Applied Physics
In normal plants, when sugars (made from water and carbon dioxide during photosynthesis) accumulate in the leaves, photosynthesis slows down, and the plant does not take in as much carbon dioxide from the air. Likewise, when the sugars move out of the leaves, the rate of photosynthesis and carbon intake increases.
How do many plants ship sugars from their leaves to flowers, roots, fruits and other parts of their structure? Using genetic engineering techniques, Cornell researchers have finally proven a long-standing theory of how this occurs.
The findings not only deepen understanding of…
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SAN MATEO, California, December 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Bizanga, the global company behind the most scalable and full-featured e-mail and message processing platform, today announced the appointment of Peter Zadrozny as Vice President of Product Management. A 25-year computer industry veteran, Zadrozny will guide the implementation of the company's product roadmap for its traditional carrier business as well as new ventures.
"Peter Zadrozny is a welcome addition to the Bizanga team," according to Marc Sheldon, Chief Marketing Officer for Bizanga. "His leadership and depth of experience will…
The other shoe drops. A year ago Atul Gawande wrote in The New Yorker about the Apgar score, a low-tech measurement of newborn viability that led to vast improvements in obstetrics. That’s the “how to improve?” side of things. Now Gawande has written about something equally simple and powerful on the “here’s how to improve” side of medicine: the use of checklists to improve ICU treatment. The first article was called “The Score”; this one is called “The Checklist”.
Checklists are the idea of Peter Pronovost, an ICU doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His first checklist, in 2001, was designed…
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GREENSBORO, North Carolina, December 20 /PRNewswire/ --
RF Micro Devices, Inc. (Nasdaq: RFMD), a global leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance radio frequency systems and solutions, and Filtronic PLC (LSE: FTC) today announced a definitive agreement pursuant to which RFMD will acquire Filtronic Compound Semiconductors Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Filtronic PLC, for an acquisition price of approximately 12.5 million pounds in cash. The acquisition price includes the purchase of Filtronic Compound Semiconductors' six-inch GaAs wafer fabrication facility ("fab") at…
Researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have corrected key symptoms of mental retardation and autism in mice.
The report in Neuron also indicates that a certain class of drugs could have the same effect. These drugs are not yet approved by the FDA, but will soon be entering into human clinical trials.
Fragile X syndrome (FXS), affecting 100,000 Americans, is the most common inherited cause of mental retardation and autism. The MIT researchers corrected FXS in mice modeling the disease. “These findings have major therapeutic implications for fragile X syndrome and autism…
Chemical engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas have investigated supercritical methanol as a method of converting chicken fat into biodiesel fuel. The new study also successfully converted tall oil fatty acid, a major by-product of the wood-pulping process, into biodiesel at a yield of greater than 90 percent, significantly advancing efforts to develop commercially viable fuel out of plentiful, accessible and low-cost feedstocks and other agricultural by-products.
“Major oil companies are already examining biodiesel as an alternative to petroleum,” said R.E. “Buddy” Babcock,…
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ALZENAU, Germany and CHERNOBYL, Ukraine, December 19 /PRNewswire/ -- NUKEM Technologies GmbH, Alzenau has handed over the Engineered Near Surface Disposal Facility at Chernobyl to the customer SSE Technocenter on 19 December 2007. By doing so, NUKEM as the first Western company, has successfully completed a plant for the treatment of radioactive waste on location Chernobyl up to the handover to the customer.
In the Engineered Near Surface Disposal Facility, short-life radioactive wastes accumulated in the nuclear power plant Chernobyl are stored following prior conditioning. The repository…
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NORWICH, England, December 19 /PRNewswire/ --
- Less Than Half a Year Under New Ownership, Turnover for 2007 Expected to Increase by 34% on an Annual Basis
- Well Positioned for 2008 Thanks to Boosted Incoming Orders
- ATB CEO Christian Schmidt: "Turnaround is Truly Outstanding and was Achieved in far Shorter Time Than Originally Estimated"
Less than half a year under new ownership, the engineering company ATB Laurence Scott is well on track to achieve its former success. According to preliminary figures for the year 2007, the company expects to increase its turnover by 34% to GBP 18 mill.…
A research team at Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering comprised of Professor Christopher Davis, Research Scientist Igor Smolyaninov, and graduate student Yu-Ju Hung, has used plasmon technology to create the world's first invisibility cloak for visible light. The engineers have applied the same technology to build a revolutionary superlens microscope that allows scientists to see details of previously undetectable nanoscale objects.
Generally speaking, when we see an object, we see the visible light that strikes the object and is reflected. The Clark School team's invisibility…
Scientists long have focused on how climate and vegetation allowed human ancestors to evolve in Africa. Now, University of Utah geologists are calling renewed attention to the idea that ground movements formed mountains and valleys, creating environments that favored the emergence of humanity.
“Tectonics [movement of Earth’s crust] was ultimately responsible for the evolution of humankind,” Royhan and Nahid Gani of the university’s Energy and Geoscience Institute write in the January, 2008, issue of Geotimes, published by the American Geological Institute.
They argue that the accelerated…