News Articles

Robotic researchers are refining control algorithms for robotic swarms based upon data from five free online games that anyone can play.
In the games, players use simple commands to move groups of robots through mazes and around obstacles. Sometimes the goal is to push a larger object to a particular spot. Other times the goal is to move the collective to a target or to have it assume a specific shape. 
Each time a game is played, the website collects information about how the task was completed. Becker said the data will be used to develop new control algorithms for robot swarms.

While solar energy is clearly the future, it isn't ready yet. Two large obstacles are cost versus efficiency and storage.
Wind power is advocated by a much smaller group, because its obstacles are far greater. A new paper adds evidence to that, noting that when the operation and construction of storage batteries are included, solar power numbers can work but wind cannot.
Most electricity in the United States is generated at power plants that run on coal and natural gas – fossil fuels that contribute to global warming by emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide. Solar and wind power are emissions-free and renewable, but depend on sunlight or wind to operate, and require storage to take advantage of peak energy production times.

Music makes people nostalgic, it has long been said that music can bring us back to specific points in time.  Young adults surveyed recently are even fond of and have an emotional connection to the music that was popular for their parents' generation, says a new psychology paper. 
While songs that were popular in our early 20s seem to have the greatest lasting emotional impact, music that was popular during our parents' younger days- and likely what they played around kids - also evokes vivid memories. 

Low levels of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) were in crops irrigated with recycled sewage water, according to the first study conducted under realistic field conditions.  

When people think about the benefits of science to agriculture, they often think about American dematerialization. Farmers are producing far more food on far less land with far less ecological footprint than dreamed about 30 years ago.

Medicine of the 21st century is getting a hand from an idea Henry Ford had in the 19th century and implemented in 1908 - the concept of continuous mass production.
Billions of tablets, capsules and other forms of medicine that people take each year are still made made batch-wise.   A batch of ingredients typically undergoes a series of batch-wise reactions with isolation of solid intermediates before finally being isolated and drummed into bulk containers. The active pharmaceutical ingredient then moves on to the next step, processing into a granular form, followed by collecting into bulk containers. The processing continues through drying and other stages before being compressed into tablets and coated.

Research into the role of proteins called sirtuins in enhancing longevity has yielded contradictory results from many different scientists - while it's been fine for mouse studies, weaning human babies on a diet near starvation isn't possible. As a result, the benefits of a low-calorie diet are accepted by people who want to believe it.

While the Plantagenets are getting all of the attention in England these days due to the discovery of Richard III's remains (though the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family currently holding the monarchy also got a lot of attention thanks to a new baby), the Tudors are not done in Leicester.Two Tudor tomb monuments originally intended to stand in Thetford Priory, Norfolk, are in an exhibition at the Ancient House Museum, Thetford, Norfolk, today until 29 March 2014.

Obese teenagers who lose weight are at greater risk of developing eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, a sign that there may be a psychology issue regarding their relationship to food. But because weight loss is a healthy positive to both doctors and family members, eating disorders may not be adequately detected.  Up to 6 percent of American adolescents suffer from eating disorders, and in surveys more than 55 percent of high school females and 30 percent of males claim disordered eating symptoms including engaging in one or more maladaptive behaviors (fasting, diet pills, vomiting, laxatives, binge eating) to induce weight loss.

In the classic story "Mary Poppins", the lead character told the children she was caring for that she would stay until the wind changed.
Things are a little different in Britain. In many parts of the US, the wind changes every five minutes, but she meant that there was a season (and a reason) she would remain and the wind would be a harbinger that her job was done and she would move on. 
We might like to think that on a cosmic scale, things are more predictable than the weather in Kentucky but, if they are, it is only slightly. Researchers benefiting from data gathered by 11 spacecraft over four decades have determined that even the interstellar wind - the particles streaming into the solar system from interstellar space - changes direction.

Scientists at the synchrotron PETRA III have investigated X-ray absorption of highly charged iron ions.  Highly charged ions - that is, atoms which have been stripped of most of their electrons - play an important role in astrophysics. Within the large accumulations of visible (luminous) matter in the universe, the highly charged state is the natural one. This is the case in stellar atmospheres as well as in the interior of stars, where temperatures of several million degrees Celsius rule. Highly charged ions also abound around exotic objects such as neutron stars or black holes. Before matter plunges into their cores, it delivers gravitational energy, heating up and emitting extremely intense X-rays, which can be observed. 

A new technique for improving the connections between stacked solar cells could one day improve the overall efficiency of solar energy devices and reduce the cost of solar energy production.
Stacked solar cells consist of several solar cells that are stacked on top of one another. Stacked cells are currently the most efficient cells on the market, converting up to 45 percent of the solar energy they absorb into electricity.
But to be effective, solar cell designers need to ensure the connecting junctions between these stacked cells do not absorb any of the solar energy and do not siphon off the voltage the cells produce -- effectively wasting that energy as heat.