The new technique is based in part on knowledge gained from studies of teeth from human infants
and from monkeys at the California National Primate Research center at the University of California Davis. Using the new technique the researchers concluded that at least one Neanderthal baby was weaned at much the same age as most modern humans.
By studying monkey teeth and comparing them to center records they could show that the technique was accurate almost to the day.
After validating the technique with monkeys the scientists applied it to human teeth and a Neanderthal tooth.
The technique opens up extensive opportunities to further investigate lactation in fossils and museum collections of primate teeth.
By applying these new techniques to primate teeth in museum collections we can more precisely assess maternal investment across individuals within species as well as life history evolution among species Hinde said.
David Bishop Dominic Hare and Philip Doble University of Technology Sydney Australia. The work was funded by the U s. Environmental protection agency U s. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences U s. National Science Foundation Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Australian
and to investigate how those defects change its properties says James Hone professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia Engineering who led the study.
To study the material the researchers refined an existing technique to grow large symmetric crystals up to 100 microns across but only three atoms thick.
The grain boundaries become important in any technology says Hone. Say for example we want to make a solar cell.
and are now developing techniques to integrate it into many new technologies Hone adds. We're only just beginning to scratch the surface of
The crystal synthesis optical measurements electronic measurements and theory were performed all by research groups at Columbia Engineering.
The growth and electrical measurements were made by the Hone lab in mechanical engineering; the optical measurements were carried out in the Tony Heinz lab in physics.
The electron microscopy was performed by atomic imaging experts in the David Muller lab at Cornell University's School of Applied and Engineering Physics and the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science.
The above story is provided based on materials by Columbia University School of engineering and Applied science. The original article was written by Holly Evarts.
#New non-GM technology platform for genetic improvement of sunflower oilseed cropscientists have developed techniques for the genetic improvement of sunflowers using a non-GMO based approach.
The new technology platform can harness the plant's own genes to improve characteristics of sunflower develop genetic traits
This new technology allows us to pinpoint key genetic information relating to various useful traits in the sunflower including wild sunflower species. It gives us a method to quickly create variability for further breeding to enhance the quantity quality and natural
NUI Galway Phd student Anish PK Kumar has been working on the technology platform development as a component of his Phd research studies.
The new technology has been shown to nearly eliminate the reflection losses of solar radiation. Cost-effective solar photovoltaic materials are being developed within the Academy of Finland's research programme Photonics and Modern Imaging Techniques.
The nanostructured black silicon coating features very low reflectivity meaning that a larger portion of the Sun's radiation can be exploited.
The advantages of silicon include the long-term stability sufficiency low cost and non-toxicity of the element as well as the advanced production technology.
and technological compatibility with the manufacturing technologies currently used by the semiconductor industry Savin explains.
The technology however still calls for development and improvement. According to Savin the researchers are motivated in their work by the fact that the manufacturing technology players are major corporations in the industry
which allows for immediate large-scale experimenting of new ideas and improvement methods in collaboration with the partner corporations.
Promising techniques in the test benchthe efficient operation of solar cells may be compromised by impurities in silicon.
Certain promising techniques are currently being tested in production by a leading European solar cell manufacturer. Another new research topic involves the so-called light-induced degradation of silicon solar cells.
This team dubbed Algafuture is composed of undergraduates and graduate students from the departments of Geography and Environmental Engineering and Chemical and Biomolecular engineering.
and dangerous metals like mercury chromium and arsenic said Pavlo Bohutskyi an environmental engineering doctoral student and leader of this team.
Their faculty advisers are Edward Bouwer professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and Michael Betenbaugh professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular engineering.
Since 2006 students with the Johns Hopkins chapter of Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA) have journeyed to Africa to help install low-cost ram pumps devices that date back to the 1700s
and graduate environmental engineering students obtained an initial EPA grant to develop a new understanding of pump performance
and how it can operate most efficiently said Emily Prosser an undergraduate environmental engineering student who is helping to lead the team.
The faculty adviser to the student ram pump team is William Ball a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering.
Potential food source derived from non-food plantsa team of Virginia Tech researchers has succeeded in transforming cellulose into starch a process that has the potential to provide a previously untapped nutrient source from plants not traditionally though of as food crops.
and Life sciences and the College of Engineering led a team of researchers in the project that could help feed a growing global population that is estimated to swell to 9 billion by 2050.
Zhang and Virginia Tech visiting scholar Hongge Chen are the inventors of the cellulose-to-starch biotransformation
Chun You a postdoctoral researcher from China at Virginia Tech and Chen conducted most of the research work.
Support for the current research comes from the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.
Additional resources were contributed by the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life sciences'Biodesign and Bioprocessing Research center the Shell Gamechanger Program and the U s. Department of energy Bioenergy Science Center along with the Division of Chemical sciences
The above story is provided based on materials by Virginia Tech. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#GUMBOS technology promises new drugs, electronic devicesmention a breakthrough involving gumbo technology in New orleans and people think of a new twist on The Local Dish the stew that's the quintessence of southern Louisiana cooking.
Warner said that nanogumbos technology allows scientists to produce new nanoparticles in a focused way such that these particles are produced for specific uses from the beginning.
With GUMBOS technology nanoparticles can have desired the property incorporated directly into the nanomaterial he explained.
More details are presented on this technology at this New orleans ACS meeting. We have a material that is normally toxic to both cancer cells
United states 517-432-4412 rosejo@msu. edulinking advances in genomics research mathematics and earth sciences as well as novel engineering technologies is imperative
Water sustainability in a changing world 1. Jerald L. Schnoor1 Phd The University of Iowa Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering The University of Iowa Iowa City Iowa
52242 United states 319-335-5649 jschnoor@engineering. uiowa. eduwater is a vital renewable resource for society
David Sedlak1 Phd University California Berkeley Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering 657 Davis Hall University of California Berkeley Berkeley CA 94720 United states
However the success of these next generation technologies will depend upon their integration into the institutions responsible for urban water management.
Pedro J. Alvarez1 Phd Rice university Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering 6100 Main street MS 519 Houston TX 77005 United states 713-348-5903
The convergence of nanotechnology with environmental microbiology could expand the limits of technology enhance global health through safer water reuse
Dow technologies increase the flow1. William F. Banholzer1 Phd The Dow chemical Company Executive department 2030 Dow Center Midland MI 48674 United states 989-636-0718 mbiehler@dow. comdow
is a leader in purification separation and chemical technology with a longstanding legacy of technology innovation for improving water quality and utilization.
Communities throughout the world depend on Dow reverse osmosis membrane technology for desalination and water reclamation.
technique called PALM--for Photo-Activated Localization Microscopy--the researchers have found a way to improve the collective catalytic activity of enzyme cocktails that can boost the yields of sugars for making fuels.
The enzymatic breakdown of cellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars has been the Achilles heel of biofuels a key economic bottleneck says chemical engineer Harvey Blanch one of the leaders of this research.
Enter PALM a technique in which target proteins are labeled with tags that fluoresce when activated by weak ultraviolet light.
and substrate heterogeneity says Liphardt an expert in PALM technology. This enables us to quantify how
The new PALM-based technique should allow enzyme cock tails to be matched optimally to the structural organizations of particular biomass substrates such as grass
The technique also has applications beyond biofuels. Our technique takes us toward a much more complete understanding of how enzymes work on solid surfaces Blanch says.
With this technique we should be able to tell where any enzyme binds to a solid material
and that can help in the design of cellulases for other cellulose materialsin addition to Blanch Liphardt Clark
and sulfate in rain--components contributing to acid rain said Suresh Rao Lee A. Reith Distinguished Professor of Civil engineering and Agronomy at Purdue University.
It was authored co by civil engineering postdoctoral researchers Jeryang Park and Heather Gall and by Rao and Dev Niyogi Indiana state climatologist and an associate professor in the Purdue Department of Agronomy and the Department of Earth
So adoption of highly efficient control technologies as uniformly as we do across the United states has resulted in lower emissions.
In essence we've solved the acid rain problem through good environmental regulations and wide adoption of mitigation technologies.
and that's because we have regulations and enforcement and engineering solutions to control emissions.
When mitigation strategies are adapted widely it is possible for cost-effective engineering solutions to protect the environment
#Breakthrough in hydrogen fuel production could revolutionize alternative energy marketa team of Virginia Tech researchers has discovered a way to extract large quantities of hydrogen from any plant a breakthrough that has the potential to bring a low-cost environmentally friendly fuel source
Our new process could help end our dependence on fossil fuels said Y. H. Percival Zhang an associate professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life sciences and the College of Engineering.
Jonathan R. Mielenz group leader of the bioscience and technology biosciences division at the Oak ridge National Laboratory who is familiar with Zhang's work
if the technology is available. Zhang said when it does become commercially available it has the possibility of making an enormous impact.
For seven years Zhang's team has been focused on finding nontraditional ways to produce high-yield hydrogen at low cost specifically researching enzyme combinations discovering novel enzymes and engineering enzymes with desirable properties.
To liberate the hydrogen Virginia Tech scientists separated a number of enzymes from their native microorganisms to create a customized enzyme cocktail that does not occur in nature.
Support for the current research comes from the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.
Additional resources were contributed by the Shell Gamechanger Program the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life sciences'Biodesign and Bioprocessing Research center and the U s. Department of energy Bioenergy Science Center along with the Division of Chemical sciences
The lead author of the article Julia S. Martin Del Campo who works in Zhang's lab received her Ph d. grant from the Mexican Council of Science and Technology.
The above story is provided based on materials by Virginia Tech. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#New diagnostic technology may lead to individualized treatments for prostate cancera research team jointly led by scientists from Cedars-Sinai Medical center
If more studies confirm the technology's effectiveness the Nanovelcro Chip device could enable doctors to access
The researchers believe this technology may function as a liquid biopsy revolutionizing conventional biopsy practices
and their invasiveness in a tissue culture dish doctors may be able to quickly adjust their treatment plans in response We are optimistic that the use of our Nanovelcro CTC technology will revolutionize prostate cancer treatment.
and limited capability of captured cells to be utilized for later molecular analysis. Our technology is the combination of three state-of-the-art technologies:
Next laser capture microdissection technology allows the scientists to selectively cut out and pick up the CTCS from the Nanovelcro Chip virtually eliminating any trace of any contamination from white blood cells
To date CTC capture technologies have been able to do little more than count the number of CTCS which is informative but not very useful from a treatment planning perspective.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA and VA Greater Los angeles Healthcare System Beijing Genomics Institute in China Cytolumina Technologies
Technologies (IMAT) Program. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Cedars-Sinai Medical center.
because capturing CO2 with conventional technology is an energy-intensive process that can consume as much as one-quarter of the high-pressure steam that plants use to produce electricity.
Hirasaki's team was one of 16 chosen by the Department of energy (DOE) in 2011 to develop innovative techniques for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
these power plants are prime candidates for new technology that captures CO2 before it goes up in smoke.
Hirasaki Rice's A j. Hartsook Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular engineering said employing waste heat is just one example of a number of ways that Rice's team is looking to improve upon a tried-and-true technology for CO2 capture.
That technology--a two-phase chemical process--has been used for decades to remove naturally occurring CO2 from natural gas.
Using existing amine processing technology at power plants is impractical because amine recycling would require as much as one-quarter of the high-pressure steam that could otherwise be used to drive turbines
It has been estimated that the use of current technology for CO2 capture would drive up the cost of electricity by 70 to 100 percent said Rice graduate student Sumedh Warudkar a co-investigator on the Rice university team.
The research is supported by the Department of energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Rice university.
The technology is published in the journal Scientific Reports the latest open-access journal from the Nature Publishing Group.
Georgia Tech College of Engineering Professor Bernard Kippelen led the study and says his team's project opens the door for a truly recyclable sustainable and renewable solar cell technology.
The development and performance of organic substrates in solar technology continues to improve providing engineers with a good indication of future applications said Kippelen who is also the director of Georgia Tech's Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE.
But organic solar cells must be recyclable. Otherwise we are simply solving one problem less dependence on fossil fuels
while creating another a technology that produces energy from renewable sources but is not disposable at the end of its lifecycle.
Purdue School of Materials Engineering associate professor Jeffrey Youngblood collaborated with Kippelen on the research. A provisional patent on the technology has been filed with the U s. Patent office.
There's also another positive impact of using natural products to create cellulose nanomaterials. The nation's forest product industry projects that tens of millions of tons of them could be produced once large-scale production begins potentially in the next five years.
#Research documents lesser prairie chickenstexas Tech University scientists have been at the forefront of research on the lesser prairie chicken (LPC) a prairie grouse native to the West Texas landscape for more than three decades.
Along with their Texas based studies on breeding predation survival and microclimate Texas Tech researchers also collected more than a decade's worth of data from New mexico.
prior to that Dave Haukos a former Texas Tech professor now at Kansas State had been conducting studies at Texas Tech since the 1980s.
The above story is provided based on materials by Texas Tech University. The original article was written by Leslie Cranford.
While achieving these goals will be difficult improving technologies driven by strong and effective policies could make deep reductions possible.
i e. energy cost savings improved vehicle technologies and reductions in petroleum use and greenhouse gas emissions exceed the additional costs of the transition over and above
which the report says is extremely unlikely with current technologies. Therefore the study committee also considered other alternatives for vehicles
Strong policies and technology advances are critical in overcoming this challenge. The report identified several scenarios that could meet the more demanding 2050 greenhouse gas goal.
The technology advances required to meet the 2050 goals are challenging and not assured. Nevertheless the committee considers that dramatic cost reduction
and overall performance enhancement is possible without unpredictable technology breakthroughs. Achieving these goals requires that the improved technology focus on reducing fuel use rather than adding greater power
or weight the report says. It is impossible to know which technologies will succeed ultimately the report says
because all involve uncertainty. The best approach therefore is to promote a portfolio of vehicle
and industry designed to solve the critical challenges in each major candidate technology. Such primary research efforts need continuing evaluation of progress against performance goals to determine which technologies fuels designs
and production methods are emerging as the most promising and cost-effective. Overcoming the barriers to advanced vehicles
Because of the high level of uncertainty in the pace and scale of technology advances this framework should be modified as technologies develop and as conditions change.
It is essential that policies promoting particular technologies to the public are introduced not before these new fuels
and vehicle technologies are close to market readiness and consumer behavior toward them is understood well The report warns that forcing a technology into the market should be undertaken only when the benefits of the proposed support justify its costs.
Report: http://www. nap. edu/catalog. php? record id=18264story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by National Academy of Sciences.
greener concrete with biofuel byproductskansas State university civil engineers are developing the right mix to reduce concrete's carbon footprint
The idea is to use bioethanol production byproducts to produce a material to use in concrete as a partial replacement of cement said Feraidon Ataie doctoral student in civil engineering Kabul Afghanistan.
The world uses nearly 7 billion cubic meters of concrete a year making concrete the most-used industrial material after water said Kyle Riding assistant professor of civil engineering and Ataie's faculty mentor.
The researchers have published some of their work in the American Society of Civil engineer's Journal of Materials in Civil engineering
The research also involved Antoine Borden senior in civil engineering Colorado springs Colo. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Kansas State university.
#Faster, more efficient technique for creating high-density ceramicsa researcher from North carolina State university has developed a technique for creating high-density ceramic materials that requires far lower temperatures than current techniques
Ceramics are used in a wide variety of technologies including body armor fuel cells spark plugs nuclear rods and superconductors.
But new research from Dr. Jay Narayan John C. Fan Distinguished Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at NC State may revolutionize the sintering process.
Narayan's new technique selective-melt sintering allows sintering of yttria-stabilized zirconia at 800 degrees Celsius (C)--instead of the conventional 1450 C
. In addition using the selective-melt sintering technique it is possible to sinter zirconia at 800 C in less than a second
In contrast traditional sintering techniques take four to five hours at 1450 C. This technique allows you to achieve'theoretical density'meaning it eliminates all of the porosity in the material Narayan says.
and engineers may have found a way to prevent the spread of the pests. Emerald ash borers (EABS) a type of beetle native to Asia first appeared in the U s. about 20 years ago.
Within 25 years practically no ash trees may remain on either side of the St lawrence Seaway said Akhlesh Lakhtakia Charles Godfrey Binder Professor of Engineering science and Mechanics at Penn State.
could Lakhtakia's technique visually replicate the unique female borer to create a better lure?
The researchers'findings are scheduled to be published in the April issue of the Journal of Bionic Engineering.
Akhlesh's technique allows us to present males with different visual stimuli said Baker also a faculty member in the University's Huck Institutes of the Life sciences.
#Scientists explore new technologies that remove atmospheric carbon dioxidein his Feb 12 State of the Union address President Obama singled out climate change as a top priority for his second administration.
The administration has taken a number of steps to meet those goals such as investing billions of dollars in wind solar and other carbon-neutral energy technologies.
The solution they say could also require developing carbon-negative technologies that remove large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.
In the GCEP report Field and lead author Jennifer Milne describe a suite of emerging carbon-negative solutions to global warming--from bioenergy technologies to ocean sequestration.
One of the most promising net-negative technologies is BECCS or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.
The technology can be used in power plants paper mills ethanol processors and other manufacturing facilities. As a carbon-negative technology BECCS takes advantage of the innate ability of trees grasses
and other plants to absorb atmospheric CO2 for photosynthesis. In nature the CO2 is released eventually back into the atmosphere as the plant decays.
Estimates show that by 2050 BECCS technologies could sequester 10 billion metric tons of industrial CO2 emissions annually worldwide.
BECCS is one of the only proven technologies that uses fossil fuels and actually removes CO2 from the atmosphere.
Biocharfield and Milne also assessed the pros and cons of biochar--a carbon-negative technology based on the same principal as BECCS.
Implementing biochar technology on a global scale could result in the sequestration of billions of metric tons of carbon a year they added.
Keith has launched also a startup company called Carbon Engineering that's developing industrial-scale machines--artificial trees--that are designed to capture CO2 directly from the air.
Following the 2012 negative-emissions workshop GCEP issued an international request for proposals to develop net-negative carbon emissions technologies.
#Lack of energy an enemy to antibiotic-resistant microbesrice University researchers cured a strain of bacteria of its ability to resist an antibiotic in an experiment that has implications for a longstanding public health crisis. Rice environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez
and Technology are the latest in a long effort to understand the environmental aspects of antibiotic resistance which threatens decades of progress in fighting disease.
We tested water and river sediment and couldn't find a sample that didn't have said them he Our philosophy in environmental engineering is that an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of remediation Alvarez said.
Co-authors of the paper are Rice alumni Michal Rysz now an environmental engineer at GSI Environmental Inc. Houston;
and John Fortner an assistant professor at Washington University St louis. Alvarez is the George R. Brown Professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice.
Jim Drouillard professor of animal sciences and industry developed a technique that enriches ground beef with omega-3 fatty acids--fatty acids that have been shown to reduce heart disease cholesterol and high blood pressure.
-based company NBO3 Technologies LLC. It will be available Mid-february at select retailers in Buffalo N y
The technology to enrich ground beef with omega-3s is a spinoff of flaxseed research Drouillard began in 1998.
The owners of NBO3 Technologies LLC have worked closely with Drouillard in developing the concept and after more than a decade of research on improving the enrichment process have started to distribute omega-3 enriched ground beef to retailers and food vendors.
Todd Hansen CEO of NBO3 Technologies LLC said consumer response has been positive in test markets.
and through clever engineering we've taken its capabilities a step further says lead author Mathias Kolle a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of engineering and Applied sciences (SEAS).
Our fiber-rolling technique allows the use of a wide range of materials especially elastic ones with the color-tuning range exceeding by an order of magnitude anything that has been reported for thermally drawn fibers says coauthor Joanna Aizenberg Amy Smith Berylson
Aizenberg is also Director of the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology at Harvard and a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.
Because the fibers change color under strain the technology could lend itself to smart sports textiles that change color in areas of muscle tension
) This research was supported by the U s. Air force Office of Scientific research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative by the UK Engineering and Physical sciences Research Council and through a postdoctoral research fellowship from the Alexander Von humboldt Foundation.
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard also contributed to this research. Story Source:
The research is part of an international trend in biomedical engineering to create laboratory techniques for growing tissues that are virtually identical to those found in people's bodies.
The research is available online and scheduled to appear in a future issue of the journal Tissue Engineering Part C:
One of the unique things about the magnetic levitation technology is that it allows us to move cells around
Killian and fellow scientists from Rice and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center co-founded Nano3d Biosciences in 2009 after creating a technology that uses magnetism to levitate
The technology relies on inert nontoxic magnetic nanoparticles that are inserted into the living cells. Researchers can then use magnets to lift
Tseng was already a student in Grande-Allen's lab one of Rice's leading laboratories for tissue-engineering research.
Another collaboration that paid off big was a partnership with a group of undergraduate students at Rice's Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen.
With our technology we can easily levitate the bronchiole tissue to the air-liquid interface
Souza said the NSF has awarded the company with a second phase of SBIR funding to further develop the technique for other types of tissue.
The research was funded by NSF and the Texas Emerging Technologies Fund. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Rice university.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011