University Park
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA -- Ozone, the main component of air pollution, or smog, is a highly reactive, colorless gas formed when oxygen reacts with other chemicals. Although ozone pollution is most often associated with outdoor air, the gas also infiltrates indoor environments like homes and offices.
University Park, Pa. -- Manipulating tiny objects like single cells or nanosized beads often requires relatively large, unwieldy equipment, but now a system that uses sound as a tiny tweezers can be small enough to place on a chip, according to Penn State engineers.
University Park, PA -- When it comes to potential mates, women may be as complicated as men claim they are, according to psychologists.
MADISON, WI, July 20, 2009 -- Understanding temporal variability in crop yields has implications for sustainable crop production, particularly since greater fluxes in crop yields are projected with global climate change.
In reading the current issue of New Scientist, I found a pointer to a blog entry called "Bug eats electricity, farts biogas."
Needless to say, I had to learn more.
Experts in intellectual property and patents explain in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation how tools, such as online social networking could be used to eradicate the enormous backlog of patent applications in the US.
A new study has found that women athletes get far more pumped up before and during athletic competition than their male counterparts. Pre-event testosterone levels rise 9 percent, on avergae, in males whereas in females they increase by 24 percent. During the game itself women increase their testosterone production by 49 percent while in males, it increases on average 15 percent. The rise in testosterone that accompanies competition is thought to make the individual more willing to take risks, improves psychomotor function and coordination, and increase cognitive performance qualities that are very important in winning.
Buildings built according to federal design criteria to be able to withstand earthquakes may not be able to survive the effects of explosions from bombs small enough to be carried by a terrorist, Penn State researchers have found.
Models of Larch budmoth outbreaks in the European Alps may eventually show scientists how to model a variety of disease and insect eruptions that rely on a combination of enemy, host and spatial movement to decimate populations, according to a team of ecologists. The Larch budmoth feeds on larch trees, a common evergreen variety, consuming the needles and defoliating the branches. In the European Alps, the infestation moves as predictable waves from west to east completely defoliating forests beginning in the French and Italian Alps and moving across the continent through Switzerland and into Austria.
MiniMed has made its fortune with an insulin pump that diabetics wear around their waist and that automatically delivers controlled doses of the sugar-regulating substance to the wearer's bloodstream. It's a terrific product because it eliminates the need for regular syringe-based injections (though a catheter remains stuck in the patient's belly all day long.) Combined with the company's glucose monitor, the product works like a sort of artificial pancreas. As cool as the system is, it still involves a needle breaking skin, which can on occasion lead to infections, not to mention being a real pain. Engineers at Penn State say they're on the road to a needle-free insulin delivery method that uses a small, ultrasonic patch to get the drug into the wearer's blood.
Labeling foods "low-fat" is suspected of encouraging consumers to overeat. If that box of Ho-Ho's claims to be low-fat, heck, why not down the full dozen? But a study from Penn State says the same is not true of the listing of caloric content. "Some studies have shown that people take larger portions of foods labeled 'low fat' ? using the label as a license to eat more. This study shows that energy density labels are unlikely to undermine the benefits of offering foods with fewer calories per ounce."
