likely because computers don make judgments or look down on people the way another human might.
The findings show promise for people suffering from posttraumatic stress and other mental anguish, says Gale Lucas, a social psychologist at University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies.
In intake interviews, people were more honest about their symptoms, no matter how potentially embarrassing, when they believed that a human observer wasn in on the conversation. n any given topic,
It also presents compelling reasons for doctors to start using virtual humans as medical screeners. The honest answers acquired by a virtual human could help doctors diagnose
and treat their patients more appropriately. Virtual humans For the study, which will appear in Computers in Human Behavior,
researchers recruited 239 adults through Craigslist. The participants, whose ages ranged from 18 to 65,
a virtual human application that can be used to identify signals of depression and other mental health issues through real-time sensing and recognition of nonverbal behaviors.
others were told that the responses were controlled remotely, puppet-like, by a human observer in another room.
The mere belief that participants were interacting with only a computer made them more open and honest, researchers found,
or ell me about an event, or something that you wish you could erase from your memory. ay better than talking to a person In addition,
video analysis of the study subjectsfacial expressions showed that they were also more likely to show more intense signs of sadnesserhaps the most vulnerable of expressionshen they thought only pixels were present.
wish you hadn told me that other people were in the other room listening in. It was weird, like,
director of virtual humans research and a professor of computer science. he virtual character delivered on both these fronts and that is
or act as roleplaying partners for training health professionals. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the US ARMY funded the research.
#How a missile detector can stop malaria in its tracks Scientists have found a new use for an antitank Javelin missile detector:
published in the journal Analyst, could set a new gold standard for malaria testing. MISSILES AND PARASITES The heat-seeking detector,
which is coupled to an infrared imaging microscope, allowed the team to detect the earliest stages of the malaria parasite in a single red blood cell.
Lead researcher Bayden Wood, an associate professor at Monash University, says to reduce mortality and prevent the overuse of antimalarial drugs,
a test that can catch malaria at its early stages is critical. ur test detects malaria at its very early stages,
so that doctors can stop the disease in its tracks before it takes hold and kills.
We believe this sets the gold standard for malaria testing, Wood says. here are some excellent tests that diagnose malaria.
However, the sensitivity is limited and the best methods require hours of input from skilled microscopists,
and that a problem in developing countries where malaria is most prevalent, he adds. FOUR-MINUTE COUNT DOWN As well as being highly sensitive,
the new test has a number of advantagest gives an automatic diagnosis within four minutes,
The disease, which is caused by the malaria parasite, kills 1. 2 million people every year. Existing tests look for the parasite in a blood sample.
However the parasites can be difficult to detect in the early stages of infection. As a result the disease is spotted often only when the parasites have developed
and multiplied in the body. Professor Leann Tilley from the University of Melbourne says the test could make an impact in large-scale screening of malaria parasite carriers who do not present the classic fever-type symptoms associated with the disease. n many countries only
people who display signs of malaria are treated. But the problem with this approach is that some people don have typical flu-like symptoms associated with malaria,
and this means a reservoir of parasites persists that can reemerge and spread very quickly within a community,
she says. ur test works because it can detect the malaria parasite at the very early stages
and can reliably detect it in an automated manner in a single red blood cell. No other test can do that
#Spinach leaves vibrate to kick off photosynthesis Vibrations deep within spinach leaves enhance the efficiency of photosynthesishe energy conversion process that powers life on our planet.
The discovery could potentially help engineers make more efficient solar cells and energy storage systems. It also injects new evidence into an ongoing uantum biologydebate over exactly how photosynthesis manages to be so efficient.
It perhaps the most important biochemical process On earth and scientists don yet fully understand how it works.
The study findings identify specific molecular vibrations that help enable charge separationhe process of kicking electrons free from atoms in the initial steps of photosynthesis. oth biological and artificial photosynthetic systems take absorbed light
In the case of natural photosynthesis, that charge separation leads to biochemical energy, explains Jennifer Ogilvie,
an associate professor of physics and biophysics at the University of Michigan and lead author of a paper published in Nature Chemistry. n artificial systems,
and use it to generate electricity or some other useable energy source such as biofuels. CHARGE SEPARATION It takes about one-third of a second to blink your eye.
The researchers worked with Charles Yocum, a professor emeritus, to extract what called the photosystem II reaction centers from the leaves.
Located in the chloroplasts of plant cells, photosystem II is the group of proteins and pigments that does the photosynthetic heavy lifting.
It also the only known natural enzyme that uses solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
SPINACH LEAVES To get a sample the researchers bought a bag of spinach leaves from a grocery store. e removed the stems
and veins, put it in the blender and then performed several extraction steps to gently remove the protein complexes from the membrane
while keeping them intact. his particular system is of great interest to people because the charge separation process happens extremely efficiently,
but it hard to maintain that separation long enough to extract it to do useful work.
Ogilvie says. e can look at where the energy is transferring and when the charge separation has occurred.
when the gaps in energy level are close to vibrational frequencies, you can have enhanced charge separation,
and the University of Michigan Center for Solar and Thermal energy Conversion, as well as the Research Council of Lithuania funded the research R
#Why are Newfoundland s honey bees parasite free? Penn State rightoriginal Studyposted by Sara Lajeunesse-Penn State on July 3 2014some honey bee colonies in Newfoundland Canada are free of invasive parasites found elsewhere in the world.
Scientists say the discovery offers a unique opportunity to investigate honey bee health. nvasive parasitesâ##such as Nosema ceranae a fungus
and Varroa destructor a miteâ##have incurred heavy economic penalties on the honey bee industry via colony losses
and reduced productivity of surviving colonies and both parasites threaten global food security because of reduced pollination services to agriculturesays Nancy Ostiguy associate professor of entomology at Penn State. he extent to which these detriments are attributable
to specific parasite species is difficult to assess however because of the occurrence of multiple parasites within honey bees.
Studying the effects of these parasites is even more challenging because few areas in the world have western honey bee colonies that are free of invasive parasites. stiguy
and her colleagues found a geographical area in Newfoundland in which a number of important invasive honey bee parasites including Varroa destructor
and Nosema ceranae do not exist. The researchers used molecular techniques to test for the presence of viruses and Nosema ceranae in honey bee colonies managed by beekeepers.
They used a visual screening method to search for insect parasites including Varroa destructor. They then assessed the colonies for visual signs of illness
and related the illness data with the presence or absence of parasites or viruses. In the Newfoundland colonies the researchers found the parasite Nosema apis a species that has been displaced by Nosema ceranae elsewhere
and the pathogens black queen cell virus and deformed wing virus. espite the presence of these parasites and pathogens colony losses in Newfoundland are very lowâ##similar to the mortality rates reported in the United states
before the introduction of Varroa destructorsays Ostiguy. The team found that the Newfoundland bees which were suffered otherwise healthy from K-wing a descriptive condition of the asymmetrical positioning of the wings that previously was known not to be associated with any identifiable pathogen.
The researchers found a significant positive association between the presence of black queen cell virus
and co-infection in the same bee is common. ccording to Ostiguy the team will continue to investigate the relationships between various pathogens
and parasites of honey bees along with various stressors such as pesticide exposure with the goal of providing information to help keep honey bees healthy. ur ability to find European honey bee populations free of invasive
and pathogens of honey bees. n addition to Ostiguy researchers from Acadia University Forestry and Agrifoods Agency Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Agriculture and Agrifood Canada Dalhousie University and University
The Agriculture and Agrifoods Research and development Program the Forestry and Agrifoods Agency the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador the Natural sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the US Department of agriculture supported the study.
which are used for medical imaging and nuclear powernd are some of the world most expensive chemical commodities.
A combination of factors have created a looming shortage of several stable isotopes. Last year, the Government Accountability Office released a report warning that there may soon be a shortage of lithium-7
a critical component of many nuclear power reactors. Production of lithium-7 was banned in the United states due to environmental concerns.
It unclear whether the current sources, found in China and Russia, will continue meeting global demand. 2, 000 times the price of gold One of the major sources of molybdenum-99, essential for medical imaging in tens of millions of heart, kidney,
and breast procedures each year, is an aging nuclear reactor in Canada that expected to stop operating in 2016.
Other valuable isotopes are produced by Cold war era machines known as calutrons operating in Russia. Their extreme age
high operating costs and regional concentration further threaten global supply. sotopes are among the most expensive commodities On earth,
professor of physics in the University of Texas at Austin and author of the study. ne ounce of a stable isotope that needs the calutron to separate it can run around $3 million. hat roughly 2, 000 times the price
And that has held back certain medical therapies. MAGIS: The new method Unlike the calutron, which requires huge amounts of energy to maintain a magnetic field with electromagnets,
the new method for enriching stable isotopes, called MAGIS (magnetically activated and guided isotope separation), needs little energy due to its use of low-powered lasers and permanent magnets.
The new method, described in a study published in the journal Nature Physics, also has less potential for environmental effects than the chemical process used in producing lithium-7,
which has been linked to mercury contamination. Nuclear medicine in particular could benefit from the new method, the researchers say.
Many stable isotopes are precursors to the short-lived radioisotopes used in medical imaging cancer therapies, and nutritional diagnostics.
The new method also has the potential to enhance our national security. The researchers used the method to enrich lithium-7, crucial to the operation of most nuclear reactors.
The United states depends on the supply of lithium-7 from Russia and China, and a disruption could cause the shutdown of reactors.
Other isotopes can be used to detect dangerous nuclear materials arriving at US ports. Now, Raizen top goal is getting this technology out of the lab and into the world.
because the price has been so high, or it been unavailable. The University of Texas at Austin funded the work.
Source: UT Austi e
#Power plant battery uses tanks of water Scientists have created new, water-based organic batteries that are built long-lasting
and from cheap, eco-friendly components. They built the new battery, which uses no metals or toxic materials, for use in power plants,
where it could make the energy grid more resilient and efficient by creating a large-scale way to store energy for use as needed. he batteries last for about 5,
000 recharge cycles, giving them an estimated 15-year life span, says Sri Narayan, professor of chemistry at the University of Southern California and corresponding author of the paper published online in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. ithium ion batteries degrade after around 1,
000 cycles and cost 10 times more to manufacture. Narayan collaborated with G. K. Surya Prakash,
professor of chemistry and director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute. uch organic flow batteries will be game-changers for grid electrical energy storage in terms of simplicity, cost, reliability,
and sustainability, Prakash says. Renewable energy The batteries could pave the way for renewable energy sources to make up a greater share of the nation energy generation.
Solar panels can only generate power when the sun shining, and wind turbines can only generate power when the wind blows.
That inherent unreliability makes it difficult for power companies to rely on them to meet customer demand.
With batteries to store surplus energy which can be doled out as needed, that sporadic unreliability could cease to be an issue.?
Mega-scaleenergy storage is a critical problem in the future of renewable energy, Narayan says. The new battery is based on a redox flow designimilar in design to a fuel cell,
with two tanks of electroactive materials dissolved in water. The solutions are pumped into a cell containing a membrane between the two fluids with electrodes on either side releasing energy.
The design has the advantage of decoupling power from energy. The tanks of electroactive materials can be made as large as neededncreasing the total amount of energy the system can storer the central cell can be tweaked to release that energy faster or slower
altering the amount of power (energy released over time) that the system can generate. Nature energy transfer The team breakthrough centered on the electroactive materials.
While previous battery designs have used metals or toxic chemicals, Narayan and Prakash wanted to find an organic compound that could be dissolved in water.
Such a system would create a minimal impact on the environment and would likely be figured cheap,
they. Through a combination of molecule design and trial-and-error, the scientists found that certain naturally occurring quinonesxidized organic compoundsit the bill.
Quinones are found in plants, fungi bacteria, and some animals, and are involved in photosynthesis and cellular respiration. hese are the types of molecules that nature uses for energy transfer,
Narayan says. Currently, the quinones needed for the batteries are manufactured from naturally occurring hydrocarbons. In the future, the potential exists to derive them from carbon dioxide,
Narayan says. The team has filed several patents in regard to the design of the battery and next plans to build a larger-scale version.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Open-Funding Opportunity Announcement program, USC, and the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute supported the research.
Source: University of Southern Californi U
#Vibrating glove could teach you Braille A new wireless computing glove can help people learn to read
and write Braillend they don even have to be paying attention. he process is based on passive haptic learning (PHL),
says Thad Starner, professor at Georgia Tech. ee learned that people can acquire motor skills through vibrations without devoting active attention to their hands.
In a new study, Starner and Phd student Caitlyn Seim examined how well the gloves work to teach Braille."
"One big question, looking forward, is what makes children more flexible learnersre they just free from the preconceptions that adults have,
or are they fundamentally more flexible or exploratory in how they see the world?""Each study participant wore a pair of gloves with tiny vibrating motors stitched into the knuckles.
The motors vibrated in a sequence that corresponded with the typing pattern of a predetermined phrase in Braille.
Audio cues let the users know the Braille letters produced by typing that sequence. Afterwards, everyone tried to type the phrase one time, without the cues or vibrations, on a keyboard.
Participants played a game for 30 minutes and were told to ignore the gloves. Half of the participants felt repeated vibrations and heard the cues,
while the others only heard the audio cues. When the game was over participants tried to type the phrase without wearing the gloves. hose in the control group did about the same on their second attempt (as they did in their pre-study baseline test),
Starner says. ut participants who felt the vibrations during the game were a third more accurate.
Some were even perfect. Starner had created previously a technology-enhanced glove that can teach beginners how to play piano melodies in 45 minutes.
But they were surprised the passive learners in the Braille study picked up an additional skill. emarkably
passive learners were able to read and recognize more than 70 percent of the phrase letters.
No one in the study had typed previously on a Braille keyboard or knew the language. The study also didn include screens or visual feedback,
so participants never saw what they typed. They had no indication of their accuracy throughout the study. he only learning they received was guided by the haptic interface,
when diabetics, wounded veterans, or older people are prone to lose their sight. The Braille studies will be presented in Seattle this September at the 18th International Symposium on Wearable computers (ISWC.
The National Science Foundation provided partial support for the study. Any conclusions expressed are those of the principal investigator
and may not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF r
#Stretchy, bendy, stronger-than-ever graphene fiber Researchers have created a simple and scalable method of making strong,
stretchable graphene oxide fibers that are scrolled easily into yarns and have strengths approaching that of Kevlar. This method opens up multiple possibilities for useful products.
For instance, removing oxygen from the graphene oxide fiber results in a fiber with high electrical conductivity. Adding silver nanorods to the graphene film would increase the conductivity to the same as copper,
which could make it a much lighter weight replacement for copper transmission lines. In addition, the researchers believe that the material lends itself to many kinds of highly sensitive sensors. e found this graphene oxide fiber was very strong
much better than other carbon fibers, says Mauricio Terrones, professor of physics, chemistry and materials science and engineering,
Penn State. e believe that pockets of air inside the fiber keep it from being brittle.
GRAPHENE SLURRY FILM The researchers made a thin film of graphene oxide by chemically exfoliating graphite into graphene flakes,
which were mixed then with water and concentrated by centrifugation into a thick slurry. The slurry was then spread by bar coatingomething like a squeegeecross a large plate.
When the slurry dries, it becomes a transparent film that can be lifted carefully off without tearing.
and wound on itself with an automatic fiber scroller, resulting in a fiber that can be knotted
and stretched without fracturing. The researchers reported their results in a recent issue of ACSNANO. he importance is that we can do almost any material,
And the main ingredient, graphite, is mined and sold by the ton. Penn State and Shinshu University in Japan have applied for a joint patent on the process.
The Research center for Exotic Nanocarbons in Japan and the Center for Nanoscale Science at Penn State supported the research u
#Solar cell spikes let in 99%of sunlight The more light absorbed by a solar panel active elements,
the more power it will produce. But the light has to get there. A new one-step process to etch nanoscale spikes into silicon lets the maximum amount of sunlight reach a solar cell,
unlike current materials that reflect more light. Various strategies have cut reflectance down to about 6 percent,
and wavelength, says Andrew Barron, professor of chemistry and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice university.
Black silicon is simply silicon with a highly textured surface of nanoscale spikes or pores that are smaller than the wavelength of light.
Barron and graduate student Yen-Tien Lu, the study lead author, replaced a two-step process that involved metal deposition
and electroless chemical etching with a single step that works at room temperature. The chemical stew that makes it possible is a mix of copper nitrate, phosphorous acid, hydrogen fluoride, and water.
the phosphorous acid reduces the copper ions to copper nanoparticles. The nanoparticles attract electrons from the silicon wafer surface,
oxidizing it and allowing hydrogen fluoride to burn inverted pyramid-shaped nanopores into the silicon. Fine-tuning the process resulted in a black silicon layer with pores as small as 590 nanometers (billionths of a meter) that let through more than 99 percent of light.
By comparison, a clean, un-etched silicon wafer reflects nearly 100 percent of light. The spikes will still require a coating to protect them from the elements,
and Barron lab is working on ways to shorten the eight-hour process needed to perform the etching in the lab
#Can nano dots outshine current solar cells? University of Toronto rightoriginal Studyposted by Marit Mitchell-Toronto on June 9 2014those flat glassy solar panels on your neighborâ#roof may be getting a more efficient makeover thanks to a new class of solar-sensitive nanoparticles.
This new form of solid stable light-sensitive nanoparticles called colloidal quantum dots could lead to cheaper and more flexible solar cells as well as better gas sensors infrared lasers infrared light emitting diodes and more.
The work appearsâ in Nature Materials. Collecting sunlight using these tiny colloidal quantum dots depends on two types of semiconductors:
n-type which are rich in electrons and p-type which are poor in electrons. The problem? When exposed to the air n-type materials bind to oxygen atoms give up their electrons
and turn into p-type. Postdoctoral researcher Zhijun Ning Professor Ted Sargent and colleagues modeled and demonstrated a new colloidal quantum dot n-type material that does not bind oxygen
when exposed to air. Maintaining stable n -and p-type layers simultaneously not only boosts the efficiency of light absorption it opens up a world of new optoelectronic devices that capitalize on the best properties of both light and electricity.
For the average person this means more sophisticated weather satellites remote controllers satellite communication or pollution detectors. his is a material innovation that s the first part
and with this new material we can build new device structuressays Ning odide is almost a perfect ligand for these quantum solar cells with both high efficiency
and air stabilityâ##no one has shown that before. ingâ#new hybrid n -and p-type material achieved solar power conversion efficiency up to eight percentâ##among the best results reported to date.
But improved performance is just a start for the new quantum dot-based solar cell architecture. The powerful little dots could be mixed into inks
and painted or printed onto thin flexible surfaces such as roofing shingles dramatically lowering the cost
and accessibility of solar power for millions of people. he field of colloidal quantum dot photovoltaics requires continued improvement in absolute performance
but we need to work toward bringing performance to commercially compelling levels. his research was a collaborationâ with Dalhousie University King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
University of Torontoyou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license u
#Material snags CO2 from natural gas Rice university rightoriginal Studyposted by Mike Williams-Rice on June 9 2014scientists have created an Earth-friendly way to separate carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas from natural gas right
The material shows promise to replace more costly and energy-intensive processes. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel.
and enable the economic production of gas resources with higher carbon dioxide content that would be too costly to recover using current carbon capture technologies says James Tour professor of mechanical engineering and nanoengineering and of computer science at Rice university.
All of this works in ambient temperatures unlike current high-temperature capture technologies that use up a significant portion of the energy being produced.
and this week set new rules to cut carbon pollution from the nation s power plants. ur technique allows one to specifically remove carbon dioxide at the source.
It doesn t have to be transported to a collection station to do the separationhe says. his will be especially effective offshore where the footprint of traditional methods that involve scrubbing towers
The new material a nanoporous solid of carbon with nitrogen or sulfur is inexpensive and simple to produce compared with the liquid amine-based scrubbers used now Tour says. mines are corrosive
That s a terrible waste of energy. raduate student Chih-Chau Hwang lead author of the paper first tried to combine amines with porous carbon. ut
and turns the neat trick of converting gaseous carbon dioxide into solid polymer chains that nestle in the pores. obody s ever seen a mechanism like thistour says. ou ve got to have that nucleophile (the sulfur
or nitrogen atoms) to start the polymerization reaction. This would never work on simple activated carbon; the key is that the polymer forms
and provides continuous selectivity for carbon dioxide. ethane ethane and propane molecules that make up natural gas may try to stick to the carbon
but the growing polymer chains simply push them off he says. The researchers treated their carbon source with potassium hydroxide at 600 degrees Celsius to produce the powders with either sulfur
After heating it to 600 degrees C for the one-step synthesis from inexpensive industrial polymers the final carbon material has a surface area of 2500 square meters per gram
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