ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• New molecule found in space connotes life origins
• New tool assesses skill development in robotic microsurgery
• Scanning babies' fingerprints could save lives through vaccination tracking
• Key reaction for producing 'atmosphere's detergent' observed
• New tool assesses skill development in robotic microsurgery
• Studying nanocrystals by passing them through tiny pores
• Football-size robot can skim discreetly along a ship's hull to seek hollow compartments concealing contraband
• 'Multi-spectra glasses' for scanning electron microscopy
• New technology may lead to prolonged power in mobile devices
• Nanocomposites toughen up
• Overcome noise problems in ultrasensitive measurements of tiny amounts of compounds
• NASA rover drill pulls first taste from Mars mountain
• Can cartoons be used to teach machines to understand the visual world?
• Suomi NPP satellite data used for mitigating aviation-related volcanic hazards
• Fertilizer and fuel: Nitrogen-fixing enzyme also produces hydrocarbons
• Turning the Moon into a cosmic ray detector
• Conflictive animations support the development of programming skills
• Computational model: Ebola could infect more than 1.4 million people by end of January 2015
• Graphene looks promising as a flexible, low-cost touchscreen solution
• Experts call for moratorium on use of new internet domain .health
• From rats to humans: Trial will attempt to get paralyzed humans walking again

New molecule found in space connotes life origins Posted: 26 Sep 2014 06:36 PM PDT Hunting from a distance of 27,000 light years, astronomers have discovered an unusual carbon-based molecule contained within a giant gas cloud in interstellar space. The discovery suggests that the complex molecules needed for life may have their origins in interstellar space.

New tool assesses skill development in robotic microsurgery Posted: 26 Sep 2014 11:11 AM PDT A new standardized assessment provides a useful tool for tracking surgeons' progress as they develop the skills needed to perform robot-assisted microsurgery.

Scanning babies' fingerprints could save lives through vaccination tracking Posted: 26 Sep 2014 11:10 AM PDT Each year 2.5 million children die worldwide because they do not receive life-saving vaccinations at the appropriate time. Now researchers are developing a fingerprint-based recognition method to track vaccination schedules for infants and toddlers, which will increase immunization coverage and save lives.

Key reaction for producing 'atmosphere's detergent' observed Posted: 26 Sep 2014 11:10 AM PDT A rapid atmospheric reaction critical to breaking down pollution in the lab has been observed by chemists. They identify an important intermediate molecule and track its transformation to hydroxyl radicals, also demonstrating the amount of energy necessary for the reaction to take place.

New tool assesses skill development in robotic microsurgery Posted: 26 Sep 2014 11:07 AM PDT A new standardized assessment provides a useful tool for tracking surgeons' progress as they develop the skills needed to perform robot-assisted microsurgery, reports a study.

Studying nanocrystals by passing them through tiny pores Posted: 26 Sep 2014 08:21 AM PDT Researchers have now applied a cutting-edge technique for rapid gene sequencing toward measuring other nanoscopic structures. By passing nanoscale spheres and rods through a tiny hole in a membrane, the team was able to measure the electrical properties of those structures' surfaces. Their findings suggest new ways of using this technique, known as 'nanopore translocation,' to analyze objects at the smallest scale.

Football-size robot can skim discreetly along a ship's hull to seek hollow compartments concealing contraband Posted: 26 Sep 2014 08:21 AM PDT Football-size robot can skim discreetly along a ship's hull to seek hollow compartments concealing contraband.

'Multi-spectra glasses' for scanning electron microscopy Posted: 26 Sep 2014 08:21 AM PDT Reflection zone plates enable lighter elements in material samples will be efficiently and precisely detected using scanning electron microscopy by providing high resolution in the range of 50-1120 eV.

New technology may lead to prolonged power in mobile devices Posted: 26 Sep 2014 08:20 AM PDT Researchers have created technology that could be the first step toward wearable computers with self-contained power sources or, more immediately, a smartphone that doesn't die after a few hours of heavy use.

Nanocomposites toughen up Posted: 26 Sep 2014 07:17 AM PDT An alternative fabrication route improves the properties of aluminum-based nanocomposites with great potential for vehicles of the future.

Overcome noise problems in ultrasensitive measurements of tiny amounts of compounds Posted: 26 Sep 2014 07:17 AM PDT As the sensitivity of plasmonic sensors reaches new heights, so does the challenge of using tiny sample volumes. Scientists have devised an innovative way to improve sensor accuracy by exploiting the unique properties of quantum optics.

NASA rover drill pulls first taste from Mars mountain Posted: 26 Sep 2014 07:15 AM PDT NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has collected its first taste of the layered mountain whose scientific allure drew the mission to choose this part of Mars as a landing site.

Can cartoons be used to teach machines to understand the visual world? Posted: 26 Sep 2014 07:09 AM PDT An enormous gap exists between human abilities and machine performance when it comes to understanding the visual world from images and videos. Humans are still way out in front.

Suomi NPP satellite data used for mitigating aviation-related volcanic hazards Posted: 26 Sep 2014 06:13 AM PDT A joint NOAA/NASA satellite is one of several satellites providing valuable information to aviators about volcanic hazards.

Fertilizer and fuel: Nitrogen-fixing enzyme also produces hydrocarbons Posted: 26 Sep 2014 05:58 AM PDT Plants need nitrogen and carbon to grow. Photosynthesis allows them to take in the latter directly from the air, but they have to procure nitrogen through their roots in the form of organic molecules like ammonia or urea. Even though nitrogen gas makes up approximately 80 percent of Earth's atmosphere, the plant can only access it in a bound - or 'fixed' - form. Farmers thus use fertilizers to provide their crops with nitrogen. The only living beings that can convert nitrogen from the air into usable molecules are microorganisms - for example nodule bacteria.

Turning the Moon into a cosmic ray detector Posted: 26 Sep 2014 05:58 AM PDT Scientists are to turn the Moon into a giant particle detector to help understand the origin of Ultra-High-Energy (UHE) cosmic rays -- the most energetic particles in the Universe. The origin of UHE cosmic rays is one of the great mysteries in astrophysics. Nobody knows where these extremely rare cosmic rays come from or how they get their enormous energies. Physicists detect them on Earth at a rate of less than one particle per square kilometer per century.

Conflictive animations support the development of programming skills Posted: 26 Sep 2014 05:56 AM PDT Traditional educational tools present information to students in a conventional way: what they present is true and students are expected to learn what is presented. Educators have now developed a tool that tricks students during their learning process. They use "conflictive animations" to teach computer programming, which is a very challenging topic for students due to its abstract nature.

Computational model: Ebola could infect more than 1.4 million people by end of January 2015 Posted: 26 Sep 2014 05:55 AM PDT The Ebola epidemic could claim hundreds of thousands of lives and infect more than 1.4 million people by the end of January, according to a statistical forecast released this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC forecast supports the drastically higher projections released earlier by a group of scientists, including epidemiologists with the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, who modeled the Ebola spread as part of a National Institutes of Health-sponsored project called Midas, short for Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study.

Graphene looks promising as a flexible, low-cost touchscreen solution Posted: 26 Sep 2014 05:55 AM PDT New research suggests that graphene-treated nanowires could soon replace current touchscreen technology, significantly reducing production costs and allowing for more affordable, flexible displays.

Experts call for moratorium on use of new internet domain .health Posted: 25 Sep 2014 05:58 PM PDT As the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers moves forward with plans to launch health-related generic top-level domains, such as .health and .doctor, a coalition of health policy academics and clinicians are raising concerns about a process they say 'favor[s] business interests and the generation of profits over the future integrity of the Health Internet.'

From rats to humans: Trial will attempt to get paralyzed humans walking again Posted: 24 Sep 2014 11:49 AM PDT A completely paralyzed rat can be made to walk over obstacles and up stairs by electrically stimulating the severed part of the spinal cord. Scientists discovered how to control in real-time how the rat moves forward and how high it lifts its limbs. Now a new lab will extend this technology to human patients as early as next summer.

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