Applied Physics

The gender ratio in math science and engineering is approximately 3 men to every 1 woman, say Stanford psychologists Mary Murphy and Claude Steele, and situational cues, like being outnumbered, may contribute to a decrease in women’s performance expectations, as well as their actual performance. Murphy and colleagues showed a group of advanced MSE undergraduates a gender balanced or unbalanced video depicting a potential MSE summer leadership conference. To assess identity threat, the researchers measured the participant’s physiological arousal during the video, cognitive vigilance, sense of…

Folding is very important in human brain development because some of the worst neurological problems such as schizophrenia, autism and lissenchephaly (smoothness of the cortex, found with severe retardation) are associated with abnormal brain folding. On the other hand, Albert Einstein's abnormally folded brain made him a genius Larry A.Taber, Ph.D., the Dennis and Barbara Kessler Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Phillip Bayly, Ph.D., Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering, are examining mechanical and developmental processes that occur in the folding of the brain's surface, or…

Cell phones are increasingly sophisticated -- sporting such features as cameras, music players, games, video clips, Internet access and, lest we forget, the capability to phone someone -- but these features come at a price: memory. Now computer engineers at Northwestern University and NEC Laboratories America, Inc. are the first to do what many thought impossible -- they have developed technology that doubles the usable memory on cell phones and other embedded systems without any changes to hardware or applications. (Embedded systems are computers within devices not generally considered to be…

Two major steps toward putting quantum computers into real practice — sending a photon signal on demand from a qubit onto wires and transmitting the signal to a second, distant qubit — have been brought about by a team of scientists at Yale. Over the past several years, the research team of Professors Robert Schoelkopf in applied physics and Steven Girvin in physics has explored the use of solid-state devices resembling microchips as the basic building blocks in the design of a quantum computer. Now, for the first time, they report that superconducting qubits, or artificial atoms, have been…

Engineers at Ohio State University have found a way to turn discarded chicken eggshells into an alternative energy resource. The patented process uses eggshells to soak up carbon dioxide from a reaction that produces hydrogen fuel. It also includes a unique method for peeling the collagen-containing membrane from the inside of the shells, so that the collagen can be used commercially. L.S. Fan, Distinguished University Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State, said that he and former Ohio State doctoral student, Mahesh Iyer, hit upon the idea when they were trying to…

Building aircraft wings with a special aluminium fibre combination makes them nearly immune to metal fatigue. The application of this technology, partly developed at Delft University of Technology, will lead to substantial savings. The unusual qualities of this special material (called CentrAl, an abbreviation of Central Reinforced Aluminium) can make a significant contribution to the development of truly energy-efficient, ‘green’ aircraft. Lower fuel consumption and reduction of maintenance costs could lead to worldwide savings as high as $100 billion. Fatigue is a phenomenon that affects…

Researchers at UC San Diego and UC Irvine have found evidence that supports the theory that reproductive competition during the evolution of primate species has occurred at the level of sperm cell motility. A team led by Michael Berns, an adjunct professor of bioengineering at UCSD and a professor of biomedical engineering at the Beckman Laser Institute at UC Irvine, and UCSD Ph.D. candidate Jaclyn Nascimento report that sperm cells from the more promiscuous chimpanzee and rhesus macaque species swim much faster and with much greater force than those of humans and gorillas, species where…

Do you like The Beatles but only certain kinds of their songs? What if you want music to go jogging but you don't know the names of artists you might like for that? UC San Diego researchers are working on a music search engine that lets you use natural language to find what you want. In a new paper, the researchers demonstrate that an online music game they created provides crucial data for building the back-end of a music search engine that allows users to type in words in order to find songs. “When my mom gets up in the morning and is like, ‘I need some energy to go jogging,’ she has no…

A new infrared imaging system that automatically counts the number of people in cars could offer a cost effective solution to help lower congestion and carbon emissions - or it could be a handy government monitoring system. Carpool lanes are not popular. In Britain 20% of the road capacity is used by multi-occupancy vehicles. In a state like California that percentage is even less, around 7%, yet every highway has 'carpool' lanes. If you've never sat in traffic while the carpool lane is empty, you don't live near a city. Because the carpool lanes are are only available to all traffic…

Positive selection in human evolution plays a role in genes associated with schizophrenia, according to a new study in the Sept. 2007 edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It found that genes believed to be linked to schizophrenia are more likely to show evidence of natural selection than those not associated with the disorder. “Schizophrenia has a huge impact on health and reproduction, yet it persists at a high frequency in the human population. This is something of a paradox from an evolutionary perspective,” said East Carolina University biologist Kyle Summers, who conducted…