New search technique for images and videos has broad applications

New search technique for images and videos has broad applications

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Engineers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have developed a powerful new approach to a fundamental problem in computer vision: how to program a computer to recognize or categorize ...


Argonne 'homegrown' hybrid solar cell aims for low-cost power

Argonne 'homegrown' hybrid solar cell aims for low-cost power

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (9) | comments 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have refined a technique to manufacture solar cells by creating tubes of semiconducting material and then "growing" ...


New 'finFETS' promising for smaller transistors, more powerful chips

New 'finFETs' promising for smaller transistors, more powerful chips

Technology / Semiconductors

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- Purdue University researchers are making progress in developing a new type of transistor that uses a finlike structure instead of the conventional flat design, possibly enabling engineers ...


Ancient penguin DNA raises doubts about accuracy of genetic dating techniques

Ancient penguin DNA raises doubts about accuracy of genetic dating techniques

Biology / Evolution

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (20) | comments 9

Penguins that died 44,000 years ago in Antarctica have provided extraordinary frozen DNA samples that challenge the accuracy of traditional genetic aging measurements, and suggest those approaches have been ...


Scientists develop DNA origami nanoscale breadboards for carbon nanotube circuits

Scientists develop DNA origami nanoscale breadboards for carbon nanotube circuits

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0

In work that someday may lead to the development of novel types of nanoscale electronic devices, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology has combined DNA's talent ...


curly hair

Single gene may cause curly hair

Medicine & Health / Genetics

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (8) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists in Australia have identified a single gene that strongly influences whether you have curly or straight hair.


Researchers invent new method for graphene growth

Researchers invent new method for graphene growth

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (19) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A Cornell research team has invented a simple way to make graphene electrical devices by growing the graphene directly onto a silicon wafer.


Stem cells restore mobility in neck-injured rats (w/ Video)

Medicine & Health / Research

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- The first human embryonic stem cell treatment approved by the FDA for human testing has been shown to restore limb function in rats with neck spinal cord injuries - a finding that could expand the clinical ...


Controversial new climate change results

Controversial new climate change results

Space & Earth / Environment

created Nov 10, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (32) | comments 49

(PhysOrg.com) -- New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of CO2 has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of CO2 having risen from about 2 billion ...


Planetary Society plans new 'solar sail'

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (13) | comments 0

(AP) -- Four years after its first solar sail ended up in the ocean instead of orbit, The Planetary Society announced Monday that by the end of 2010 it will try again to launch a spacecraft that will be propelled by the ...


Solving big problems

Solving big problems with new quantum algorithm

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (28) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a recently published paper, Aram Harrow at the University of Bristol and colleagues from MIT in the United States have discovered a quantum algorithm that solves large problems much faster ...


Words, gestures are translated by same brain regions, says new research

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Your ability to make sense of Groucho's words and Harpo's pantomimes in an old Marx Brothers movie takes place in the same regions of your brain, says new research funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication ...


Scientists successfully reprogram blood cells

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Researchers have transplanted genetically modified hematopoietic stem cells into mice so that their developing red blood cells produce a critical lysosomal enzyme -preventing or reducing organ and central nervous system damage ...


New transparent insulating film could enable energy-efficient displays

New transparent insulating film could enable energy-efficient displays

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 0

Johns Hopkins materials scientists have found a new use for a chemical compound that has traditionally been viewed as an electrical conductor, a substance that allows electricity to flow through it. By orienting ...


Study shows that some malignant tumors can be shut down after all

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Nov 09, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 0

Oncologists have had their hands tied because more than half of all human cancers have mutations that disable a protein called p53. As a critical anti-cancer watchdog, p53 masterminds several cancer-fighting operations within ...