Currently different data formats between research centers pose a challenge to oceanographic researchers, but a new project is going to make marine data sets more easily accessible to researchers worldwide. 

The ODIP II project will use NERC’s vocabulary server to ‘translate’ between these different data semantics. ODIP II is a collaboration between the USA, Australia and the EU. By the time it is complete, in May 2018, it aims to have developed a means of seamlessly sharing and managing marine data and coordinating the existing regional marine e-infrastructures.

A Silicon (Si) quantum dot (QD)-based hybrid inorganic/organic light-emitting diode (LED) that exhibits white-blue electroluminescence has been created.

A hybrid LED is expected to be a next-generation illumination device for producing flexible lighting and display, and this is achieved for the Si QD-based white-blue LED. 

The Si QD hybrid LED was developed using a simple method; almost all processes were solution-based and conducted at ambient temperature and pressure. Conductive polymer solutions and a colloidal Si QD solution were deposited on the glass substrate. The current and optical power densities of the LED are, respectively, 280 and 350 times greater than those reported previously for such a device at the same voltage (6 V).

Office workers should be on their feet for a minimum of 2 hours daily during working hours, recommends the first ever UK guidance designed to curb the health risks of too much cumulative sitting time, and published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

This daily quota should eventually be bumped up to 4 hours a day, breaking up prolonged periods of sitting with the use of sit-stand desks, standing based work, and regular walk-abouts, it says.

The guidance, which evaluates and distils the available evidence, was drawn up by a panel of international experts, at the behest of Public Health England and a UK community interest company (Active Working CIC).

University of Adelaide researchers have discovered cerebral palsy has an even stronger genetic cause than previously thought, leading them to call for an end to unnecessary caesareans and arbitrary litigation against obstetric staff.

In an authoritative review published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, members of the Australian Cerebral Palsy Research Group, based at the University of Adelaide's Robinson Research Institute, argue that up to 45% of cerebral palsy cases can have genetic causes.

Unless you are a wealthy elite, an electric car is not a viable option because gasoline still rules when it comes to energy density, meaning electric has a more limited range, and solar energy is not close to replacing fossil fuels yet so the environment is not winning.

Archaeologists have found evidence of an ancient gold trade route between the south-west of the UK and Ireland, which would mean people were trading gold between the two countries as far back as the early Bronze Age, 2500 B.C.

The finding was made after measuring the chemical composition of early gold artifacts in Ireland and discovering that the objects were actually made from imported gold, rather than Irish. The gold is most likely to have come from Cornwall, which means the symbiotic link between Ireland and England is even farther back then believed.


Lunula and discs. Credit National Museum of Ireland