organisms are able to adapt their physical characteristics to their environment over time. These adaptations allow biological organisms to survive in a wide variety of different environments allowing animals to make the move from living in the water to living on land, for instance.
But machines are not adaptable in the same way. They are stuck essentially in one shape for their entire ives
and it uncertain whether changing their shape would make them more adaptable to changing environments. Evolutionary robotics is a growing field
#Flexible, biodegradable device can generate power from touch Longstanding concerns about portable electronics include the devicesshort battery life and their contribution to e waste.
biodegradability. The researchers built a nanogenerator using a flexible, biocompatible polymer film made out of polyvinylidene fluoride, or PVDF.
the technology opens the door to high-resolution imaging of multiple components and local chemical environments,
and probes to monitor the local environment, such as the ph, in live cells at the nanometer scale
and treated in a more relaxed environment. The device is expected to make a difference in medical treatments, preventive health care and sports p
#New synthetic tumor environments make cancer research more realistic Tumors are notoriously difficult to study in their natural habitat body tissues
but a new synthetic tissue environment may give cancer researchers the next-best look at tumor growth and behavior.
gel-like environment, which is much more like body tissues than the current research standard:
The process the team came up with to produce the synthetic environments takes an estimated 15 minutes
and unhygienic environment during infancy reduces the risk of allergy later in life. ygiene hypothesisis used to explain why in more developed countries with better hygiene habits the incidence of allergies
heat waves Droughts and heat waves are happening simultaneously with much greater frequency than in the past, according to research by climate experts at the University of California, Irvine.
While the researchers did not look into human-caused global climate change in this study Agha Kouchak said, an overall increase in the mean temperature worldwide is raising the probability of heat waves.
and surgically implanted prostheses provide suitable environments for Staphylococcus epidermidis to propagate and form biofilms. This is where the project began,
E coli has a transcriptional system that responds to the level of zinc in its environment,
or perhaps locations suffering natural disasters, Styczynski explained. hese deficiencies aren treated on an individual level, but are considered on a population level
By coupling the bulk gel with a small peptide derived from the extracellular environment of genuine stem cell niches,
The so-called Cosgrove track was found to be nearly three times the length of the famous Yellowstone hotspot track in the United states. Most volcanoes are found along the edge of tectonic plates,
Xiangtao Meng, a fourth-year graduate student in the College of Natural resources and Environment, has developed a new technique to make that easier.
And some medications aren stable in the harsh environment of the stomach. That means that patients have to ingest more of a drug to get the therapeutic dose increasing the cost, risk of side effects,
and can survive the stomach acidic environment. Unlike many synthetic polymers, which are made often from petrochemicals,
and Environment to advance the science of sustainability. When Meng first took on the project,
It is quite easy to envision applications for this technology in diverse environments from a family doctor office to field studies in limnology.
The acidic environment inside the cancer cell then begins to break apart the pseudo-platelet freeing the Dox to attack the cancer cell nucleus. In a study using mice,
and preparation processes that are also harmful to the environment. With the anticipated increase in batteries needed for electric vehicles and electronics,
a process that creates large quantities of hazardous waste. The European union projects this process will be unsustainable in the future.
and to react safely to unexpected forces in everyday environments, you need robotic hands that have more sensors than is said typical today
and to react safely to unexpected forces in everyday environments, you need robotic hands that have more sensors than is typical today.
Yong-Lae Park Industrial robots, working in a controlled environment where people don venture, are capable of extremely precise manipulation with only limited sensors.
vertically aligned crystals for a variety of organic semiconductors using the same graphene substrate. he key was deciphering the interactions between organic semiconductors and graphene in various solvent environments,
the rate at which the patch biodegrades can be slowed or accelerated depending on how quickly the surrounding tissue grows over it.
and less effective waste accumulates, forming deposits. ifferentiating RPE cells is quite easy. But in order to undertake a complete therapy,
It also retains the imaging environment familiar to surgeons, including key features of surgical microscopes such as real-time magnification and focus adjustments, camera mounting,
Comet joins SDSC Gordon supercomputer as another key resource within the NSF XSEDE (extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment) computer resource-sharing system
or improve industry methods related to the discharge of pollutants or oil flow in pipelines. Climate change/Environmental sciences:
Modeling atmospheric aerosols, identified as influencing the chemical composition and radiative balance of the troposphere,
Keys to hazard management for major earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires include the ability to predict a wide range of possibilities.
and desalination plants. Now, for the first time, researchers at MIT have found a way to control this process, literally with the flick of an electrical switch.
Those entities then would distribute the tablets to developing countries as needed, particularly during times of crises such as after a natural disaster.
#Deep-sea bacteria could help neutralize greenhouse gas, researchers find A type of bacteria plucked from the bottom of the ocean could be put to work neutralizing large amounts of industrial carbon dioxide in the Earth atmosphere,
Most atmospheric carbon dioxide is produced from fossil fuel combustion, a waste known as flue gas. But converting the carbon dioxide into a harmless compound requires a durable
converting the greenhouse gas into bicarbonate. The bicarbonate can then be processed further into products such as baking soda and chalk.
as well as improving communication during natural disasters, by next year. Basically, the balloons will be maneuvered by adjusting their altitude to float to a wind layer with the desired speed
we can start to investigate how galaxies evolved in these extreme environments, said Gonzalez n
#Breeding higher yielding crops by increasing sugar import into seeds Once a mother plant releases its embryos to the outside world,
an artificial organism might somehow scavenge up a substitute chemical from the environment to replace the critical one fed to it in the labs
Schultz thinks there will be medical uses of synthetic organisms long before they are released into the environment to eat oil
but they're notoriously bad at it in noisy environments-a problem researchers have dubbed the"cocktail party"conundrum.
which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames.
Kepler says it will still undergo a rigorous environmental impact assessment during the planning process to ensure that it poses no significant risk to marine life and to other users of the sea.
delegates to the UN climate change convention annual negotiations will gather in Paris to try to conclude an ambitious and effective agreement on preventing the global average temperature rise caused by greenhouse gas emissions exceeding 2c above its preindustrial level.
or the detection of a volcanic eruption from a distance. nfrasound is the range of sound
a new study has shown that office climate control systems are giving women the cold shoulder. Many office air-conditioning systems are locked down to avoid arguments about how hot
according to a paper published in Nature climate change specifically it's male only. In general women like the temperature a little hotter than men 25°C (77°F) verses 22°C (72°F) respectively.
protecting buildings against earthquakes and floods. Here's the video we shot of the original Hendo hoverboard e
#China will make companies pay to pollute from 2017 China is committing to a new program designed to combat the country's pollution levels by setting limits on,
and charging companies for their greenhouse gas emissions, The New york times reports. The cap-and-trade system, which is due to come into effect in 2017,
Under the agreement, China's government will place a cap on annual carbon emissions, forcing any firms that go over that limit to buy permits allowing them to do so.
The country is the world's largest polluter, but has worked in recent years to curb its carbon emissions,
introducing cap-and-trade schemes in seven provinces in 2012 as trials for the nationwide program.
The inability of the president to produce coherent and strict policies on climate change at home contributed to a stalemate between the US and China on the issue,
but sources in the government say that Obama's new regulations on carbon emissions, detailed in August, helped break the deadlock.
China's new program makes it easier for the United states to enact its own climate change regulations.
Republicans and climate change deniers have used long China as the counterweight in their arguments, fighting against any restrictive US policies with the specter of a huge economic power unburdened by controls on emissions,
Now that power is introducing its own tight controls on carbon emissions, President Obama should have more leeway on the topic,
and more license to curb the United states'own pollution levels
#Genentech drug adds antibiotics to proteins to fight hidden bacteria Scientists at Genentech have armed the body immune system warriors with antibiotics
#A new material made from orange peels could remove mercury pollution from the ocean Since the Industrial revolution,
There have been ideas for ways to remove mercury pollution, but none have been cost-effective or able to scale up to a global solution.
They have created a new material that is made from waste from the citrus and petroleum industries and is capable of sucking mercury out of both soil and water.
large waste streams are being remade into something useful while mercury is removed from the environment.
The researchers found that the material can also remove other toxic metals from water and it safely stores the pollutants until it can be removed.
The team's findings will be published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition and they are working on making a commercial version of the material l
In that environment I encountered a different experience light sabers in a large hall doing battle with a ray-firing orb that was driven only by the Note 4. The companies join others,
I another environment for shopping? The opportunity, he replied, could be putting customers into environments, even into stories,
where the store products are meant to be used. At an outdoor recreation retailer like REI, Slobin told me,
I had could ever meet the standard of experiencing a product in its intended environment.
Getting rid of years of national legal differences around the EU to create an open accessible digital environment, with no restrictions or discrimination:
and energy saving desalination technology Researchers at the Alexandria University in Egypt have developed a new desalination technology that can produce potable water at reduced energy.
Titled as'Desalination of simulated seawater by purge-air pervaporation using an innovative fabricated membrane,
"Using pervaporation eliminates the need for electricity that is used in classic desalination processes, thus cutting costs significantly."
The research team from Egypt is also working on a pilot desalination unit for testing the method on a larger scale e
For instance, someone concerned about the environment might choose to invest in the Clean & Green category.
"The acquisition of this technology is simply another way that we're working to protect the integrity of our health care environment,
around 10km from the city and set in an enviably green environment. To get there, you have to climb a series of stairs.
Hard sciencethe high degree of difficulty and expertise required means that relatively few climate scientists have been able to base their research on accurate models of historical precipitation.
New tool for climate change modelsfor example Shen referenced a region in the middle of the Pacific ocean that sometimes glows bright red on the computer model indicating extreme dryness
Shen hopes that its ease of use will encourage climate scientists to incorporate this historical data into their own models improving our future predictions of climate change.
Ultimately Zhong Lin Wang notes the research could lead to complete atomic-thick nanosystems that are powered self by harvesting mechanical energy from the environment.
and avoid 1800 million metric tons of carbon emission. White LED bulbs are already on store shelves
and measured how microbes in the seafloor sediments consume the greenhouse gas methane as part of understanding how the Earth works.
and contributing to greenhouse gas accumulation. As a byproduct of this process the microbes create a type of rock known as authigenic carbonate
because it is unrecognized an sink for a potentially very important greenhouse gas. We found that these carbonate rocks located in areas of active methane seeps are themselves more active Thurber said.
Renne is continuing his collaboration with the Italian-French team to correlate the lake record with past climate change.
and used them to create a smart material that is extremely sensitive to its environment. This marriage of materials science and biology could give birth to a flexible sensitive coating that is easy and cheap to manufacture in large quantities.
With additional observations we can begin to understand the behavior in this extreme environment. While no scientific team has been able to produce a complete image of the black hole's emission astronomers have drawn inferences about scattering properties from observations at longer wavelengths.
which holds excellent potential for a lighting device with low power consumption said Norihiro Shimoi the lead researcher and an associate professor of environmental studies at the Tohoku University.
and reduce carbon dioxide emissions on the earth Shimoi said. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Institute of Physics (AIP.
and receives information directly from the nose about odors in the environment. Neurons in the olfactory bulb sort that information
which could help animals adapt to a constantly varying environment. It's very exciting to find that new neurons affect the precise connections between neurons in the olfactory bulb.
when evaluating areas of potential pollution from nutrients. Research scientist Natalia Kuosmanen at MTT Agrifood Research Finland says defining sustainability quantitatively is challenging due to variety of meanings attached to this commonly used concept.
The static approach ignores the accumulation of nutrients in the environment and overlooks the dynamic nature of the nutrient cycles Kuosmanen says.
and the EU-level agri-environmental policies Kuosmanen argues. From theory to practicekuosmanen began her academic career in Kiev Polytechnic University Ukraine
and graduated in environmental sciences in Wageningen University The netherlands. She is ready to take her results from theory to practice.
Our dynamic approach would provide better estimations of the nutrient leaching from agriculture to environment than the conventional method of OECD. Story Source:
According to the research study published in Nature Communications today the Sun affects middle atmosphere ozone with potential implications on smaller scale to regional but not global climate.
Humankind is responsible for the global warming of our climate by increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
This climate variability is not a trend like climate change but rather year-to-year fluctuations following solar activity.
Fuel cell systems represent a promising alternative for low carbon emission energy production. Traditional fuel cells are limited however by the need of efficient catalysts to drive the chemical reactions involved in the fuel cell.
The unique environment around the Pd-islands give rise to special effects that all together turn the islands into highly efficient catalytic hot-spots for oxygen reduction.
Dieter Ebert from the Department of Environmental science at the University of Basel has discovered now the missing link that explains how this large group of extreme parasites the microsporidia has evolved.
Once inside the cancer cell the cell acidic environment destroys the polymer sheath containing the DNASE.
Equally important we can now drastically cut down the waste generated by disposed batteries since our batteries last ten times longer than the current generation of lithium-ion batteries The long-life of the new battery also means drivers save on the cost of a battery replacement
#Balancing renewable energy costs and optimizing energy mix Increasing reliance on renewable energies is the way to achieve greater CO2 EMISSION sustainability and energy independence.
The authors are also able to optimise the energy mix according to three selected criteria namely economy environment and supply security.
Bismuth is dangerous to one's health as well as to the environment. It also multiplies the price of the imprints.
and motives that are anchored in the family environment. Psychiatric illnesses are cited also as a motive
Within the framework of another partial project a team of KIT scientists headed by Stephan Fuchs expert for aquatic environmental engineering worked in the area of sewage and waste treatment.
There the organic wastes are converted into biogas and fertilizer within a period of one month. Via a pipeline system the gas is passed directly on to the gas stoves of the neighboring houses.
It was not easy to explain that waste or even human feces can be recycled. The KIT scientists also conceived seminars for the operators of the plants and information material and instructions for the population.
Because in many measurement environments (such as light coming from astronomical sources) coherent light is not available,
or above--a field that focuses on the environment and the players that allow our genes to act.
These chemical tags come from a variety of sources--mainly the food we eat the chemicals in the environment that gets inside us through our skin
The REON II device or Sonde deployed October 6 on the banks of the Hudson river in New Hamburg N y. is providing real-time data called for by scientists to better understand the complex relationship between humans the built environment and our fragile waterways.
and its potential for making water sensor technology universal could be transformational to the field of environmental science.
bringing together a unique range of internationally renowned scientists and clinicians to create an environment that catalyses imaginative and innovative lung cancer research.
#Plasmonic paper for detecting trace amounts of chemicals, pollutants and more Using a common laboratory filter paper decorated with gold nanoparticles,
"for detecting and characterizing even trace amounts of chemicals and biologically important molecules-from explosives, chemical warfare agents and environmental pollutants to disease markers.
including homeland security, forensics and environmental monitoring, and medical diagnostic applications.""For example, Tian noted, the plasmonic paper can be used to detect target molecules that serve as indicators for diseases such as kidney cancer."
The main aim of this research is to facilitate the integration of laser processing in existing production environments in order to save time and costs.
"The key advantage of working this way is that it is much easier to identify a genetic variant in mice as they live in such controlled environments.
write Mike Acreman, of the UK's Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and colleagues in a review published this month in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment:
controlled releases like the recent experiment on the Colorado that are designed with specific objectives for ecology
and ecosystem services in mind and hands-off policies that minimize or reverse alterations to the natural flow of the river.
and climate change remodel river ecosystems, it is no longer easy to define what is"natural"for river systems.
"We are rapidly entering an era where restoration interventions will be guided less by statistical deviations from historical reference conditions and more by"process-based"understanding of organism-environment relationships,
Intuitive sensory feedback and control are crucial for interacting with the environment, for example to reliably hold an object despite disturbances or uncertainty.
So far, this has only been possible in short experiments within controlled environments.""The new technology is based on the OPRA treatment (osseointegrated prosthesis for the rehabilitation of amputees),
Intelligent programming uses computer memorythe program uses the smartphone's built-in camera to register its environment.
and can persist in the environment for months to years infecting marine mammals including the endangered southern sea otter in California.
when they consume contaminated water or undercooked shellfish. Puzzled by the high rate of T. gondii infection in sea otters and other marine mammals the researchers set out to track the route of transmission.
In laboratory tests the researchers discovered that the gelatinous polymers excreted by seaweed act in two ways to provide an environment conducive to transmission of infectious diseases.
and Ecology of Infectious disease program provided funding for the study y
#Colorectal cancer: New clues for early detection Researchers at the University of Luxembourg have identified potential new ways to test for the first signs of one of the most deadly types of cancer:
which is the natural environment for lipid membranes. Previously, other research teams have focused on writing with lipids in air
and to lower environmental impact since this fertilizing system represents an alternative to the mineral fertilizers used so far.
when kept in a minus-20-Degree celsius environment, the researchers reported.""One can now think of using these films in automobile glass as an invisible deicer,
#Artificial membranes on silicon Artificial membranes mimicking those found in living organisms have many potential applications ranging from detecting bacterial contaminants in food to toxic pollution in the environment to dangerous diseases in people.
and sequester carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas. The project is part of the Gates Foundation's Reinvent the Toilet Challenge an effort to develop a next-generation toilet that can be used to disinfect liquid and solid waste
while generating useful end products both in developing and developed nations said Linden. Since the 2012 grant Linden and his CU-Boulder team have received an additional $1 million from the Gates Foundation for the project
and solar energy work environmental engineers for waste treatment and stabilization mechanical engineers to build actuators and moving parts and electrical engineers to design control systems Linden said.
and effectively carbonize solid waste. While the current toilet has been created to serve four to six people a day a larger facility that could serve several households simultaneously is under design with the target of meeting a cost level of five cents a day per user set by the Gates Foundation.
greater compared to the most prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. For these reasons, methane and nitrous oxide detection is crucial to environmental considerations."
the Rice team installed it on a mobile laboratory used during NASA's DISCOVER-AQ campaign, which analyzed pollution on the ground and from the air last September.
"Tittel said smaller QEPAS device will be added this year to the mobile monitoring van currently carrying out a Rice university of Houston survey of pollutants in the city.
as long as theye in a controlled environment where everything is exactly where they expect it to be.
An earthquake and a caterpillarin general, the researchers found that when atoms in the ion crystal were spaced regularly,
as the atoms collectively jump to the next trough. t like an earthquake, Vuletic says. here force building up,
With its current power output, the floating evaporation engine could supply small floating lights or sensors at the ocean floor that monitor the environment,
and the other half sits in humid environment, where the tabs straighten. As a result, the wheel rotates continuously,
#Safe drinking water Via Solar power Desalination Natasha Wright, an MIT Phd student in mechanical engineering, has designed a solar powered system that makes water safe to drink for rural, off-grid Indian villages.
Wright began designing an electrodialysis desalination system, which uses a difference in electric potential to pull salt out of water.
This type of desalination system has been around since the 1950s, but is used typically only municipally, to justify its costs.
While other companies are already installing desalination systems across India, their designs are intended to be powered grid.
She designed a village-scale desalination system that runs on solar power. Since her system is powered by the sun,
But some ranchers find that even their livestock won tolerate the saltiness of this water. t useful to install a small-scale desalination system where people are
even better, that can extract energy from the environment to recharge. Last week, at the Symposia on VLSI Technology And circuits, MIT researchers presented a new power converter chip that can harvest more than 80 percent of the energy trickling into it,
and trees when under stress and detectors to identify concentrations in air samples could be used to monitor our changing ecology.
These two molecules are thought to be the most abundant silicon-carbon species in the dust-forming part of the stellar environment,
or to detect environmental pollutants and food conditions, says Jie Bao, a former MIT postdoc and the lead author of a paper describing the quantum dot spectrometers in the July 2 issue of Nature.
The robot jumping ability and soft body would come in handy in harsh and unpredictable environments or disaster situations
#Nanoparticles and UV LIGHT Clean up Environmental Pollutants A new study from MIT shows how nanoparticles can clean up environmental pollutants,
Many human-made pollutants in the environment resist degradation through natural processes, and disrupt hormonal and other systems in mammals and other animals.
Brandl says. hen we came up with the idea to use our particles to remove toxic chemicals, pollutants,
in a solution hydrophobic pollutant molecules move toward the hydrophobic nanoparticles, and adsorb onto their surface,
and now nrichedby the pollutants they form larger aggregates that can then be removed through filtration, sedimentation,
and molecules. he interactions we exploit to remove the pollutants are nonspecific, Brandl says. e can remove hormones, BPA,
and we can do this in one step. nd the nanoparticleshigh surface-area-to-volume ratio means that only a small amount is needed to remove a relatively large quantity of pollutants.
thus offer potential for the cost-effective cleanup of contaminated water and soil on a wider scale. rom the applied perspective,
as another example of a persistent pollutant that could potentially be remediated using these nanomaterials. nd for analytical applications where you don need as much volume to purify or concentrate,
anoparticles with photoinduced precipitation for the extraction of pollutants from water and soil, Nature Communications 6, Article number:
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