(New Jersey Institute of Technology) New Jersey Institute of Technology will host May 19-21, 2008, more than 200 leading experts for the fifth annual Frontiers in Applied and Computational Mathematics Conference, an unusual three-day event featuring leading researchers who will discuss the latest news and research findings in their fields.
(National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) NIST has developed Standard Reference Materials for bitter orange, long used in folk medicine and now increasingly used in herbal weight-loss products. Researchers can use the new materials to develop and test analytical methods for compounds in bitter orange or as control materials for quality assurance.
(National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) A research team working at NIST has found an explanation for the extreme sensitivity to mechanical pressure or voltage of a special class of solid materials called relaxors. The ability to control and tailor this sensitivity would allow industry to enhance a range of devices used in medical ultrasound imaging, loudspeakers, sonar and computer hard drives.
(IEEE-USA) Dr. Kristina M. Johnson, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, recently received the John Fritz Medal from the American Association of Engineering Societies. She is the first woman so honored.Johnson was one of seven honorees during the AAES' 29th annual awards ceremony in the Great Hall of the National Academy of Engineering on May 5.
(National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) A materials scientist at NIST has deciphered the structure of a new class of materials that can store relatively large quantities of hydrogen. The new analysis may point to a practical hydrogen storage material for automobile fuel cells and similar applications.
(New Jersey Institute of Technology) Daljit Ahluwalia, the visionary, vibrant and long-time chair of NJIT's department of mathematical sciences, will be honored at 6:30 p.m. on May 19, 2008.
(National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) Researchers at NIST have reported a new technique to sort batches of carbon nanotubes by length using high-speed centrifuges. The technique should be easy to scale to industrial quantities for a variety of nanotube applications where length is an important factor.
(National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) Researchers at NIST have confirmed that underground tunnels -- generally a difficult setting for radios -- can have a frequency "sweet spot" at which signals may travel several times farther than at other frequencies. The finding may point to strategies for enhancing rescue communications in subways and mines.
(HCIL) Two new clinical trials presented by Calpis Co., Ltd. at the American Society of Hypertension Twenty-Third Annual Scientific Meeting and Exposition in New Orleans show that the milk-derived dietary supplement AmealPeptide reduces blood pressure in hypertensive patients.
(JFK Communcations) New data show that CAPHOSOL, an advanced electrolyte solution, relieves painful oral mucositis and improves quality of life for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation therapy. These data will be reported in two separate presentations, one today in an oral podium presentation and one tomorrow as a poster session, at the 33rd Annual Congress of the Oncology Nursing Society.
(International Atomic Energy Agency) Delays and denials of shipments involving regulated radioactive materials used in medicine and industry are of growing concern to safety and industry experts. Meeting in Rome this week at an IAEA workshop, they agreed on an action plan for the Mediterranean region that seeks to ease hardships for hospitals, research centers and organizations that rely on timely delivery of beneficial radiation sources.
(Rice University) Based on Rice and MIT findings, the Court of Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne, Switzerland, has ruled that Pistorius is eligible to participate in International Association of Athletics Federations sanctioned competitions. If he qualifies for the 2008 Beijing games, Pistorius would be the first disabled athlete ever to run against able-bodied athletes in an Olympic event.
(University of Cambridge) Her Majesty's Consul, Kevin Lynch and Science Consul, Dr. May Akrawi will be in New Mexico honoring Senator Domenici's commitment to UK/US scientific collaboration with Professor Peter Littlewood and Dr. Dave Buscher from the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory visiting from the UK for this occasion. At the event, the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology will rename the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Array Operations Center as the "Pete V. Domenici Science Operations Center."
(Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) Reactive oxygen compounds, including the well-known "free radicals," have an oxidation effect and, thereby, damage cells. However, at low levels, they also regulate key life processes. Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center have developed a highly sensitive biological measuring system for determining the oxidation state of living cells in real time.
(The Wistar Institute) Wistar Institute scientists have developed a new type of enzyme inhibitor capable of blocking a biochemical pathway that plays a key role in cancer development. Based on studies in human melanoma cells, the research paves the way for developing new ways to treat cancer by dampening overactive enzyme activity that leads to uncontrolled tumor growth. The study shows how small-molecule inhibitors can be designed to target a family of signaling proteins, called phosphatidyl-inositol-3-kinases, or PI3Ks.
(The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine) Mount Sinai researchers may have unlocked the key to better understanding the effect addictive drugs have on the human brain. Researchers have just published the new breakthrough study, "Design Logic of a Cannabinoid Receptor Signaling Network that Triggers Neurite Outgrowth," in the latest issue of Science on May 16, 2008.
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Having found that whether bacteria stick to surfaces depends partly on how stiff those surfaces are, MIT engineers have created ultrathin films made of polymers that could be applied to medical devices and other surfaces to control microbe accumulation.
(Case Western Reserve University) Building a machine that moves like a cockroach, salamander, fish or another creature is no easy task. Over 100 of the world's pioneering engineers, biologists and neuroscientists who have contributed to building biologically inspired robots will be on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, June 1-6, to discuss new developments in the field of biorobotics during the Fourth International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines.
New dosimeters are needed to measure radiation up to extreme levels created by particle accelerators and nuclear fusion reactors. The time to develop these dosimeters is now.
Sea cucumber skin is the architectural basis for polymer nanocomposites that can adapt their mechanical properties in response to biomedically relevant chemical stimuli, in a similar fashion to the animals' self-defence mechanism.
The interplay of various mechanical forces leads to characteristic shapes of torn adhesive films. Analysis of these shapes provides potential for new approaches to material characterization.
The successful synthesis of highly crystalline Cs3C60, exhibiting superconductivity up to a record temperature for fullerides of 38 K, demonstrates a powerful synthetic route for investigating the origin of superconductivity in this class of materials.
The systematic development of phase-change materials has been hampered by experimental and computational difficulties. The first successful modelling of the full phase-change cycle therefore closes an important gap.
A chemically driven process turns the classic insulator, gallium oxide, into a metal by the formation of a heterogeneous mixture of crystalline and amorphous regions.
The combination of high-mobility charge transport and efficient luminescence in one material has so far proved elusive in semiconducting polymers. Varying the side groups on a single polymer can improve both properties simultaneously.
C60-based solids are the archetypal molecular superconductors, reaching transition temperatures as high as 33?K. Now, Cs3C60 solids, having a transition temperature of 38?K, have been isolated. Both face-centred-cubic and body-centred-cubic phases were synthesized, and, uniquely among C60 solids, the superconducting phase was found to be body-centred cubic.
Despite the demonstration that nanowires can grow below the eutectic point, a clear understanding of how this happens has not been reached. Video-rate transmission electron microscopy brings new insight into the issue, showing in real time the growth of silicon nanowires with palladium catalysts.
Efficient light emission combined with high charge-carrier mobility has proven elusive for polymer semiconductors, because high mobility is typically achieved using approaches that quench luminescence. A new strategy, introducing a limited number of more-effective hopping sites between otherwise relatively isolated polymer chains, achieves this aim.
Microporous materials such as zeolites are widely used in separation and catalytic applications. A thermally stable family of zeolites with chiral and achiral structures built from the same layer is now reported.
We?re all familiar with the annoying problem of trying to peel sticky tape from a surface, only for the detached piece to narrow into a point and break off. Surprisingly, this phenomenon can be put to good use in deriving the mechanical parameters of a wide variety of thin, adhesive films.
Inducing and understanding insulator?metal transitions in binary oxide can be challenging. A transition driven chemically by an internal redox reaction is now observed in a non-stoichiometric, amorphous gallium oxide.
Phase-change materials are of commercial interest for their use in rewritable optical disks and as non-volatile memories, although little is known about the dynamics of the phase transition. The numerical simulation of the entire write-erase cycle therefore provides important clues towards the development of new phase-change materials.
The large-scale production of high-quality graphene layers is one of the main challenges to be overcome for successful application of this material. Epitaxial growth on ruthenium substrate produces homogeneous domains of single- and double-layer graphene on the scale of several tens of micrometres. The electronic properties of the second layer show great potential for applications.
The electric polarization of dipoles on the surface of a ferroelectric material can influence the energetics of materials adsorption. The demonstration of this effect on the physisorption kinetics of gases such as carbon dioxide may be used to control adsorption and surface chemistry on the nanoscale.
Metamaterials enable a number of intriguing photonic functionalities from superlensing to cloaking. The demonstration of truly three-dimensional metamaterials by a direct laser writing process offers the possibility of complex photonic functionalities at optical frequencies.
Diluted magnetic semiconductor devices where magnetism can be controlled by an electric field are of significant interest for applications, as they combine the appealing properties of multiferroics with existing semiconductor technology. By using a ferroelectric polymer as the gate of a transistor device, non-volatile electric control over the magnetism of (Ga,Mn)As has now been achieved.
Composites with added carbon nanotubes are known for their improved mechanical strength. Laminates of thin films of aluminium and carbon nanotubes are now used for the fabrication of micromechanical resonators with significantly enhanced mechanical properties.
X-ray diffraction computed tomography can provide high-resolution phase mapping of nanocrystalline and powdered crystalline materials. Moreover, a reverse analysis offers the possibility to extract, a posteriori, the scattering/diffraction pattern from a selected area of the tomography image.
Relaxor ferroelectrics, which show a strong dependence of electric polarization on the applied electric field, are promising for applications such as sensors and actuators. Neutron-scattering experiments now establish a direct link between the unique piezoelectric properties of relaxors and local clusters of randomly oriented polarization specific to these materials.
Organic holographic materials are pursued as versatile and cheap data-storage materials. However, previously such materials either needed the application of an external electric field or had mostly poor efficiencies. Now, a novel recording process based on a photoisomerization process demonstrates significantly improved writing properties of holograms.
Multiferroic materials are of interest because they allow control of their magnetic properties through electric fields. However, room-temperature magnetoelectrics often show antiferromagnetic order, reducing the effects of such coupling. A novel approach demonstrates switchable electric field control over a local magnetic field through the indirect route of exchange bias.
Understanding how excited states behave at heterojunctions between polymers in blends is fundamental to designing better organic solar cells and light-emitting diodes. A quantum-mechanical molecular-scale model of how excitations behave at heterojunctions has been developed, showing an unexpectedly wide but specific range of excitonic states.
The nature of electrostatic charges produced at the surface of insulators by rubbing is the subject of a long-standing discussion. The charges created on polytetrafluoroethylene by rubbing with polymethylmethacrylate are identified here to be electrons rather than ions.
