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Electronics work better under cold conditions (-150 C). With less thermal noise, detectors are more sensitive and speed and reliability are increased. Low-noise amplifiers reduce noise further.
Dutch-sponsored researcher Srinivas Vanapalli has investigated the possibilities for the extreme cooling of electronic components at a chip level.
Besides research into extremely small structures, Vanapalli has constructed a proof-of-principle cooler which, despite the smaller dimensions, cools more effectively than conventional coolers and has therefore aroused commercial interest.

The world’s oldest recorded tree is a 9,550 year old spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden.
The spruce tree has shown to be a tenacious survivor that has endured by growing between erect trees and smaller bushes in pace with the dramatic climate changes over time.
For many years the spruce tree has been regarded as a relative newcomer in the Swedish mountain region.
”Our results have shown the complete opposite, that the spruce is one of the oldest known trees in the mountain range,” says Leif Kullman, Professor of Physical Geography at Umeå University.

Countless hours spent designing, hand-building and testing model rockets has paid off for 100 teams that will be vying for the sixth annual Team American Rocketry Challenge national title next month.
The Aerospace Industries Association announced the finalists for the world's largest rocket contest Friday. The teams will meet at Great Meadow in The Plains, Va., on May 17 for a final fly-off and a chance to win more than $60,000 in scholarships and other prizes.
About 7,000 students on 643 teams from 43 states and the District of Columbia took part in the qualifying rounds of competition.

Cycling is great fun and and modern bicycles give riders a lot of options. Perhaps too many. For example, novice riders getting onto a cycle with 27 gears change gears too infrequently and too late, get out of breath and don’t enjoy themselves.
Some new research may soon help; recently on display was a bicycle with adaptronic components which report inappropriate biomechanical stress and an intelligent pedal crank that helps the biker to direct his strength.
Fraunhofer researchers recently displayed a concept. There are two piezo-sensors integrated in one of the pedal cranks of the bicycle. One function of the sensors is to measure the forces that propel the rider forward and show him how ‘evenly’ he is pedaling.

There's no question that air superiority made a huge difference in the Allied victories of World War II but because flight was still very much in its infancy, and high speed aerial combat was previously unknown, a lot of physiological issues had to be addressed in order to keep pilots as safe as possible before going into even more dangerous combat.
Physiology is the study of how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function to create health or disease. World War II-era research came up with a number of advancements that made that possible, according to Jay B. Dean, of the University of South Florida College of Medicine.
Thanks to physiologists then, Ways were developed to safely provide pressurized oxygen to air crews, helping them avoid hypoxia and decompression sickness.

Complex issues demand complex decision-making and not forced simplification, asserts Lasse Gerrits in his dissertation 'The Gentle Art of Coevolution', and the temptation to make important decisions understandable by simplifying them will eventually turn against the decision maker.
And it is also a myth that complex social issues can be readily resolved as long as there is someone who creates order, he says.
How did he reach his conclusions? He investigated the decision-making concerning the expansion of the Hamburg and Antwerp ports and simplification tends to exacerbate rather reduce problems.

A new technique that helps forecasters continuously monitor landfalling hurricanes, giving them frequent and detailed images of a storm's location, will be implemented this summer.
The new system, developed by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., will be implemented at the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
The technique, known as VORTRAC (Vortex Objective Radar Tracking and Circulation), was successfully tested by the hurricane center last year. The system, which relies on existing Doppler radars along the U.S. coast, provides details on hurricane winds and central pressure every six minutes, indicating whether the storm is gathering strength in the final hours before reaching shore.

Humans communicate with machines every day and work is always being done to make interfaces more intuitive, but purely in regard to mechanical aspects.
There's no question that the machines are in control - you do it in a way they understand or you are stuck. Moore's Law has been in effect for processors and raw horsepower but interface advancements and understanding are still trapped in the 1960s.
The Humaine project wants to change that by bringing together specialists and scholars from very different disciplines to create the building blocks and tools needed to give machines so-called ‘soft’ skills, like understanding emotions.

New geological evidence radiometric dating indicates the Grand Canyon may be so old that dinosaurs once lumbered along its rim, pushing back its assumed origins by 40 million to 50 million years.
The researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the California Institute of Technology gathered evidence from rocks in the canyon and on surrounding plateaus that were deposited near sea level several hundred million years ago before the region uplifted and eroded to form the canyon.
"As rocks moved to the surface in the Grand Canyon region, they cooled off," said CU-Boulder geological sciences Assistant Professor Rebecca Flowers. "The cooling history of the rocks allowed us to reconstruct the ancient topography, telling us the Grand Canyon has an older prehistory than many had thought."

New research shows that even affluent college students who don't need resources will still attempt to trade sexual currency for provisions, said Daniel Kruger, research scientist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
The exchange of resources for sex, referred to by scientists as 'nuptial gifts', has occurred throughout history in many species, including humans, Kruger said. The male of the species offers protection and resources to the female and offspring in exchange for reproductive rights.
Female penguins mate with males who bring them pebbles to build egg nests. Hummingbirds mate to gain access to the most productive flowers guarded by larger males. In humans, an arranged marriage might be considered a contract to trade resources, he said.

Discrimination against overweight people is as common as racial discrimination, according to a study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University. The study also says that women are twice as likely as men to report weight discrimination and that weight discrimination in the workplace and interpersonal mistreatment due to obesity is common.
The study documented the prevalence of self-reported weight discrimination and compared it to experiences of discrimination based on race and gender among a nationally representative sample of adults aged 25- to 74-years-old. The data was obtained from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States.

Married men do less of it than live-in boyfriends but they do twice as much as they did 20 years ago and now it's linked to mental health. What is this magical creation?
Housework.
Not just housework, but really any 20 minutes of physical activity, including the housework we all have to do anyway, is enough to boost mental health, reveals a large study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.