ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• A first for NASA's IRIS: Observing a gigantic eruption of solar material
• Precipitation satellite passes check-out, starts mission
• 3-D bioprinting builds a better blood vessel
• First real-time movies of the light-to-current conversion in an organic solar cell
• New printable robots could self-assemble when heated
• Knowledge or entertainment: Which would you pay for?
• Quantum mechanisms of organic devices for alternative solar panels are revealed
• X-ray pulses on demand from electron storage rings
• Security and privacy? Now they can go hand in hand
• Aircraft wings that change their shape in flight can help to protect the environment
• Researchers design a new structure that absorbs all sound
• Appeal of well-being apps often short-lived
• Positive activities administered online help in pain management
• Glow-in-the-dark tool lets scientists find diseased bats
• Two GOES-R instruments complete spacecraft integration
• Caught by a hair: Quick, new identification of hair may help crime fighters
• New technologies making it easier to protect threatened species
• Cooperation learned through practice, according to a mathematical model
• Toward smarter underwater drones
• Think fast, robot: Algorithm that harnesses data from new sensor could make autonomous robots more nimble
• Climate change now a mainstream part of city planning: Global survey
• Diesel bus alternative: Electric school buses that power grid could save school districts millions
• A more Earth-friendly way to make bright white cotton fabrics
• Ultraviolet cleaning reduces hospital superbugs by 20 percent: Study
• Can software suffer? The complicated ethics of brain emulation

A first for NASA's IRIS: Observing a gigantic eruption of solar material Posted: 30 May 2014 04:06 PM PDT A coronal mass ejection, or CME, surged off the side of the sun on May 9, 2014, and NASA's newest solar observatory caught it in extraordinary detail. This was the first CME observed by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, which launched in June 2013 to peer into the lowest levels of the sun's atmosphere with better resolution than ever before.

Precipitation satellite passes check-out, starts mission Posted: 30 May 2014 04:05 PM PDT The new Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory satellite is now in the hands of the engineers who will fly the spacecraft and ensure the steady flow of data on rain and snow for the life of the mission. The official handover to the Earth Science Mission Operations team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center marked the end of a successful check-out period.

3-D bioprinting builds a better blood vessel Posted: 30 May 2014 04:05 PM PDT The tangled highway of blood vessels that twists and turns inside our bodies, delivering essential nutrients and disposing of hazardous waste to keep our organs working properly has been a conundrum for scientists trying to make artificial vessels from scratch. Now a team has made headway in fabricating blood vessels using a three-dimensional bioprinting technique.

First real-time movies of the light-to-current conversion in an organic solar cell Posted: 30 May 2014 09:44 AM PDT Scientists have reported the first real-time movies of the light-to-current conversion process in an organic solar cell. Researchers show that the quantum-mechanical, wavelike nature of electrons and their coupling to the nuclei is of fundamental importance for the charge transfer in an organic photovoltaic device.

New printable robots could self-assemble when heated Posted: 30 May 2014 09:44 AM PDT New algorithms and electronic components could enable printable robots that self-assemble when heated. Printable robots — those that can be assembled from parts produced by 3-D printers — have long been a topic of research in Computer Science labs at MIT. Now researchers introduce a new wrinkle on the idea: bakable robots.

Knowledge or entertainment: Which would you pay for? Posted: 30 May 2014 09:17 AM PDT From firewalls to metered access, news organizations have invented many ways to make readers pay for their content online. But the vital question of which readers are more willing to pay than others has been largely neglected – until now.

Quantum mechanisms of organic devices for alternative solar panels are revealed Posted: 30 May 2014 09:17 AM PDT Silicon panel-based technology requires a very costly, contaminating manufacturing process, while organic photovoltaic devices have been positioned as one of the most attractive alternatives as a source of solar energy. This is the first time the quantum mechanisms that trigger the photovoltaic function of these devices have been deciphered.

X-ray pulses on demand from electron storage rings Posted: 30 May 2014 06:27 AM PDT Physicists recently devised a new method to pick single X-ray pulses out of the pulse trains usually emitted from synchrotron radiation facilities. The technique is very useful to support studies of electronic properties of quantum materials and superconductors and paves the way for future synchrotron facilities with variable pulse lengths.

Security and privacy? Now they can go hand in hand Posted: 30 May 2014 06:26 AM PDT Online identification and authentication keeps transactions secure on the Internet, however this has also implications for your privacy. Disclosing more personal information than needed online when, say, you log in to your bank website may simplify the bank's security at the cost of your privacy. Now, thanks to new research there is a new approach that keeps systems secure and protects your identity.

Aircraft wings that change their shape in flight can help to protect the environment Posted: 30 May 2014 06:26 AM PDT A top priority for any airline is to conserve as much fuel as possible – and this helps to protect the environment. A new project aims to reduce kerosene consumption by six percent, and integrating flexible landing devices into aircraft wings is one step towards that target.

Researchers design a new structure that absorbs all sound Posted: 30 May 2014 06:24 AM PDT A new step toward the perfect acoustic absorber. Researchers have designed and experimentally evaluated in the laboratory a new structure made of conventional porous materials –- used in the construction industry -- that permit the complete absorption of sound at a wide range of frequencies.

Appeal of well-being apps often short-lived Posted: 30 May 2014 06:24 AM PDT Online and mobile apps for stress management and healthy eating reach a large number of users, but their appeal tends to be short-lived. Apps can contribute to improved well-being and provide support for behavioral changes as long as they are simple, attractive and easy to integrate into everyday life. However, the societal impact of the apps may remain small unless real-world implementation, maintenance and dissemination are planned from the very beginning of the development process.

Positive activities administered online help in pain management Posted: 30 May 2014 06:22 AM PDT Positive activities, such as increasing supportive emotions, can reduce body discomfort in adults with mild to moderate chronic pain, according to research. The authors concluded that teaching very simple, evidence-based, positive activities administered online can lead to lasting reductions in bodily pain. Further, the study demonstrates that positive activities administered over the internet offer practical pain management strategies at very low cost with high sustainability.

Glow-in-the-dark tool lets scientists find diseased bats Posted: 29 May 2014 03:27 PM PDT Scientists working to understand the devastating bat disease known as white-nose syndrome now have a new, non-lethal tool to identify bats with WNS lesions -- ultraviolet, or UV, light. Millions of bats have died from this rapidly spreading disease and this new method allows for accurate detection of the disease without killing any more bats.

Two GOES-R instruments complete spacecraft integration Posted: 29 May 2014 03:27 PM PDT Two of the six instruments that will fly on NOAA's first Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite - R satellite have completed integration with the spacecraft. The Solar Ultraviolet Imager and Extreme Ultraviolet and X-ray Irradiance Sensors were installed on the sun-pointing platform.

Caught by a hair: Quick, new identification of hair may help crime fighters Posted: 29 May 2014 11:25 AM PDT Crime fighters could have a new tool at their disposal. Researchers have developed a cutting-edge technique to identify human hair. Their test is quicker than DNA analysis techniques currently used by law enforcement. Early sample testing produced a 100 percent success rate. Blood samples are often used to identify gender and ethnicity, but blood can deteriorate quickly and can easily be contaminated. Hair, on the other hand, is very stable. Elements in hair originate from sweat secretions that alter with diet, ethnicity, gender, the environment and working conditions.

New technologies making it easier to protect threatened species Posted: 29 May 2014 11:23 AM PDT Online databases, smart phone apps, crowd sourcing and new hardware devices are making it easier to collect data on species. When combined with data on land-use change and the species observations of millions of amateur citizen scientists, technology is increasingly allowing scientists and policymakers to more closely monitor the planet's biodiversity and threats to it.

Cooperation learned through practice, according to a mathematical model Posted: 29 May 2014 11:23 AM PDT When we must choose between cooperating with others or betraying them, we are more likely to cooperate if they have acted like this with us or if we ourselves have behaved altruistically. We do so because learning reinforces what has gone well for us and not because we imitate successful people. These are the conclusions highlighted in a study based on the prisoner's dilemma, a popular model for studying conflict.

Toward smarter underwater drones Posted: 29 May 2014 11:20 AM PDT With better brains, underwater drones would spend less time searching and more time finding their target, including airliners lost at the bottom of the ocean. If one scientist has her way, the next generation of autonomous underwater vehicles will have a much better chance of getting it right.

Think fast, robot: Algorithm that harnesses data from new sensor could make autonomous robots more nimble Posted: 29 May 2014 08:20 AM PDT One of the reasons we don't yet have self-driving cars and mini-helicopters delivering online purchases is that autonomous vehicles tend not to perform well under pressure. A system that can flawlessly parallel park at 5 mph may have trouble avoiding obstacles at 35 mph. Part of the problem is the time it takes to produce and interpret camera data. An autonomous vehicle using a standard camera to monitor its surroundings might take about a fifth of a second to update its location. That's good enough for normal operating conditions but not nearly fast enough to handle the unexpected.

Climate change now a mainstream part of city planning: Global survey Posted: 29 May 2014 06:28 AM PDT Cities are planning for climate change, research shows, but are still searching for links to economic growth. The report underscores the extent to which city leaders recognize climate change as a major challenge -- even as they are trying to figure out how their responses can create jobs, growth, and cost savings in areas ranging from cities' transportation networks to their distribution of businesses.

Diesel bus alternative: Electric school buses that power grid could save school districts millions Posted: 29 May 2014 06:22 AM PDT Electric school buses that feed the power grid could save school districts millions of dollars — and reduce children's exposure to diesel fumes — based on recent research. A new study examines the cost-effectiveness of electric school buses that discharge their batteries into the electrical grid when not in use and get paid for the service. The technology, called vehicle-to-grid (V2G), was pioneered at UD and is being tested with electric cars in a pilot project.

A more Earth-friendly way to make bright white cotton fabrics Posted: 28 May 2014 07:54 AM PDT With a growing number of consumers demanding more Earth-friendly practices from the fashion world, scientists are developing new ways to produce textiles that could help meet rising expectations. One such method can dramatically reduce the amount of energy it takes to bleach cotton while improving the quality of the popular material.

Ultraviolet cleaning reduces hospital superbugs by 20 percent: Study Posted: 28 May 2014 07:33 AM PDT Healthcare-associated vancomycin-resistant enterococcus (VRE), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Clostridium difficile (CD), and other multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) were decreased among patients after adding ultraviolet environmental disinfection (UVD) to the cleaning regimen, according to a study.

Can software suffer? The complicated ethics of brain emulation Posted: 27 May 2014 06:49 PM PDT Scientists may be years away from successfully emulating a human or animal brain for research purposes, but the significant -- and perhaps unexpected -- ethical challenges such work presents have been outlined in a thought-provoking article.

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