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Top Stories in Science
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August 2007 Issue |
| [D] Defence and security |  |
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Arctic competition Nations are jockeying for position as global warming opens up the Arctic Ocean, which holds around a quarter of the world's oil reserves and vast gas fields, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The region is bordered by islands owned by Russia, Canada, the US, Norway and Denmark (Greenland). Russia has now planted its flag on the ocean floor at the site of the North Pole, in an operation undertaken by lawmakers aboard a midget submarine that descended 4,261 metres below the surface. Russia is seeking to establish that a tongue of seabed known as the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of Russia's landmass to strengthen its claim over sub-sea rights extending to the Pole. Norway and Denmark are conducting territorial surveys of their own, and Canada plans to spend 7.4 billion Canadian dollars (7.1 billion US) to build up to eight armed ice-breaking naval ships to patrol its claim to the Arctic. [D][E][P][R][U]
European energy security The EU imports half the energy it consumes and this could rise to 70 percent by 2030. An EU study has assessed the security issues and routes for increasing EU gas and electricity imports, particularly from Russia. It has also examined the role that hydrogen might play and concludes that importing hydrogen could be economically attractive by 2040 given large-scale solutions that exploit economies of scale. Hydrogen from hydro and geothermal power in Iceland offers the cheapest, easiest and most secure option. But hydrogen from wind and solar power in North Africa and from biomass from Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey could also be viable, though more expensive and uncertain. [D][P][X]
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa disaster On 16 July a major earthquake hit the world's largest nuclear power plant, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear facility, located about 200 km northwest of Tokyo and 19 km from the quake's epicentre. Shaking of the magnitude of 6.8 m/s² (6.8 on the Richter scale) was recorded, well above the design specification for safe shutdown of 4.5 m/s². The facility behaved in a safe manner during and after the earthquake, according to IAEA inspectors; reactor, which were operating at full power, automatically shut down successfully. The IAEA says that the reason the facility survived an earthquake much larger than it was specified to withstand is probably due to its very conservative design. However, critics argue that the narrow escape shows the need for more stringent regulations in the specification, siting and design of nuclear plants. The facility, which supplied power sufficient for 16 million households, is now shut down indefinitely. [D][P][W][X]
Nuclear security North Korea has closed all five of its major nuclear facilities, according to UN inspectors. The next stage of the nuclear disarmament involves North Korea's declaration of all its nuclear activities and permanent disabling of the Yongbyon facility. The third phase requires North Korea handing over fissile nuclear materials and other atomic arms infrastructure. [D][R][W]
Darfur conflict A huge underground lake found in Sudan's Darfur region could help end the conflict. Some 1,000 wells will be drilled in the region, with the agreement of Sudan's government. The researchers used radar data to find the ancient lake, which is as large as Lake Erie. Analysts say competition for resources between Darfur's Arab nomads and black African farmers is behind the conflict, and the water is not only essential for refugee survival but will also provide resources for the much needed economic development in Darfur that could bring peace. [D][E][R][X]
DNA forensics DNA databases help solve crimes but they also pose serious questions for civil liberties and for racial discrimination. In the UK, about 77 percent of black males between 15 and 34 are now in the national DNA database compared with only 22 percent of white males in the same age group. Civil libertarians and privacy advocates are lobbying for restrictions, but others argue that the only fair approach is to include all citizens in the database. An article in August IEEE Spectrum describes how DNA database technology works and the issues. One is that DNA samples, unlike fingerprints, include personally sensitive information to which the state should not have access: people's ancestry, disease propensity, and perhaps even behavioural characteristics. Although only a small subset of non-coding DNA information is held on the database profile, police retain the full DNA. A further concern is of wrongful convictions being made on false DNA evidence that has been planted or misinterpreted. [D][H][K][T][W]
Nerve gas antidote production Scientists have genetically modified goats to make a drug in their milk that protects against deadly nerve agents such as sarin and VX. So far, the GM goats have made almost 15kg of a drug which binds to and neutralises organophosphate molecules. [D][G][W] |
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| [A] Aeronautics and space | |
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Airborne Laser Weapon A flight test of the US Airborne Laser has demonstrated the weapon system's ability to actively track an airborne target, compensate for atmospheric turbulence and fire a surrogate for its missile-killing high-energy laser. Boeing says that the ABL project has now demonstrated most of the steps needed for the Airborne Laser to engage a threat missile and deliver precise and lethal effects against it. [A][D][O]
X-48B first flight The X-48B Blended Wing Body (BWB) research aircraft has made its first flight. The blended-wing design, which merges fuselage and wings and eliminates the tail, is about 30 percent more fuel-efficient than the tube-and-wing design of current aircraft. The X-48B is being used to test the concept for a future BWB military transport plane for which the higher efficiency would give longer range and higher capacity. With a wingspan of 6.4 metres, the X-48B is a tenth-scale version of such an aircraft and is designed to prove that a BWB transporter would be as controllable and safe during takeoff, approach and landing as a conventional military transport aircraft. [A][D][U]
Wing-in-ground aircraft Chinese scientists are reported to have developed a "wing-in-ground" (WIG) aircraft that can fly long distances just a few metres above the sea surface. The plane can fly as low as half a metre from the surface, hitting speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour while also carrying up to 4 tonnes on takeoff. WIG aircraft exploit a phenomenon known as the "ground effect" in which at a height roughly equivalent to twice the plane's wingspan, trailing wing vortices are disrupted by the ground or sea surface. This resulting reduction in drag means the aircraft travels faster, experiences greater lift and consumes only a fraction of the fuel used by standard planes of the same size. The WIG aircraft is aimed at border patrol. [A][R][U]
Future spacesuits Astronauts currently have to wear pressurised spacesuits to prevent fluids in their body boiling in the vacuum of space. The spacesuits are pressurised with gas and use multiple layers of fabric, which makes them bulky and heavy. Astronauts wearing them expend 70 to 80 percent of their energy merely trying to bend the suits. This is bearable in the microgravity conditions outside the International Space Station, but would be a major problem on the Moon or Mars. A further problem is that if the spacesuit is punctured by a micrometeorite, life-threatening decompression can quickly occur. Researchers at MIT have therefore developed an alternative suit that can greatly reduce the need for pressurisation by instead providing sufficient pressure by wrapping tight layers of spandex and nylon around much of the body. The team has recently made models of the suit that provide up to 30 kilopascals of pressure – the amount required to be used in space. But they say it will take another decade to develop a suit that could be used on space missions. [A][M][V]
RoboSwift Over its life, a common swift can fly more than two million miles. It achieves this outstanding flying ability by continuously adjusting its wings to the prevailing flight conditions by folding feathers over each other, changing the wing shape and surface area. Researchers at Delft University have now found that it may be possible to replicate this morphing ability quite simply in a bird-size micro aircraft. They found that only four feathers, much less than the bird uses, can provide the aircraft's wing with sufficient morphing capacity. One application of the aircraft could be for surveillance. [A][R][U]
Orbital express After a number of glitches, the DARPA Orbital Express mission, designed to test autonomous docking technologies, has now succeeded in demonstrating the ability of a mechanic satellite, called ASTRO (Autonomous Space Transfer and Robotic Orbiter), to autonomously rendezvous with a target satellite, called NextSat, in space, grab it with its robotic arm, and perform basic maintenance on it. As well as allowing future spacecraft to be repaired or refuelled in space, the technology should also lay the groundwork for future autonomous robotic missions to the Moon and Mars, where communications delays with Earth would make it more efficient for robots to do some things on their own. [A][U]
Phoenix mission NASA has launched the Phoenix spacecraft on a nine-month journey to Mars, where it will dig below the surface for clues to the existence of past or present life. The mission will aim to shed light not only on the history of water ice on Mars but also on whether the region could support microbial life. Crucial to this question will be tests for complex organic chemicals in the soil and for any indications that the ice may periodically melt. [A][E]
Exoplanet water By measuring how much light an exoplanet blocks when it passes in front of its parent star, astronomers can determine the planet's size and mass. Starlight filtering through the planet's atmosphere can also reveal the gases there, and the change in infrared brightness of the planet-star system when the planet dives behind the star and then reappears can be used to measure the planet's heat emission. Using NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have measured the heat emitted by four exoplanets and constructed a temperature map of one planet, a Jupiterlike gas giant HD 189733b that circles its star every 2.2 days. They have also found conclusive evidence that water vapour is present in the atmosphere of this planet. Spitzer can only examine planets that emit copious infrared radiation and are far too hot to sustain liquid water or life. However, the JWST will be able to see much fainter infrared emissions from planets of Earthlike size and temperature. NASA's Kepler mission, for launch in 2009, should be able to study hundreds of transiting exoplanets that are Earth's size or even smaller. [A][R][F]
Microbe survival Microbes locked in Antarctic ice have been "resuscitated" in a laboratory. When given nutrients and warmth, the microbes resumed their activity. Cultures grown from ice samples that were 100,000-year-old ice doubled in size every seven days on average. By contrast, microbes from a sample eight million-year-old grew much more slowly, doubling every 30-70 days, and their DNA was found to have been severely damaged by long exposure to cosmic radiation. The researchers say that the severity of the damage means it is less likely that life on Earth could have been seeded by genetic material external to this Solar System, given the level of cosmic radiation in space. [A][E][G] |
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| [U] Unmanned vehicles and robotics | |
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Robotic fly A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams and with a wingspan of three centimetres, the tiny robot's movements are modelled on those of a real fly. The work is funded by DARPA in the hope that it will lead to stealth surveillance robots for the battlefield and urban environments. [U][D][E][R]
Space robot A three-armed robot that could autonomously clamber around the outside of the International Space Station and help astronauts with maintenance work has successfully completed a round of tests on the ground. Its arms are similar in size and strength to human arms but have seven joints each, making them more versatile. Each arm is also equipped with a camera. Tested in a water tank to simulate microgravity conditions, the robot demonstrated its ability to move around the space station autonomously by climbing hand over hand on the lab's handrails. It also co-operated successfully with a human astronaut. ESA envisions the robot eventually being used on human missions to the Moon and Mars. [U][A]
Robotic ankle Amputees wearing a prosthetic lower leg tend to have an unnatural gait and have to expend some 30 percent more energy on walking than a non-amputee. This is because current prosthetic ankles only provides a passive spring action and this does not give the same thrust forward as a normal ankle. A team at MIT has developed an active ankle that propels users forward using tendon-like springs and an electric motor. This robotic ankle releases three times more power than a conventional prosthesis. It reduces fatigue, improves balance and provides amputees with a more fluid gait. The new ankle is being used by military amputees and may be commercially available in 2008, according to MIT. [U][D][H][P][V]
Runbot German and UK researchers have developed a small biped robot that is able to learn how to walk on different surfaces and go up and down slopes without falling over. It is based on the work on human movement by the Russian physiologist, Nikolai Bernstein, in the 1930s. Called runbot, it can move at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second, slightly slower than the fastest walking human. Its movement, like that of a human, is based on reflexes using sensors and local control circuits that, for example, ensure that joints are not overstretched and that the next step is initiated once the foot touches the ground. Higher centres of organisation are only activated when a change of gait is needed. In humans, these higher processes are triggered by the brain, while the robot relies on an infrared 'eye' linked to a simple neural network. The researchers say that having proved that this nested loop design first proposed by Bernstein works well, the next challenge is to make the robot bigger, more adaptive and better at anticipating situations such as change of terrain. [U][B]
Rat-brained robot A robot controlled by a simulated rat brain has mimicked rodent behaviour in classic animal experiments. When placed inside a maze, the robot learnt to navigate towards a "reward" like real rodents, using landmarks to explore. It could recognise places it had already visited, distinguish between locations that looked alike, and figure out roughly where it was when placed in an unfamiliar part of a maze, after just a single training session. The robot's control software uses a functional model of "place cells", the neurons in the hippocampus that help rats map their environment and fire when an animal is in a familiar location. One goal of the research is to use robots to explore models of how the brain works by testing new hypotheses in robots and performing corresponding new experiments with real rats. The research may also improve the ability of robots to create maps of their surrounding environment, while working out their location at the same time – a challenge known as simultaneous localisation and mapping or SLAM. [U][B]
Robot weeder Scientists in Denmark are developing an agricultural robot for identifying and eliminating weeds. While this might seem like a relatively easy task, it actually requires a lot of machine intelligence to pick out the weeds among the crops. The robot is still in the early stages of development, but the researchers hope that it will ultimately lead to a reduction in the amount of herbicides used by farmers. [U][E] |
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| [P] Propulsion and energy | |
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Rotary aircraft engine Swiss and French researchers are developing a new aircraft engine based on the Wankel rotary engine. It combines new combustion chamber and electronic management technologies, and because it has very few moving parts, it should be more reliable, high-powered, compact and smooth-running than a four-stroke piston engine. Importantly, it will run on widely available jet fuel and not the increasingly scarce 100-octane low-leaded (100 LL) avgas fuel. As the aviation industry faces growing pressure to improve its environmental footprint, avgas fuel is expected to be banned completely. [P][A][E]
More efficient engines To improve the fuel consumption of its largest luxury cars, Mercedes-Benz is working on a new kind of four-cylinder engine. When starting the engine and at high speed it works as a petrol engine, using a spark plug to ignite the fuel/air mixture. At low and medium speeds, however, the combustion process works more like that of a diesel engine. A somewhat similar idea is also being pursued by Ford through research at MIT, which has demonstrated how ordinary spark-ignition automobile engines can, under certain driving conditions, move into a spark-free operating mode that is more fuel-efficient and just as clean. The researchers estimate that for typical urban driving this could improve overall fuel consumption by about 10 percent. [P][E]
Wheel hub electric drive In a congested city, a modern hybrid electric bus using wheel-hub electric motors can do 6 km per litre of fuel, four times better fuel consumption than is achieved by some diesel buses. The advantage of a wheel hub motor is that it gives better regenerative breaking and can deliver up to 96 percent of the torque it generates directly to the patch of tyre that touches the road. In contrast, friction losses in a conventional electric drive waste roughly 20 percent of the power. Today's wheel hub motors are suitable for coaches, trucks and other large vehicles. But once they are made smaller and cheaper they are also likely to be used in hybrid-electric cars. [P][T]
Plug-in hybrid vehicles A fleet of experimental "plug-in hybrid" vehicles is to be developed under a partnership of Ford and Southern California Edison. Plug-in hybrids have a normal combustion engine and a battery that can be recharged via a standard electric power outlet. Ford expects cars incorporating the technology to go on sale within the next decade, assuming that battery technology continues to improve. General Motors has already begun development work this year on its own plug-in hybrid car, designed to use little or no gasoline over short distances. It showed off a concept version called the Chevrolet Volt in January 2007 and has set 2010 as a target for production. [P][E]
Flying wind power If one could tap just 1 percent of the wind energy at high altitude, this would be enough to supply all the world's energy needs. Various approaches are being explored for doing this. One is to position flying windmills in the jet stream, tethered to the ground with high voltage cables. Another is to use a series of wing-shaped kites that generate energy by rotating a large loop to which they are connected. A third approach, which is less demanding in terms of the size of tether cable needed, is to exploit wind at altitudes between 180 and 300 metres by using a helium-filled blimp. The blimp has curved fins that cause its midsection to spin, driving electricity generators at each end. [P][A][E][M]
Wastage of natural gas The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that 168 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas from oil wells were flared off in 2006. This is equivalent to a third of the natural gas consumed in a year by all of the European OECD countries combined. Nigeria was long thought to flare the most gas. But NOAA has analysed observations from satellites and has found that Russia has been flaring by far the greatest amount. In 2004, NOAA estimates Russia flared 51 bcm compared to Nigeria's 23 bcm. The amount flared in 2006, if it had been captured and sold to consumers instead, would have fetched around 50 billion euros ($69 bn). Lack of confidence and government funding are blamed for inhibiting the investment in the infrastructure needed to capture and transport this gas. [P]
Vibration energy scavenging European scientists have developed a tiny generator that could power embedded electronic devices such as pacemakers without the need for batteries. Produced as part of the EU-funded VIBES (Vibration Energy Scavenging) project, the generator is smaller than one cubic centimetre and produces electrical power from the natural vibrations and movements in its environment, such as the beating of a heart. The generator uses the vibration to make magnets on a cantilever wobble, generating microwatts of power. The developers say that it is 10 times more efficient than any other similar devices currently available. [P][H][I][J][S]
Biofuel choices A new review of biofuels argues that the rapidly growing and heavily subsidised corn ethanol industry in the US will cause serious environmental damage and will not significantly reduce the US dependence on fossil fuels. The report analyses hundreds of previous studies, and was compiled by the environmental advocacy groups Food and Water Watch, NNEC and the Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment. [P][E][X]
UK carbon policy The UK government's proposals to tackle climate change need to be tougher and legally enforceable, according to a joint committee report by the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It says that the target of a minimum 60 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2050 from the 1990 base level, though hard to achieve, may not be adequate, and it recommends that international aviation emissions should be included in targets. The report also said that there should be a cap on the use of carbon credits to meet the targets. The UK government currently plans to meet 70 percent of its emission savings under the EU emissions trading scheme by buying carbon credits from abroad, notably from developing countries. The committee criticises this for postponing tough action to decarbonise the UK economy. [P][E]
More efficient plastic solar cells Scientists in Korea and California have invented a new way of boosting the efficiency of cheap plastic solar cells, making them more competitive with traditional silicon solar cells. The cells consist of two layers of different types of light-absorbing, electron-emitting plastics. This tandem combination converts a broader spectrum of light into energy than either layer could do alone. The most important innovation is being able to create the entire tandem cell, including the metal link joining the two cells, from solution. The metal layer produced this way is less opaque than ones made conventionally using thermal deposition, so it absorbs less light. This means it should be possible to have three or more layers in tandem, giving an efficiency of up to 10 percent. The solution processing should also make cell manufacture substantially cheaper. [P][J][M][O][W]
Printable OPVs Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are a promising low cost alternative to silicon solar cells and much research is being devoted to increasing their power conversion efficiency and scaling up their production. OPVs based on conjugated polymers and fullerene (C60) can be spin coated or inkjet printed onto large areas of flexible plastic. They could therefore provide a very cheap technology. They work by photoinduced electron transfer from the excited state of the conjugated polymer onto the C60. The challenge however is how to extract the current from the C60. Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology have now shown this can be done with single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). They produced a composite cell with SWNTs, C60 and the conjugated polymer P3HT. The best power conversion efficiency they have achieved so far is only 0.57 percent. But much higher efficiency should be obtainable as P3HT has given efficiencies of up to 5 percent in another context. [P][J][M][O][W]
Record solar cell efficiency A consortium led by the University of Delaware has achieved a record-breaking combined solar cell efficiency of 42.8 percent from sunlight at standard terrestrial conditions. Combined with spectral splitting optics that is more than 93 percent efficient, the complete module should achieve a net efficiency of over 30 percent, greater than any previous module efficiency and twice the efficiency of state-of-the-art silicon solar cell modules. The work is part of the DARPA Very High Efficiency Solar Cell (VHESC) programme to develop affordable portable solar cell battery chargers. [P][H][M][O] |
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| [M] Materials, structures and surfaces | |
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Dielectric supercapacitor Physicists have long been interested in the dielectric polymer PVDF for use in capacitors. In its solid state, PVDF can be either polar or non-polar. Researchers at North Carolina State have now found that if PVDF in a non-polar phase is combined with polymer called CTFE, the resulting polymer has the ability to switch phases from non-polar to polar when a small electric field is applied. This means that as a capacitor it can store and release much larger amounts of energy with a smaller electric field. The researchers say it will allow a capacitors to store up to seven times more energy than is possible with a conventional capacitor of the same size. Such capacitors could be used to give much better acceleration to electric cars and as ultrafast rechargeable “batteries” that can be recharged a thousand times more than existing conventional batteries. [M][P]
Heat transistor Physicists in Finland and Italy claim to have built the world’s first "heat transistor" in which the flow of heat between two electrodes is controlled by a voltage applied to a third lead. The flow can be increased, decreased or even switched off by changing the voltage. The heat flux of the device is too small for most practical applications, but the researchers believe that it could help physicists gain a better understanding of heat flow in very small systems such as conventional electronic refrigerators. [M][J][N]
High temperature superconductivity One of the greatest unsolved problems in condensed matter physics is explaining how electrons pair up in copper-oxide (cuprate) high temperature superconductors (HTS). A new proposal by researchers at the University of Illinois is that the solution might lie in the existence of a previously overlooked doubly charged particle, one that mediates interactions among electrons lying in planes filled with copper and oxygen atoms. It is not a Cooper pair as in conventional superconductivity, but it is a boson. This idea ties in with the fact that the cuprates are Mott insulators in their undoped state and only become superconducting when they are doped. It may explain why some electrons in cuprate HTS seem to be paired even at temperatures above where superconductivity sets in. [M][T]
Quantum spin liquid An international research team using the ISIS pulsed neutron and muon source at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has discovered a new form of quantum order called a quantum spin liquid. The research shows that one can couple a large number of electron spins together in a practical material to yield a coherent quantum mechanical state which has no classical analogue. The coupling covered around 100 atoms over a distance of 30 nm. Only a few other examples of such quantum states are known and these lead to properties such as superconductivity and superfluidity. The researchers investigated how sensitive the range of quantum ordering is to changes in temperature or chemical impurities in the material in order to determine whether the scale and stability is sufficient for applications in quantum computing and nanodevices. [M][C][F][N]
Chalcogenide aerogels An aerogel that can be used to soak up heavy metals from water has been developed by US researchers. It is made by linking clusters of chalcogenides with metal ions. The resulting material is extremely porous and its huge internal surface area can bind large amounts of pollutants. The chalcogenides sulphur and selenium bind strongly to heavy metal pollutants such as cadmium, mercury, or lead. If the aerogel can be made cheaply enough it could be used to filter contaminated water. It might also be able to absorb organic pollutants, such as dioxins and PCBs, or to purify hydrogen for use in fuel cells. [M][P]
Hydrogel for tissue repair University of Delaware scientists have invented a novel biomaterial with surprising antibacterial properties that can be injected as a low-viscosity gel into a wound where it rigidifies virtually on contact. They foresee many applications including treating wounds, regenerating healthy tissue within the body and healing a biopsy site. [M][H]
Geckel adhesive Scientists at Northwestern University have created a reusable adhesive that mimics both geckos and mussel and that works underwater. Geckos' remarkable climbing ability comes from the arrays of tiny hairs, called setae, covering their feet. Each seta branches into hundreds of nano-sized fibres called spatulae. These adhere to surfaces through van der Waals' forces. Synthetic adhesives based on the gecko's foot have been made previously but these only work if they stay dry since van der Waals' forces weaken when water comes between the nanofibres and a surface. Mussels in contrast secrete adhesive proteins that work underwater. The researchers combined both techniques. To mimic the setae they built an array of nano-sized pillars from a soft flexible polymer. They then dip-coated these arrays in solutions containing different polymers designed to mimic the mussel proteins. The material, dubbed geckel, might be used medically to repair tissue after surgery or serious injury. It might also help people or autonomous vehicles crawl along underwater structures. [M][G][H][N]
Switchable adhesion In nature there are many examples of so-called switchable adhesive systems. Lizards and insects make use of them to climb up walls. Now German and UK researchers have succeeded in creating something similar in the laboratory - a pair of surfaces that can stick together and separate on command by changing the acidity of the surrounding solutions. If the acidity is lowered (high pH) the surfaces stick together; if it is raised (low pH) they separate. The cycle can be repeated many times. [M][J][N] |
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| [E] Environment, transport and marine | |
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Rainfall and human activities Throughout the 20th century, precipitation patterns across the globe have undergone substantial changes, with northern latitudes experiencing increased rain and snowfall, while other regions appear to be getting drier. By comparing the observed changes in precipitation at different latitudes with the changes simulated by 14 climate models, researchers have now demonstrated that these changes are largely due to human activity. Previous studies had been unable to detect these effects because they looked at global precipitation as a whole, where drying trends in some regions cancel out increased precipitation elsewhere. [E][P][X]
Human role in climate change The idea that global warming might be caused by changes in solar output rather than human activity has been dealt a further blow by a new analysis of temperature, volcanic and solar-radiation data at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. The analysis does not rely on climate models, but instead reveals a strong statistical link between rising temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions. It uses a theory known as nonlinear time-series analysis, whereby the existence of a slowly-varying driving force can be deduced without any knowledge of internal dynamics. The result showed that the driving force that produces the best fit almost exactly matches the recorded greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions. [E][P][R]
European heatwaves The duration of heatwaves in Western Europe has doubled since 1880, according to a new study, which has corrected earlier temperature measurements for the fact that they were made with thermometers that were not properly protected from direct sunlight and indirect radiation coming from the ground. The study also shows that the frequency of extremely hot days has nearly tripled in the past century. [E][P][R]
Hurricanes and coral bleaching Hurricanes Katrina and Rita may have been unlikely saviours for the coral reefs under their paths, say researchers. They have found evidence that the cooling effect hurricanes have on sea temperatures may help corals recover from the bleaching caused by warming oceans. Coral reefs get their colour from tiny algae called zooxanthellae that live within them. The corals and the algae live in symbiosis, but if the corals become stressed they can expel the algae, which results in coral bleaching. One source of stress to corals is higher sea temperatures, which is why global warming is predicted to bring about widespread coral bleaching. Data on the relationship between hurricanes and sea surface temperatures in the Florida Keys archipelago since 1988 shows that, on average, a hurricane will cool sea temperatures by 1.5°C for 10 days, which is enough to allow rapid recovery of colour. [E]
Verdant Greenland Scientists analyzing ancient DNA from ice cores extracted from deep beneath Greenland's ice sheets have found that parts of the island were once covered by rich forests. This shows that Greenland was much warmer at some point during the last Ice Age than previously thought. The ancient DNA was discovered at the bottom of a two kilometre thick ice sheet and came from the trees, plants and insects of a boreal forest. Various dating methods show the DNA is probably between 450,000 and 900,000 years-old based. Knowing the environmental limits of the plants identified, the researchers believe that the average July temperatures at the time must have been over 10°C, while winter temperatures could not have been lower than -17°C. The age of the DNA also shows that Greenland was still covered in a large ice sheet 125,000 years ago during the Earth's last warm period, during which the global temperature was 5 degrees warmer than in the present interglacial period. This suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is much more stable against current global warming than generally thought. [E][G]
Rising sea levels Ice loss from glaciers and ice caps is expected to cause more global sea rise during this century than melting of the massive Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, according to a new study. From satellite, aircraft and ground-based data, the study concluded that glaciers and ice caps are currently contributing about 100 cubic miles of ice annually and this is rising by about three cubic miles per year. In contrast, Greenland and Antarctica are contributing about 50 cubic miles and 20 cubic miles a year respectively. Greenland is not expected to catch up to glaciers and ice caps in terms of sea level rise contributions until the end of the century. The team estimated accelerating melt of glaciers and ice caps could add from 4 inches to 9.5 inches of additional sea level rise globally by 2100. This does not include the expansion of warming ocean water, which could potentially double those numbers. The World Bank estimates that about 100 million people now live within about three feet of sea level. [E][D][P][R][X]
Himalayan watershed The Tibetan plateau is warming by 0.3 degrees C each decade, more than twice the worldwide average, and glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, according to a new study from the Tibet Meteorological Bureau. Previous studies have found that all glaciers in the central and eastern Himalayas could disappear by 2035 at their present rate of decline. The melting glaciers threaten to unleash massive flooding followed by severe droughts. [E][D][X]
Effects of Asia's brown clouds Clouds of pollution over the Indian Ocean appear to cause as much warming as greenhouse gases released by human activity, according to scientists from UCSD and NASA Langley. Their study used unmanned aircraft to measure the effects of the "brown clouds", which contain a mixture of light absorbing and light scattering aerosols and are produced mainly from burning wood and fossil fuel. The aerosols produce so-called global dimming that cools the ground. But the aircraft found that the brown clouds also enhanced lower atmospheric solar heating by about 50 percent. They believe this may account for the rapid retreat of glaciers in the Himalayas, which is increasing the risk of flooding and also in the longer term threatens the supply of seasonal glacier and snow melt that feeds rivers supplying water to about 40 percent of the world's population. [E][A][P][R][U]
Ozone and plant health According to some current projections, low-altitude ozone will exceed 40 ppb in almost all areas of the world by 2100, and many regions including western Europe, eastern North America, Brazil, and southeast Asia will see ozone concentrations above 70 ppb. According to research at the Hadley Centre and Exeter University, this will stifle the growth of vegetation and cause carbon dioxide to build up in Earth's atmosphere more quickly than had been expected. Not enough is yet known about how different plants will be affected, but the researchers anticipate that plant productivity will be reduced by between 14 and 23 percent. This will similarly reduce carbon absorption and could also significantly affect world food production. [E][P][R] |
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| [R] Remote sensing and sensor systems | |
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Satellite measurement of soil moisture Measuring the water content in soil is important for both agricultural planning and weather forecasting. When there is too little soil moisture, crops and vegetation wilt. When there is too much, the risk of extreme weather, such as flash floods and erosion, increases. An ESA project called SHARE (Soil Moisture for Hydrometeorological Applications in the Southern African Development Community Region) has demonstrated for the first time that soil moisture can be measured by satellite with kilometre-resolution and with a time lag of less than a week. The capability will allow better forecasting of floods, droughts and other extreme weather. [R][D][E]
Joint GPS-Galileo system The EU and US have agreed to make their satellite navigation systems, Galileo and GPS, compatible and interoperable. The two systems will use a common radio frequency to provide more accurate information. [R][A][D][E][I][X]
EGNOS The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), currently in its pre-operational phase, allows users in Europe and beyond to locate their position to better than two metres, compared with 15 to 20 metres using GPS alone. EGNOS consists of three geostationary satellites and a network of ground stations, which transmit signals containing information on the reliability and accuracy of the GPS signals. Recent trials in Lausanne show that EGNOS can help emergency helicopters to land precisely in bad weather and with a high angle of approach. And, in Finland, another trial using EGNOS data transmitted by a pseudo-satellite system enabled ships to navigate in Helsinki harbour with accuracies of potentially a few centimetres. Pseudo-satellites are ground-based substitutes used when signals from ‘real’ satellites are not available. Far northern latitudes such as Finland suffer from poor GPS availability because of their low angle-of-view to geostationary satellites. [R][A][E]
Formation of the English Channel Sonar imaging of the floor of the English Channel has provided the first direct evidence that the Channel was not created by fluvial processes, tidal scour or glacial erosion as generally thought but was carved out a sudden cataclysmic flood around 450,000 years ago. At that time, a vast lake covered what is now the southern part of the North Sea. It was fed by many rivers, including the Rhine and Thames, and was hemmed in by glaciers to the North and the European landmass to the South. At its south-west corner, it was dammed by the narrow Weald-Artois chalk ridge, which spanned what is now the Straits of Dover. The researchers believe that a rise in the level of this ancient lake led to a breach in the ridge. The sonar images show a huge valley, tens of kilometres wide and up to 50 metres deep. The deep scour marks and landforms are still well preserved and could only have been formed by torrents of water rushing over the exposed Channel basin. [R][E]
Image processing A new signal processing technique called Time-domain Optimized Near-field Estimator (TONE) greatly enhances the effectiveness of medical ultrasound imaging, according to researchers at the University of Virginia. They say that TONE can be used with a broad range of imaging and sensing systems including ultrasound, RADAR, SONAR, telecommunications, and optical imaging. [R][C][H]
Probing internal structure If electromagnetic radiation passes through a material with many particulates that scatter strongly, the radiation can become localised in some of the spaces between particles. Researchers have now studied the effect at microwave frequencies using several hundred blueberry-sized Styrofoam balls, each stuffed with a tiny ball of alumina that acts as a strong microwave scatterer. As they increased the microwave frequency, the speckle pattern's dark spots moved around smoothly, but then, in frequency ranges where the waves became localized, the dark spots began moving erratically as the system moved from one special frequency for localization to the next. As they raised the frequency still higher, above the localization range, the dark spots began moving smoothly again. The researchers developed a statistical method that describes both the localized and diffusive patterns. Possible applications include surveying geological formations and ice caps and inspecting aerospace components. [R][A][E][H][I][M][O]
Counting faces A system for counting occupants of cars has been developed at Loughborough University. To detect faces it looks both in the visible spectrum and also using infrared light with a wavelength of about 1.55 microns that is shone through the car window. Infrared at this wavelength is strongly absorbed by human skin creating a dark area on the reflected infrared image. The system analyses the size and the shape of both the visible and infrared images to make sure the object is a face and not another part of the human body. It is claimed this gives a 95 percent accuracy in counting the correct number of faces in the car. [R][D][E] |
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| [S] Sensor devices | |
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Graphene gas sensor Researchers at the University of Manchester who discovered graphene in 2003 have now used it to create sensors that can detect just a single molecule of a toxic gas. The gas molecules gently attach themselves to the graphene without disrupting its chicken wire structure. They just add or extract electrons from graphene, changing its electrical conductance. With further research it may be possible to make them specifically sensitive to individual gases for applications such as sniffing out explosives for airport security. [S][A][D][J][M][N][R]
Carbon nanotube biosensor A new bionanosensor made from a field-effect transistor (FET) coated with single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) has been unveiled by researchers in Tokyo. The SWNTs were modified with a protein called avidin that specifically binds to the vitamin biotin. When the researchers injected biotin onto the sensor, its impedance increased due to biotin–avidin binding. In contrast, other vitamins, such as vitamin B1 and C, caused a decrease in impedance. The biosensor reacts quickly and recovers its initial value of impedance when washed with distilled water, so it can be used repeatedly. The biotin–avidin system is routinely used in many biotechnological applications, and the researchers say that the sensors could be used to study various biological processes such as DNA transcription and antibody–antigen reactions. [S][G][N]
AFM measurement of Protein folding Rice University physicists have unveiled a new way of using an atomic force microscope (AFM) to find out how proteins get their shape based on how they unfold when pulled apart. One end of a protein is attached to a substrate and the other end to the AFM's cantilever. As the protein is stretched, the cantilever is oscillated and the force restoring the protein and cantilever back into equilibrium is measured. In principle, this reveals the many intermediate equilibrium energy states that the protein goes through on its way to being fully extended. However, interpreting such data has previously proved controversial, and until now researchers have only had a clear understanding of the equilibrium states at the beginning and end of the folding process. Now, the Rice scientists have developed a computational method based on the Jarzynski equality that can obtain equilibrium information about the intermediate states from the non-equilibrium measurements. This is important for understanding protein misfolding that plays a key role in diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. [S][G][H]
Josephson sensing of nanostructure motions Scientists at Georgia Tech have discovered that a Josephson junction can be used to probe mechanical motions of atoms or molecules placed in the junction. The technique might be used to identify and characterize structural and mechanical properties of nanoparticles, including materials of biological interest. [S][G][M][N]
Observing 2-D electron energies MIT physicists have developed a spectroscopy technique that allows the energy of electrons in 2-dimensional wells to be measured with 1000 times finer resolution than previously possible. It works by using short electric pulses to induce electrons to tunnel from a 2D system to a 3D system, and vice versa. By measuring the resulting voltage difference, the energy states of the electrons in the 2D system can be determined. The researchers say that this new capability has already revealed some surprising electron behaviour and will shed light on many physical phenomena involving electrons. [S][J][N]
Programmable single molecule detector A way to detect single biological molecules optically in real time has been developed at Caltech. It uses a micron-scale donut-shaped glass device called an "ultra-high-Q microtoroid resonator". This greatly concentrates the light and when a molecule interacts with this light it produces slight heating that can be detected as a thermo-optic signal. The device is programmed by coating its surface with substances that react to a specific biological molecule. The combination of single-molecule sensitivity and programmable detection without labelling of the target molecule has not been demonstrated before and could have numerous medical applications such as the extremely early detection of cancer and other diseases and also applications in basic biological research. [S][G][H][O]
Single particle sensor chip Researchers at UCSC and Brigham Young University have succeeded in building a silicon chip that can detect tiny particles one at a time. The chip uses liquid-core waveguides, which ensure that even the faintest traces of light from a target particle can be detected. The liquid sample is injected into the waveguide core and illuminated with a laser, causing target particles bearing a fluorescent tag to emit light. One particle per 100 femtolitres can be detected at present. The researchers hope that when the light source, detector and other functions are integrated onto the chip, the technology can be used in handheld sensors that detect viruses or pollutants. This would enable analyses that are currently limited to laboratories to be conducted nearly anywhere. The chip's ability to detect single particles would make detecting certain biohazards, such as a flu virus, a much faster procedure. [S][D][E][G][H][O]
Nanoscale 3-D movies Techniques such as atomic-force microscopy and scanning tunnelling microscopy can map 3-D samples in exquisite detail, but they are too slow to capture fast-moving events. Photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) solves the speed problem by shining high-energy light on an entire sample - electrons ejected by the light are focused to create a video of a large portion of the sample at once. However, PEEM has been limited to 2-D images. Now researchers at Monash University have shown that PEEM can in fact provide 3-D information by exploiting bright and dark fringes in the image, which are produced by interference effects in the illuminating light and depend on the object's shape. With UV illumination, the researchers could see surface features a few hundred nanometres tall. They expect to improve this resolution to tens of nanometres by using soft x-ray light from a synchrotron. [S][J][M][N][O] |
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| [O] Optoelectronics, optics and lasers | |
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Concentric ring superlens Traditional lenses are limited by diffraction that prevents them from focusing much smaller than the wavelength of light. This diffraction limit can be overcome by using a superlens made of metamaterial with negative index of refraction. However, according to computer simulations by researchers at the University of Michigan, there is a much easier way to produce a superlens by using nanoscale concentric rings of two alternative materials, one that blocks light and the other that is transparent. Like metamaterial superlenses, this approach exploits evanescent waves and therefore only works by focusing less than a few wavelengths away from the lens. However, this could allow the technology to be used in data storage, non-contact sensing, imaging, and nanolithography. [O][G][J][N][S]
Enhancing optical nonlinearity By placing a nonlinear material inside a photonic crystal, it may be possible to strongly enhance the optical nonlinearity and produce nonlinear optical devices which work for much lower powers and volumes, according to researchers at MIT. In their new scheme, the nonlinear material is probed at a frequency just below the photonic bandgap so that the photons are highly reflected within the crystal. This allows much more time for nonlinear processes to take place. For certain special materials, such as single nanocrystals of cadmium selenide, the enhancement can be a factor of forty at room temperature. [O][M]
THz spectroscopy Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have generated 100 megawatt picosecond pulses of teraHertz (THz) light. Their purpose is to use the pulses for studying electronic switching and ultrafast molecular processes such as catalysis. The researchers found that the THz pulses are sufficiently intense to produce nonlinear effects. [O][G][J][N][S] |
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| [I] IT, communications, networking and secure systems | |
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Satellite multimedia Satellite systems are being developed to broadcast digital multimedia content such as video, television programmes, radio, and data to mobile telephones and vehicle-borne receivers. The proposed system will employ a mixture of satellites and Earth-based repeaters. Satellites ensure global coverage and repeaters make it possible to receive the signals inside buildings. [I][K]
Printed RFIDs Silicon-based RFID tags can be made today for about 15 cents each. Their cost will fall as the chips are made smaller, but they are not likely to become cheaper than about 5 cents because of the cost of integrating the chip with the antenna and other components. So if RFIDs are to replace supermarket bar codes this requires printed RFIDs in which the entire circuit is printed on a flexible substrate in a roll-to-roll process. Several companies have made great strides in developing this technology, but there are still big hurdles. One is the low yield of printed transistors. Silicon tags with 96 bit memory have around 12,000 transistors. Even a 16-bit tag has close to 1,000 transistors, which means that the printed transistor must have a yield of 99.999% to produce tags with a 99% yield. Another hurdle is frequency performance. Although printed RFIDs have operated at quite high-frequency, they have yet to reach the range around 900 MHz that is being adopted by retailers for RFID. [I][J][M][T]
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity Surveys suggest that 4 percent of the UK population claim to suffer from so-called "electromagnetic hypersensitivity" (EHS), a condition where sufferers feel ill in the vicinity of mobile phones, masts and appliances such as microwave ovens. Some EHS sufferers go to extreme lengths to shield themselves, even covering themselves or their homes in foil. However, this disorder has never been reliably linked to any source of electromagnetic radiation. New experiments on EHS sufferers and non-EHS control subjects now confirm that although the symptoms are genuine and can be serious, they are not related to electromagnetic radiation. Experiments also showed that neither the EHS sufferers nor the controls could reliably tell whether electromagnetic signals were switched on or not. [I][H]
Map of the internet Using a combination of graph-theory analysis and distributed computing, researchers in Israel have now made the first detailed map of the Internet. Previous attempts had failed to collect enough data to map the entire network. To overcome this problem, the researchers used distributed computing in which volunteers downloaded an agent program that ran in the background on their personal computers in a similar fashion to SETI@home or Folding@home. Each machine gathered network data without interfering with system processes. This data, consisting of information related to 20,000 network nodes, was then processed by using a technique of graph theory called k-shell decomposition, which breaks up the nodes in the network into nested hierarchical shells based on their connectivity. [I][C][K]
Combating social network spammers Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have a growing problem from spammers who pose as ordinary people in order to exploit people who accept them into their friend network. The problem could become very serious because, while automatic filters can distinguish spam emails from legitimate mail, it has proved much harder to distinguish between false and legitimate users on a social networking site. Now researchers at MIT have developed a way to teach software to judge whether a profile is social or promotional. The software appears to be sufficiently accurate to at least provide users with a warning that a profile may not be genuine. However, spammers may find ways to circumvent such software. An alternative approach may be to analyse how members in a network are connected to each other, since a spammer's community is likely to be less tightly knit than one made of genuine friends. [I][K]
Managing enterprise security risk In 2002, the US Congress passed the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) in recognition of the increasing reliance on IT and the growing risks posed by sophisticated cyberattackers and an expanding threat base. FISMA established sweeping information security (IS) requirements for the federal government and its contractors. The challenge has been how to introduce mandatory minimum IS standards and guidelines while ensuring flexible implementation based on diverse missions and business functions. An article in IEEE Computer describes how this has been tackled. [I][C][D][K][T][W][X] |
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| [K] Knowledge, information and technology management | |
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Chemical data search Patent files and repositories of scientific publications often contain information on chemical structures in image format. While classifying these structures poses no problems for chemical scientists, computers have no way to index the structures. Now researchers at Fraunhofer and InfoChem, a German company, have developed software that can identify pictures of chemical structures. It combines pattern recognition techniques with supervised machine-learning concepts, and is based on the idea of identifying from structural formulae the most significant semantic entities such as chiral bonds, super atoms and reaction arrows. This new software will now allow computers to retrieve information contained in chemical-pharmaceutical patents by performing structure searches. [K][C][G][H][M]
Telehealthcare interoperability Telehealthcare and eHealth are expected to play a major role in providing affordable healthcare for ageing populations. However, at present its introduction is hindered by the complexity and cost of installing telehealthcare devices into the home. IBM and the University of Florida have now developed open-standard middleware to make it easy to plug together a network of telehealthcare sensors and make their information available on a computer network. [K][H][I]
Electronic health records A US study has found that the introduction of electronic health records has disappointingly produced no significant improvement in the quality of healthcare delivered in routine doctor visits. Of 17 measures of quality assessed, electronic health records made no difference in 14 measures, gave improvements in two and was worse in one. The study by researchers at Stanford and Harvard Universities was based on a survey of 1.8 billion physician visits in 2003 and 2004. Electronic health records were used in 18 percent of them. [K][H][I]
Online discussion and folksonomy Software that spots key players in an online community, based on their posting patterns, has been developed by researchers at Cornell and Microsoft. It works by analysing the connections between thousands of messages on several topics. The work could help website designers automatically reward, or highlight, the most valuable members of a community, or improve methods for searching through a conversation for the most relevant information. The work also illuminates how people take on roles in an online environment and how this influences the community. Some people, dubbed "answer people" chip in briefly to provide pertinent informed comments; others, dubbed "discussion artists", encourage and dominate threads of discussion. The rise of the social media sites, such as blogs, wikis, Digg and Flickr among others, underscores the transformation of the Web to a participatory medium in which users are collaboratively creating, evaluating and distributing information. So called folksonomy techniques are aiming to exploit this collective intelligence. [K][I][X]
Cultural communication Cultures that emphasise interdependence over individualism may be better able to understand others' perspectives according to experiments at Chicago University that showed Chinese students outperformed their US counterparts when ask to infer another person's perspective. The researchers say the findings help explain how misunderstandings can occur in cross-cultural communication. The experiment compared 20 non-Asians who had grown up in the US with 20 native Mandarin speakers who had very recently emigrated from various parts of China. [K][D][V][W][X]
Learning language It is not known how far language is hard-wired into an infant's brain and how far an infant acquires it by using relatively general purpose learning systems. To help answer this, researchers at Stanford have developed a computer model that mimics the brain processes a baby uses when learning to recognise speech. The model gradually works out what the vowel sounds of a language are by analysing the repetition of these sounds in the speech it hears. The researchers tested the model by analysing recorded speech, in both English and Japanese, between mothers and babies in a lab setting. The computer was able to learn basic vowel sounds of both languages quite easily. This strongly suggests that babies do not need to start with an innate understanding of language sounds. From a practical perspective, the software may also be able to improve the accuracy of speech recognition systems in adapting to different voices and dialects. [K][B][V]
Gesture-based teaching It is thought that human language may have evolved from gesture-based communication, and it is well known that gestures add information to a conversation even when it is not entirely clear how that information relates to what is being said. Now research at the University of Rochester suggests that the use of hand gestures could play a valuable part in helping children to master difficult mathematical concepts. In the study, 90 percent of students who had learned algebraic concepts using gestures remembered them three weeks later. Only a third of speech-only students who had learned the concept during instruction later retained the lesson. And perhaps most astonishing of all, 90 percent of students who had learned by gesture alone without any speech recalled what they had been taught. [K][B][V]
Biotech R&D in Europe The EU has published a report on biotechnology R&D in Europe. As well as the overarching report, there are 32 national reports that give detailed information on R&D and competitiveness in each of the countries and on local policies and mechanisms for publicly funded R&D. At a European level, the best performing countries, which include Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, are characterised by a good balance between generic and applied research in the field and by the use of ex ante funding mechanisms that encourage beneficial collaboration between researchers and between research and exploitation. Ex ante means that these collaborations are set up before the awarding of funding in comparison with ex post approaches where collaborations, if any, are set up later. [K][E][G][H][J][N][P][T]
European research co-ordination A new service has been launched by CORDIS, the EU's Community Research and Development Information Service, as part of the effort to co-ordinate Europe's extensive research activities. This follows an online consultation of stakeholders by the Commission in 2004 that revealed a strong and widespread support for more co-ordination of national research programmes. The EU Framework Programme 7 will support two main tools to favour the restructuring of the European Research Area. Together these aim to reduce the fragmentation in national and regional research programmes by favouring the development of joint calls, joint programmes and actions supported together by several Member States and the Commission. [K] |
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| [C] Computing, supercomputing, modelling and simulation | |
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Quantum computing Researchers at Penn State have shown that they can hold hundreds of isolated atoms in an optical lattice in such a way that it should be possible to address them individually as qubits. The optical lattice used three overlapping laser-beam pairs to trap cold neutral caesium atoms in a cubic array with equal spacing between each atom. The researchers imaged the lattice plane by plane, taking photographs of each layer. The photos show that the light used to image the array is highly unlikely to cause atoms to hop around in the lattice - something that must not occur if this type of atom arrangement is to work in a quantum computer. The researchers also believe the spacing between each atom is large enough for individual atoms to be manipulated, and that the method could be used to create optical lattices containing thousands of individually addressable atoms. [C][O]
Spin entanglement Physicists at NIST and the University of Maryland have for the first time demonstrated spin-entangling interactions been pairs of atoms held in an optical lattice. Optical lattices use criss-crossing laser beams to create a matrix of potential wells that can each trap one or more atoms. They are one of several approaches that could create practical quantum computers. The researchers began with two overlapping lattices that were offset slightly in space from one another. A radio signal was used to set the spins of all the atoms in one lattice to 1 and all the atoms in the other lattice to 0. Then the lattices were merged so that two atoms occupied each well, oscillating between two spin states 0-1 and 1-0. The ability to switch individual spin states back and forth in this way is an important first step towards a "half-SWAP" gate that leaves the atoms entangled for quantum computing. The next challenges are to separate the atoms in the entangled state, to read and write information from individual atoms and to manipulate individual wells. [C][O]
Trapped-ion quantum computing The August issue of IEEE Spectrum has a review of the trapped-ion approach to quantum computing, including the various types of trap being explored for scaling down to microelectronic geometries. An unexpected problem in doing this has been noise. Ions in chip traps experience “patch-potential noise”, so called for the patches of voltage that seem to move around the electrodes. The origin of this noise remains a mystery. Solving it is a major objective of current research effort. [C][J][N][O][T]
Poker-playing computer After two thousand hands and countless "flops", "rivers", and "turns", two elite poker players have narrowly defeated a formidable computer opponent called Polaris. The result means that, while chess world champions have fallen to computers, humans still hold sway in poker, a game where psychology plays a huge role. Polaris is one of a few new poker-playing machines that have begun to master the tactics behind bluffing. [C][D][K][U][X]
Checkers solved The ancient game of checkers (or draughts) has now been solved by computer. A massive computation that has taken 18 years and at its peak involved 200 desk top computers working in parallel has proved that, provided neither player makes a mistake, the game always results in a draw. With 500 million trillion possible positions, draughts is the most complex game to have so far been solved using computers. The crucial part of the proof involved playing out every possible endgame involving fewer than 10 pieces. This produced an endgame database of 39 trillion positions. By contrast, there are only 19 different opening moves in draughts. By following all possible routes to the endgame and using the fact that many positions were equivalent, it was possible to reduce the proof to just a hundred trillion computations. As well as being a milestone in artificial intelligence, the computational method might be applicable to many real-world problems, such as complex optimisation. [C][U][W][X] |
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| [W] Whole life engineering, manufacture and testing | |
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Personalising games Despite their ubiquity, video games have remained largely impersonal. However, increasingly games are coming with content creation tools that enable users to innovative and modify them. This is opening up a new medium. [W][C][K][T][V]
Personalising games Games and simulations can strongly grip a player's emotions. For example, professional pilots feel stressed during simulated emergencies in a training simulator, and gamers feel tension during intense moments in a battle. Games also seem effective at creating feelings of triumph and at startling or exciting players. However, these emotions are largely impersonal and do involve establishing a complex relationship between the player and another person or nonplayer character. In principle, games should be capable of exciting the player's emotions just as deeply as movies and books do. A few new games are now starting to incorporate these more subtle emotions, such as feelings of deep sorrow. [W][C][K][T][V]
Robotics design integration environment Good robotics programming is far harder than writing a typical application for personal computers. Each component is expected to act autonomously and react to complicated events in the world of a kind that a printer or mouse never has to deal with. Standards and design environments are therefore needed to help this design and particularly to enable robotic devices to be plugged together much more easily. Various organisations are working on this. Microsoft has developed a tool set called Robotics Studio that it has made freely available. The tool kit has been downloaded more than 100 000 times since its first version was released in December 2006. Robotics Studio uses a Microsoft technology called concurrency and coordination runtime (CCR) which hides the complexity of managing multiple computational threads simultaneously. It also uses a concept called decentralized software services (DSS) through which any services, whether they reside in another component within the same robot, in a local computer, or across the Internet, show up whenever they are available. This helps to integrated many robots together and into their physical and cyber environment. [W][C][I][K][T][U][V]
Lean operations Lean principles were originally developed in industrial operations as a set of tools and practices to eliminate waste and inefficiency from production systems. Recently, lean techniques have moved from manufacturing to many other types of operation: insurance companies, hospitals, government agencies, airline maintenance organizations, high-tech product-development units, oil production facilities, IT operations, retail buying groups, and publishing companies, to name just a few. In each case the goal is to improve the organization’s performance on the operating metrics that make a competitive difference, by drawing employees into the hunt to eliminate unneeded activities and other forms of operational waste. Four articles in McKinsey Quarterly describe how managers have met the challenge of applying the lean approach in a variety of operating contexts: for public sector services, for development and maintenance of IT applications, for improving manufacturing in China, and in accounting and budget processes. [W][K] |
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| [X] Systems, complexity and risk | |
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Psychology of leadership In the August issue of Scientific American Mind, an article titled "The New Psychology of Leadership" describes how in recent years a new picture of leadership has emerged in which effective leaders in today's organisations must work to understand the values and opinions of those they lead rather than assuming absolute authority. Such leaders must work to enable a productive dialogue about what the group embodies and stands for and thus how it should act. They must develop and control a shared social identity and shape what people want to do rather than try to enforce compliance using rewards and punishments. [X][B][D][K][T][W]
Managing change and wellbeing A report by the New Economics Foundation recommends using the emerging science of wellbeing to help countries to adapt to the implications of global warming. Carbon emissions have risen markedly over the last 40 years, but the evidence both in the US and Europe is that this has not been accompanied by any average improvement in happiness or sense of wellbeing. The researchers score 30 European countries in terms of the ratio of their happiness and wellbeing to their carbon consumption. Iceland comes top. The UK, which has the fourth highest per-capita carbon output in Europe, comes 21st. The report conjectures that by learning from the differences between European countries and copying best practices, it is possible to greatly reduce carbon emissions and at the same time increase wellbeing. As well as recommending using wellbeing science as a driver of policy, it also advocates introducing mandatory short-term targets for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing inequalities in income, education, health and social opportunity. [X][A][D][E][H][P][W]
Managing third world change Data from ESA’s multispectral MERIS sensor aboard Envisat has been used to create maps depicting existing water resources, suitable dam locations and land cover in Zambia. The land cover change maps will enable government authorities to identify trends with regard to deforestation, reclaimed land and new settlement areas, and to determine their long-term impact on water resources. The data is also expected to help Zambian authorities deal with an unprecedented growth in urban populations, which demands developing crucial infrastructures, such as water supply and sanitation. [X][D][E][H][R]
Agricultural systems Numerous studies have compared the yields of organic and conventional methods for individual crops and animal products. A study at the University of Michigan has now compiled research from 293 different comparisons to assess the overall efficiency of the two agricultural systems. The results show that in developed countries organic systems on average produce 92 percent of the yield produced by conventional agriculture. In developing countries, however, where farmers cannot afford the fertilisers and pesticides needed for intensive agriculture and where man-power is cheap, organic systems produce 80 percent more than conventional farms. The world currently produces the equivalent of 2786 calories per person per day. The researchers found that under an organic-only regime, farms could produce up to 4381 calories per person per day. However, this conclusion does depend on the assumption that farm labour remains cheap and plentiful in developing countries and does not allow for effects of climate change. [X][D][E]
Agricultural risk Innovative forms of insurance could unshackle a green revolution in Africa and other poor nations. The ability to objectively measure drought and other climatic catastrophes by satellite observation makes it feasible to offer small farmers and farming collectives insurance to reduce the risk from adverse weather. This can in turn enable them to risk investing in fertilisers and other ways to improve productivity. [X][D][E][R][T]
Biodiversity and ecosystem services Ecosystems provide a range of essential services including food and materials, clean water, capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, protecting soils from erosion and also as a source of wild genes that may be useful in agriculture or medicine. Many studies have found that these ecosystem services depend on a certain number of species to work effectively. However, these studies all looked at ecosystem services individually, whereas in fact most ecosystems are valued or managed for several services or processes, so-called 'multifunctionality'. Now research at the universities of Zurich and Oxford has produced a method to investigate several ecosystem processes in the same analysis. The researchers looked at seven ecosystem services and found that higher levels of biodiversity are needed when all seven are taken into account. This implies that biodiversity loss could have a more serious impact than was previously thought. [X][E][G]
Flood risk A new assessment of land and sea level changes in London and the Thames estuary has been made by scientists at Nottingham University. The study was based on tide gauge, GPS, gravity, and satellite measurements. It shows that sea level with respect to the land is rising at 2 to 3 mm a year. Of this, 1 to 2 mm is due to the fact that the Earth's crust is still responding to the loss of the heavy ice sheet which covered much of Britain more than 10,000 years ago. This is causing the UK to tilt south-eastwards with the north of the UK rising and the southeast England, including London, slowly sinking. The study gives a detailed picture that helps identify where future flood defences are most needed. [X][D][E][R]
Swarming systems A swarm can be thought of as a system in which the density of particles fluctuates wildly from place to place. One example is a school of fish, which exhibits density fluctuations as the fish rapidly change direction. Although physicists have tried to develop mathematical models of swarming, there are few simple experimental systems available for testing them. Now physicists in India and the US have shown that swarming does not necessarily require communication, but can occur with simple particle-particle interactions. They found that collections of thousands of suitably shaped short copper rods behave as a swarm when vibrated between two horizontal plates. The shaping involves etching the rods at either end so they take the shape of a tiny rolling pin. Why this shaping is necessary for the swarming behaviour to occur is not understood, but the researchers observe that there is a parallel with nematic liquid crystal molecules, which always have a rigid inner section and bendable extremities. [X][M] |
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| [V] Virtuality and human-machine interface | |
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Augmented reality According to a review article in IEEE Spectrum, augmented reality (AR) promises to transform the way we perceive our world, much as hyperlinks and browsers have already begun to change the way we read. Today we can click on hyperlinks in text to open new vistas of print, audio, and video media. A decade from now, provided the technical problems can be solved, it should be possible to use marked objects in our physical environment to guide us through rich, vivid, and gripping worlds of historical information and experience. An AR system must meld physical reality with computer-modelled sights and sounds, a display system, and a method for determining the user's viewpoint. The first, relatively rudimentary forms of AR technology are already being used in a few prosaic but important practical applications. Airline and auto mechanics have tested prototypes that give visual guidance as they assemble complex wiring or make engine repairs, and doctors have used it to perform surgery on patients in other cities. [V][E][H][I][K][O][R][T][U][W]
Bionic hand A highly functional bionic hand which was invented by a Scottish NHS worker has gone on the market. The thumb and fingers can move and grip just like a human hand and are controlled by the patient's mind and muscles. It has individual motors for each digit and sensors in the socket that pick up myoelectric signals from the arm muscles to control the movements. [V][H][S][U]
Brain-hand control Researchers at John Hopkins are developing a neural interface that can control the movement of individual fingers on a prosthetic hand. They have demonstrated neural activity recorded from a monkey's brain controlling fingers on a robotic hand, making it play several notes on a piano. [V][B][H]
Tongue interface A device that detects ear-pressure changes to determine how a person is moving their tongue should let people with extremely limited movement control a wheelchair or computer more easily. A US company called Think-A-Move plans to release a wheelchair that can be controlled using the device towards the end of 2007. It is primarily aimed at quadriplegics who must currently use more intrusive steering devices that go inside the mouth. The researchers think the technology might also be useful for fire fighters or military personnel who need to keep their hands free. Experiments so far indicate that for activities such as speaking, eating or smoking a cigarette, there is no need to remove or even deactivate the device. The tongue movement signals seem to have a sufficiently unique signatures that signal processing can distinguish them clearly from other oral activity. [V][D][H][S] |
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| [B] Brain research and human science | |
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Virtual brain The mouse brain is one of the main surrogates for understanding how the human brain works. Using advanced MRI, researchers have now produced a computer-based virtual mouse brain. This provides a 3-D view unveiled layer by layer with more than 100,000 times higher resolution than a clinical MRI scan. [B][C][H][K][R][V][X]
Imaging of new memory Working with advanced microscopic techniques called restorative deconvolution microscopy, researchers at UC Irvine have for the first time captured images of the changes in brain cell connections following a common form of learning. The study shows that synaptic connections in a region of rats’ brains critical to learning change shape when the rodents learn to navigate a new, complex environment. In turn, when drugs are administered that block these changes, the rats do not learn, confirming the essential role the shape change plays in the production of stable memory. The researchers say that the findings open the way for one of the great objectives of the life sciences: mapping the distribution of memory across brain regions. [B][O][S][V]
Preventing PTSD According to a study conducted by the US Army in 2004, one in eight US soldiers returning from Iraq reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). MIT researchers have now uncovered a molecular mechanism that governs the formation of fears stemming from traumatic events. Their work could lead to the first drug to treat PTSD. Using experiments on mice, the researchers found that inhibiting the activity of a kinase called Cdk5 in the hippocampus facilitated the extinction of fear learned in a particular context. Conversely, the learned fear persisted when the kinase's activity was increased. It is known that Cdk5, paired with the protein p35, helps new brain cells form and migrate to their correct positions during early brain development. Cdk5 may also help in forming permanent memories in adulthood. [B][D][H]
Resilience to stress Researchers have identified a gene-regulating protein in the brains of mice that triggers the animals' ability to cope with the "behavioural despair" caused by inescapable stress. They said their studies have yielded an animal model of resilience that they will use to explore how antidepressants work on the brain circuitry involved in such stress response. It is possible that increasing the levels of the protein in people might help them deal with stressful circumstances. [B][G][H]
Suppressing troubling memories Using fMRI, researchers have shown that the brain appears to suppress emotionally troubling memories by increasing activity in parts of the prefrontal cortex – the brain's control centre for complex thoughts and actions. This increased activity then appears to direct a decrease of activity in the visual cortex, where images are usually processed, and this is followed by reduced activity in the hippocampus, where memories are formed and retrieved, and in the amygdala, the emotion hub. [B][H][R]
How pain commands attention One of the most distressing aspects of pain is that it commands attention, making it difficult to ignore and interfering with other activities. German researchers using fMRI have now pinpointed the region of the brain that is responsible for doing this. It is the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), a region previously known to be involved in the brain’s processing of pain and part of the anterior cingulate cortex, which plays an important role in “executive” functions such as attentional control. These structures are located deep in the brain in the region of connection between the two hemispheres. [B][H] Placebo effect Using PET scans and fMRI on human subjects, researchers have pinpointed a brain region central to the machinery of the placebo effect - the effect by which a person’s belief in the efficacy of a treatment such as a painkilling drug influences its effect. They found strong links between an individual’s response to a placebo “painkiller”, and the activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens. This is a small region at the centre of the brain that is involved in experiencing pleasure and reward, and in becoming addicted to the “high” caused by illicit drugs. They also found that dopamine is activated in response to a placebo in a manner that is proportional to the amount of benefit tha | ||