Tag: physical sciences
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Solid-State Supercapacitor Created with Carbon Nanotubes
Researchers at Rice University in Houston have developed a supercapacitor that can store large quantities of energy and charge quickly, and in a solid-state design made possible by the use of carbon nanotubes. Their findings appear online in the journal Carbon (paid subscription required). Capacitors are devices that regulate flow or supply quick bursts of…
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Radio Antennas Embedded in Clothing Developed, Licensed
Ohio State University engineers in Columbus have developed a process to sew radio antennas directly into clothing, using plastic film and metallic thread. Their work was published recently in the journal IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (paid subscription required), and licensed to a Virginia company for commercialization. Research engineering professor Chi-Chih Chen says the…
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Scheme Protects Against Wireless Network Security Breach
Computer scientists at MIT have devised a method for plugging a security gap in wireless networks that allows attackers to hijack log-on signals from network devices. MIT faculty Nickolai Zeldovich and Dina Katabi, with postdoc Nabeel Ahmed and grad student Shyam Gollakota presented their findings and demonstrated the system earlier this month at the Usenix…
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Microbes Reduced Adverse Impact of BP, Exxon Valdez Spills
A review of the worst two oil spills in U.S. history shows that oil-degrading microorganisms played a significant role in reducing their overall adverse environmental impacts. The results of the review of the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and Exxon Valdez running aground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989 are…
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Monitors to Prevent Elderly Falls Before They Happen
Grants from the National Science Foundation’s Smart Health and Wellbeing Program are funding development of a sensor-based system to detect the risks of falls by frail elderly people. One of the grants, to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, will involve collaboration between the school’s engineering and gerontology departments; a smaller grant will fund similar engineering work…
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Self-Powered Prosthetic Leg Developed, Patented, Licensed
Vanderbilt University engineers in Nashville have developed a prosthetic lower leg, which allows amputees to walk without the leg-dragging that characterizes conventional artificial legs. The university has patented basic elements of the device’s design, and licensed the technology to a California company for commercial development. The prosthesis is as much an electronic as an assistive…
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NSF, Energy Dept to Fund Power Grid Research Center
National Science Foundation and Department of Energy awarded a grant to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and its partners to establish a new Engineering Research Center for research and education on the nation’s electrical grid infrastructure. The two agencies will invest $18.5 million in the research center over five years. The facility, known as the…
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Powder-Free Latex Gloves Reduces Latex Allergy Rate
Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee have found that stopping the use of powdered latex gloves reduces allergic sensitization to latex among health care workers. The team’s findings appear online in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (paid subscription required). Kevin Kelley, professor of pediatrics and internal medicine, led the Wisconsin…
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First Flaw Reportedly Found in Advanced Encryption Standard
Computer scientists from European universities and Microsoft Research have found a weakness in the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. Andrey Bogdanov from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, Christian Rechberger from L’École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and Dmitry Khovratovich from Microsoft Research say that the discovered flaw makes the recovery of the secret AES encryption key…
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Lab Develops Automated DNA Construction Software
A team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California has written a software package that they say streamlines the process of DNA construction. The software, known as j5, is available for free for non-commercial users. DNA construction, also known as DNA cloning or recombinant DNA technology, has become a critical tool of modern…