HOUSTON, Nov. 19, 2010 — University of Houston (UH) physicists are using complex computer simulations to illuminate the workings of a crucial protein that, when malfunctioning, may cause Alzheimer’s and cancer.
Margaret Cheung, assistant pr…
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Nine supercomputers have been tested, validated and ranked by the new “Graph500” challenge, first introduced this week by an international team led by Sandia National Laboratories. The list of submitters and the order of their…
Can a heart implanted micro robot operate permanently? Can cell phones and tiny robots implanted in the heart operate permanently without having their batteries charged?
It might sound like science fiction, but these things seem to be possib…
HOUSTON, Oct. 22, 2010 — Researchers can spend entire careers producing outstanding work but still not see their efforts featured in the pages of Science, one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals. That won’t be the case, though, f…
A creative version of a classic engineering technique may improve decisions about building and using supplies of important pediatric vaccines, potentially leading to lower public health costs and healthier children.
The United States maintains a s…
To find prey and avoid being preyed upon, fish rely on a row of specialized sensory organs along the sides of their bodies, called the lateral line. Now, a research team led by Chang Liu at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has built an artificial lateral line that can provide the same functions in underwater vehicles.
A new study of gentrification in U.S. cities focuses on the activities of a surprising group of players — not developers, not even politicians, but newspaper reporters. The authors of the study, David Wilson and Thomas Mueller, say that city reporters of local growth and development are “important actors” in promoting gentrification. As “central information producers about cities,” these reporters “regulate understandings of urban people, places and processes with potent political-economic consequences.”
A “smart brick” developed by scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign could monitor a building’s health and save lives. “This innovation could change the face of the construction industry,” said Chang Liu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois. “We are living with more and more smart electronics all around us, but we still live and work in fairly dumb buildings. By making our buildings smarter, we can improve both our comfort and safety.”
Detecting the presence of hazardous lead paint could become as simple as pressing a piece of paper against a wall and noting a color change. Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a highly sensitive and selective biosensor that functions in much the same fashion as a strip of litmus paper.
From its base in America, the gambling industry is exporting technology and know-how to often fragile political systems in Asia and the Middle East, causing conditions that could threaten both U.S. and world security, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign argues in a law journal article. The lightning spread of “Western-style” gambling overseas has increased the problems of addicted and problem gamblers, organized crime and alleged corruption in such countries as Malaysia, North Korea, the Philippines, South Korea and the strife-torn West Bank of Israel, according to John W. Kindt, an Illinois professor of business and legal policy.
Of the five basic senses, the sense of smell is the least understood. Now, scientists have sniffed out potential clues to how olfactory receptors in the nose detect odors. Those clues may also explain why dietary zinc deficiencies lead to a loss of smell.
Beleaguered luggage scanners at the nation’s airports may soon find help in a fast algorithm developed by scientists in Illinois. The algorithm also promises to speed delivery of images generated by computerized tomography in hospitals and industry. Computerized tomography is commonly used to create cross-sectional images from many individual slices ? or scans ? illuminated by X-rays.