Andalusian scientists of the University of Cadiz and Pablo de Olavide University (Seville) are working on a project of improvement in the photoelectrochemical solar cells performance, an alternative to the silicon cells that are normally used. This would entail reductions in the cost of the parts.

The semi-conduit used in most photovoltaic solar cells that are commercialised is silicon, and despite its optimum efficiency in the exploitation of solar energy, it is a material whose produ

Driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes and near-crashes, according to a landmark research report released today by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI).

Nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event. Primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use, and drowsiness.

Anyone who uses a cell phone or a WiFi laptop knows the irritation of a dead-battery surprise. But now researchers at the University of Rochester have broken a barrier in wireless chip design that uses a tenth as much battery power as current designs and, better yet, will use much less in emerging wireless devices of the future.

Hui Wu, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Rochester, a pioneer in a circuit design called an “injection locked freq

TU Delft today sent the reports with the conclusions of the first phase of the Superbus programme to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. This completes the first phase of the Superbus design. “We demonstrate that Superbus is a global, sustainable public transport alternative”, TU Delft professor Wubbo Ockels comments. “The government should incorporate Superbus in its decisions on numerous infrastructure projects.”

A € 300,000 grant was received last year for the first phase of the Superb

Cider making, as with any similar process, involves the production of leftover “waste” such as the apple pulp, discarded apples and liquid residue, for example.

AZTI-Tecnalia Technological Centre, given its intention to improve and innovate the production process of natural cider, is undertaking a number of studies of the management, the reduction and the re-evaluation of waste residue from cider making. The aim is twin-fold: the gains from eliminating the waste generated in th

An international team led by UCL (University College London) scientists at the London Centre for Nanotechnology has unravelled the properties of a novel ceramic material that could help pave the way for new designs of electronic devices and applications.

Working with researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, the University of Tokyo and Lucent Technologies, USA, they reveal in a Letter to Nature that the complex material, which is an oxide of manganese, f

Smart coatings that should allow cash machine, mobile phone and laptop display screens to be read much more easily in bright sunlight could soon be on the way, thanks to a major research project unveiled today.

Scientists from the University of Abertay Dundee and the University of Greenwich are joining forces with specialist screen and thin film coatings manufacturers in the £600,000 ENDSENSE project, which is part-funded by the Department of Trade & Industry.

The two-y

Devices convert simple motion into electricity

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have crafted tiny nanowires that generate electricity when they vibrate. Just like the quartz crystal in a watch, the zinc-oxide nanowires are piezoelectric, which means bending causes them to produce an electrical charge.

Only 20-40 billionths of a meter in diameter, each fiber partners with millions of others to form a nanogenerator capable of producing significant amounts o

New electronics

A study of how electrons behave in circuitry made from ultrathin layers of graphite – known as graphene – suggests the material could provide the foundation for a new generation of nanometer scale devices that manipulate electrons as waves – much like photonic systems control light waves.

In a paper published April 13 in Science Express, an online advance publication of the journal Science, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the C

Bacterial adhesive is 2-3 times stronger than common commercial glues

The glue one species of water-loving bacteria uses to grip its surroundings may be the strongest natural adhesive known to science. If engineers can find a way to mass-produce the material, it could have uses in medicine, marine technology and a range of other applications.

Researchers at Indiana University in Bloomington and Brown University in Providence, R.I., studied how much force they needed to

Research studies, based at the University of Pennsylvania, demonstrate that biodegradable nano-particles containing two potent cancer-fighting drugs are effective in killing human breast tumors. The unique properties of the hollow shell nano-particles, known as polymersomes, allow them to deliver two distinct drugs, paclitaxel, the leading cancer drug known by brand names such as Taxol, and doxorubicin directly to tumors implanted in mice. Their findings, presented online in the journal Molecul

Patient who received IV bisphosphonates associated with treatment for breast carcinoma develops osteonecrosis following periodontal surgical therapy

The patient of a periodontist in private practice in New Orleans developed osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ), a condition that can cause severe, often irreversible and debilitating damage to the jaw, following periodontal surgical therapy. Two years prior to surgery, the patient had started receiving IV bisphosphonate therapy, or bone-sp

Fitted with computer chips, sensors monitor a bridge’s health – and its ability to perform after a catastrophe

An earthquake strikes a large city, wrecking roads and bridges, stranding rush-hour commuters, trapping office workers inside high-rise buildings.

As director of the city’s transportation authority, you have minutes to make a momentous decision. What is the safest, fastest route that rescue teams can take to travel to hard-hit areas of the city? Which bridges,

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have demonstrated a way to release thin membranes of semiconductors from a substrate and transfer them to new surfaces-an advance that could unite the properties of silicon and many other materials, including diamond, metal and even plastic.

Led by materials science and engineering graduate student Michelle Roberts, the team reports in the April 9 issue of Nature Materials that the freed membranes, just tens of nanometers thick, retain

MIT scientists have harnessed the construction talents of tiny viruses to build ultra-small “nanowire” structures for use in very thin lithium-ion batteries. By manipulating a few genes inside these viruses, the team was able to coax the organisms to grow and self-assemble into a functional electronic device.

The goal of the work, led by MIT Professors Angela Belcher, Paula Hammond and Yet-Ming Chiang, is to create batteries that cram as much electrical energy into as small or

Using transparent zebrafish embryos, researchers at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia have shown that a microscopic nanoparticle can help fend off damage to normal tissue from radiation. The nanoparticle, a soccer ball-shaped, hollow, carbon-based structure known as a fullerene, acts like an “oxygen sink,” binding to dangerous oxygen radicals produced by radiation.

The scientists, led by Adam P. Dicker, M.D., Ph.D., and Ulrich Rodeck, M.D., see fullerenes as a potentially “new