taking on some of the periodic table’s latest heavyweight champions to see how their masses measure up to predictions. Dubbed FIONA, the device is designed to measure the mass numbers of individual atoms of superheavy elements, which have higher masses than uranium. “Once we have determined those mass numbers, we will use FIONA to learn about the shape and structure of heavy nuclei, guide th...

Kobo Aura H2O is an e-ink state of the art ereader that is easy on your eyes and is also waterproof

Posted on May 3, 2017 by

Kobo Aura H2O is the first premium eReader that truly allows for worry-free eReading because of its waterproof* and dustproof design. It features an impressive extra-large, no-glare 6.8” Carta E Ink touchscreen that reads like print on paper – even in direct sunlight. Eyestrain is minimized in any light with the fully adjustable ComfortLight directing light at the page, not your eyes. Plus, with ClarityScreen+, Kobo Aura H2O provides a high definition reading experience, with crisp, clear text f...

Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed new material with ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism that may lead to better computer memory

Posted on May 3, 2017May 3, 2017 by

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have demonstrated that ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism coexist at room temperature in thin films of bismuth-iron-cobalt oxide. The research could have implications in the next generation of computer memory and sensors. Traditional computer memory, known as DRAM, uses electric fields to store information. In DRAM, the presence or absence of an electric charge is indicated either by number 1 or number 0. Unfortunately, this type of in...

University of Texas Medical Branch research suggest nicotine affects the way the brain processes pain due to its effects on neurotransmitters, receptor sites, and the sympathetic nervous system

Posted on May 1, 2017May 1, 2017 by

University of Texas Medical Branch research suggest nicotine affects the way the brain processes pain due to its effects on neurotransmitters, receptor sites, and the sympathetic nervous system Clearly smoking is a tough habit to break and perhaps these scare tactics might work for some. However, routine and habit, psychological stress, nicotine dependence and addiction all make quitting smoking a tough lift. However, there is now one more reason to quit smoking: pain. A recent arti...

Citizen science is the involvement of the public in scientific research – whether community-driven research or global investigations. The Citizen Science Association unites expertise from educators, scientists, data managers, and others to power citizen science.

Posted on May 1, 2017 by

Citizen science is the involvement of the public in scientific research – whether community-driven research or global investigations. The Citizen Science Association unites expertise from educators, scientists, data managers, and others to power citizen science What is Citizen Science? The Oxford English Dictionary recently defined citizen science as: “scientific work undertaken by members of the general public, often in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists and ...

Public Lab is a community and non-profit organization that is democratizing science to address environmental issues that affect people

Posted on May 1, 2017May 1, 2017 by

Public Lab is a community where you can learn how to investigate environmental concerns. Using inexpensive DIY techniques, we seek to change how people see the world in environmental, social, and political terms. Communities lack access to the tools and techniques needed to participate in decisions being made about their communities, especially when facing environmental hazards. Public Lab is an open network of community organizers, educators, technologists and researchers working to creat...

University of Exeter Dementia research insights

Posted on April 30, 2017 by

Dementia can happen to anyone and there's currently no cure. It can strip you of your memory, your relationships and your connection to the world you love, leaving you feeling isolated and alone. https://youtu.be/RT907zjpZUM 1. Your lifestyle could increase your risk of developing dementia There are many different types of dementia; the most common is Alzheimer’s disease. But what many people don't realise is that in about one third of cases lifestyle plays a part in whether or not so...

The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute has discovered Giant viruses appear to have evolved from smaller viruses (not from cells) based on presence of nearly complete set of translation-related genes.

Posted on April 20, 2017 by

Giant viruses appear to have evolved from smaller viruses (not from cells) based on presence of nearly complete set of translation-related genes. Viruses have a ubiquitous presence in the world. Their population is estimated to be 1031, 10 times greater than the nonillion (1030) of microbes on the planet—a figure that surpasses the number of stars in the Milky Way. Giant viruses are characterized by disproportionately large genomes and virions that house the viruses’ genetic material. T...

University Of Seoul researchers have developed gene editing technique that will be helpful in combating genetic mutation that causes diseases such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and color blindness.

Posted on April 19, 2017April 19, 2017 by

Gene-Editing Breakthrough Professor Kim Jin-Soo and training researcher Kim Daesik, both of the Department of Chemistry, were part of a research team at the Center for Genomic Engineering, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), that proved that a newly developed gene editing technique will be helpful in combatting genetic mutation that causes diseases such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and color blindness. The field of biology has been buzzing with the latest developments of...

UNSW Australia researchers have found a way to identify bipolar disorder by reviewing Smartphone usage

Posted on April 18, 2017 by

UNSW Head of Psychiatry Philip Mitchell has been involved in developing a smartphone application that will monitor technology use for the first signs of a manic episode. The early signs of an episode of mania can be hard to detect, but people with bipolar disorder may soon get help from a smart and constant companion – their mobile phones. Mental health organisation SANE Australia will soon trial a smartphone application that will monitor a person’s technology use for the f...

DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO) is looking for concepts for designing, developing, and testing advanced technology platforms that provide U.S. forces with overwhelming tactical and strategic advantage on – Virtual Proposers Day on Wednesday and Thursday, May 3-4, 2017

Posted on April 15, 2017 by

DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO) focuses on conceiving, designing, developing, and testing advanced technology platforms that provide U.S. forces with overwhelming tactical and strategic advantage, including vehicles, weapons, and other full-scale, potentially field-deployable systems. Whether designed to operate on the ground, at sea, in the air, in space or across domains, TTO platforms and supporting technologies have a common origin: as innovative ideas generated by program managers ...

University of Washington research have developed a method to identify novel marker for developmental instability by looking at the crooked bite that may indicate early life stress

Posted on April 15, 2017 by

Research has repeatedly confirmed that the first 1,000 days after conception strongly influence a person’s life expectancy and susceptibility to chronic diseases. The primary marker used to identify early life stress is low birth weight, which can, for instance, indicate poor nutrition of the mother during pregnancy. But low birth weight is a marker only until birth, about 280 days – far short of a measurement useful for the first thousand days. New research from University of Washington ...

University of Utah researchers have developed a way to curb chronic pain by modulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation.

Posted on April 14, 2017 by

For millions of sufferers, there is nothing more debilitating than chronic back or joint pain. It can feel like a lifetime of misery. But researchers led by University of Utah bioengineering assistant professor Robby Bowles have discovered a way to curb chronic pain by modulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation. “This has applications for many inflammatory-driven diseases,” Bowles says. “It could be applied for arthritis or to therapeutic cells that are being deliv...

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a member of the American Academy of Neurology research found direct correlation to BMI (Body Mass Index)& Migraine. Both obesity and being underweight are associated with an increased risk for migraine

Posted on April 14, 2017 by

For neurologist Lee Peterlin, migraines run in the family. She and her sister, Jackie, both suffer from migraine headaches that have been, at times, completely debilitating. That’s one reason why, several years ago, she started looking into why they and 30 million other Americans suffer from a neurological disorder whose cause, at least in part, remains a mystery despite the wealth of potential research subjects. One thing researchers have long known, however, is that migraine sufferers—or migr...

Toyota has build rehabilitation assist robot designed to help people recovering from a stroke

Posted on April 13, 2017 by

The Human Support Robot (HSR) is being developed to assist people in their everyday activities. In the future, the HSR will coexist with family members in the home, providing support to improve living conditions and the overall quality of life. Features Three key features make it possible for the HSR to operate in indoor environments around people. 1.Compact, Lightweight Body To better accommodate a wide variety of households, the HSR needs to be lightweight and maneuverable. An ar...

Duke University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute have created a new technique called DART, that stands for Drugs Acutely Restricted by Tethering

Posted on April 13, 2017 by

Biomedical engineers have developed a way to deliver drugs to specific types of neurons in the brain, providing an unprecedented ability to study neurological diseases while also promising a more targeted way to treat them. Drugs are the tool of choice for studying the connections between neurons, and continue to be the mainstream treatment for neurological disease. But a major drawback in both endeavors is that the drugs affect all types of neurons, complicating the study of how cell recepto...

University Of Utah Research Suggests Multivitamins May Not Help Men’s Hearts, Even When Diet Is Poor

Posted on April 13, 2017 by

Millions of American men pop a multivitamin each day, but new research shows the pills won't help the heart -- even if a man's nutrition is lacking. "Many had thought that men with 'poor' nutritional status at baseline may benefit more from long-term multivitamin use on cardiovascular outcomes; however, we did not see any evidence for this in our recent analysis," study author Howard Sesso, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said in a hospital news release. According to background ...

Purdue University researchers have designed hybrid systems that combine solar photovoltaic cells and thermoelectric devices to capture sunlight as efficiently as possible

Posted on April 12, 2017 by

Researchers have shown how to modify commercially available silicon wafers into a structure that efficiently absorbs solar energy and withstands the high temperatures needed for “concentrated solar power” plants that might run up to 24 hours a day. The research advances global efforts to design hybrid systems that combine solar photovoltaic cells, which convert visible and ultraviolet light into electricity, thermoelectric devices that convert heat into electricity, and steam turbines to genera...

Research to understand loneliness and isolation in a society and understand part of the experiences for different situations

Posted on April 12, 2017 by

From Greek mythology and the Bible to modern critiques of the digital age, loneliness has been portrayed as part of the human condition. With modern society requiring more and more attention away from family, its currently being recognized as a significant adverse consequence of loneliness and health. Loneliness and isolation are increasingly part of the experience for many. As societies are evolving globally in many different ways as, reduced inter-generational living, different societies c...

Mabu Personal Healthcare Companion is an intelligent, socially interactive robot tailored to each patient.

Posted on April 10, 2017April 10, 2017 by

Mabu the personal healthcare companion is the face of Catalia Health’s platform for patient engagement. We’ll be talking more about the backend software algorithms and medical best practices that drive her conversations with patients in the future. She’s designed to help patients with the myriad challenges of chronic disease management and will be first rolled out this year to help a particular group of patients manage the medication portion of their treatment. The video that is part of this...

NASA Invests in visionary concepts that so far had been limited to the realm of science fiction – like, Evacuated Airship for Mars, soft robotic spacecraft with flexible surfaces that can anchor to an asteroid, an artificial gravity device for long-duration, deep space missions, along with other technologies

Posted on April 10, 2017 by

NASA Invests in 22 Visionary Exploration Concepts Montage of innovative concepts selected for 2017 NIAC Phase I and Phase II funding Credits: Joel Sercel, Jay McMahon, Siegfried Janson, Adam Arkin, Jonathan Sauder, John Lewis and background, Chris Mann NASA is preparing for a future that could include soft robotic spacecraft with flexible surfaces that can anchor to an asteroid, and an artificial gravity device for long-duration, deep space missions, along with other t...

University of Utah Department of Bioengineering is developing device (Electrode Array) that will allow amputee’s arm to read signals from the brain and then tell the prosthetic hand how to move.

Posted on April 10, 2017 by

University of Utah Department of Bioengineering is developing device (Electrode Array) that will allow amputee’s arm to read signals from the brain and then tell the prosthetic hand how to move. Researchers, led by Clark, are further developing the Utah Slanted Electrode Array, a neural interface that uses 100 electrodes which connect with nerves in an amputee’s arm to read signals from the brain - telling the hand how to move. The Utah Slanted Electrode Array was first developed by Departmen...

The Virtual Surgeon – Medical Realities is a healthcare company using virtual reality, augmented reality and serious games to change the way people look at medical training.

Posted on April 9, 2017April 9, 2017 by

Medical Realities is an innovative group offering medical training products, specializing in virtual reality, augmented reality and serious games. By using consumer-level virtual reality devices such as the Oculus Rift, Medical Realities can reduce the cost of training, reach a wider audience & provide a completely safe learning environment for medical students. Combining 360 video, 3D and interactive content, The Virtual Surgeon™ puts you inside the operating theatre overseeing an op...

Self-monitoring is a low-intensity, secondary prevention strategy designed to improve students’ self- management skills and to support their academic, behavioral, and social development.

Posted on April 9, 2017 by

Students with behavioral and academic difficulties typically have limited awareness and understanding of their own behavior and its effects on others. Self-monitoring interventions equip students to recognize and keep track of their own behavior (Hoff & DuPaul, 1998; Rhode, Morgan, & Young, 1983). Using these strategies, students can learn to identify and increase positive, pro-social behaviors, the behaviors necessary for success in general education settings. Self-monitoring is a lo...

Messerli Research Institute in Vienna research suggest Dogs are as smart as humans

Posted on April 9, 2017 by

Human communication is unique because it strongly relies on language as well as on the exceptional motivation of humans to share information with others. Identifying by means of words what someone is talking about is hardly available for non-human animals, but human as well as non-human animals can use the direction of others’ gaze and gestures to detect to which object or social partner others’ behaviour is referring to. https://youtu.be/crL6mn_LW28 Hence, following others’ gaze and g...

NASA is keeping an eye on the largest ‘asteroid 2014 JO25’ that is going to come close (safe 1.1 million miles away) to Earth on April 19th and zip past us.

Posted on April 8, 2017 by

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory describes 2014 JO25 as being approximately 2,000 feet wide, or about 650 meters across, which is a little more than two-fifths of a mile. That's a pretty large chunk of rock, and NASA says it's the largest asteroid to come that close to Earth since 2004, with the next similar flyby predicted to occur in 2027 when asteroid 1999 AN10, measured at about a half mile in width, makes an appearance at a distance of 236,000 miles. https://youtu.be/cItnmeZGxZM ...

UNSW Australia research suggest High-fat diet hurts the microbiota in the oesophagus

Posted on April 7, 2017April 7, 2017 by

UNSW researchers have observed how microbiota in the oesophagus is affected by a high-fat diet, depleting known beneficial bacteria and increasing the levels of “bad” bacteria. The team’s paper, published in Scientific Reports, found a high-fat diet affects the microbiota in the oesophagus of rats. First author Dr Nadeem Kaakoush says two other interesting things were observed. “The high-fat diet drops the levels of Lactobacillus species, well known to be beneficial and form part of dif...

University Of Tokyo research on ‘How plants can tell friend from foe’

Posted on April 7, 2017April 7, 2017 by

The plant’s immune system can recognize whether a piece of RNA is an invader or not based on whether the RNA has a threaded bead-like structure at the end, say University of Tokyo researchers. Their finding provides an answer to the quarter-century-old question of why RNAs belonging to the plant escape its self-defense mechanism, paving the way for future biotechnological techniques to modify crops. Our immune system protects us from diseases and infections by fighting off viruses and other f...

Oak Ridge National Lab research suggest, Blending nanoparticles and polymers enables dramatic improvements in the properties of polymer materials

Posted on April 7, 2017 by

Polymer nanocomposites mix particles billionths of a meter (nanometers, nm) in diameter with polymers, which are long molecular chains. Often used to make injection-molded products, they are common in automobiles, fire retardants, packaging materials, drug-delivery systems, medical devices, coatings, adhesives, sensors, membranes and consumer goods. When a team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory tried to verify that shrinking the nanoparticle size would adversely aff...

Levo System is a FDA approved personal nightly sound therapy designed to improve the quality of life for patient with Tinnitus

Posted on April 6, 2017 by

As many as 50 million Americans suffer from tinnitus, a debilitating health condition commonly known as "ringing in the ears." Musicians, factory workers, military veterans and many others endure its effects, which include problems with concentration, sleep, anxiety and depression. Many who experience chronic tinnitus turn to sound devices or machines that mask their ringing with white noise. But masking typically offers only short-term relief to those who struggle with the perception of buzz...