Technology

Elsevier has launched a new, international, open access journal, Case Studies in Engineering Failure Analysis.  The journal seeks to provide a forum for rapid publication of short, structured case studies in engineering failure analysis and will include case studies of component failures in mechanical, civil, aerospace, mining, oil and gas, medical, electrical, transportation, power generation, process and forensic engineering, although failure of engineering components in other disciplines will also be considered.   Case Studies in Engineering Failure Analysis is the first…

A global poll of executives found  that e-commerce giant Amazon is more admired than its Californian rival on all major supply chain attributes - except innovation.  Amazon is more respected than Apple for supply chain excellence and the Seattle-based retailer also came out top on three of the four supply chain attributes that survey participants were asked to rate the two companies on - agility, collaboration and execution - according to research published today by SCM World, the leading global community of supply chain practitioners.  Apple still leads among Starbucks…

A study today highlighted a new therapeutic technique to repair and rebuild muscle for sufferers of degenerative muscle disorders. The therapy brings together two existing techniques for muscle repair, cell transplantation and tissue engineering - mesoangioblast stem cells delivered via a hydrogel cell-carrier matrix. A number of conditions can lead to considerable degeneration or loss of skeletal muscle and, since skeletal muscle has a limited capacity for self repair, therapies for muscle reconstruction or regeneration are often necessary. There are currently two ways to rebuild muscle:…

Bones are resilient and heal well after most fractures but in cases of traumatic injury, where large pieces of bone are missing, healing is much more difficult and sometimes impossible. "Large segmental defects" are a major clinical problem,  especially among the military in places like Afghanistan, and orthopedic surgeons struggle to treat them but new research results confirm that the bone healing process of large segmental defects is sensitive to its mechanical environment and suggests that "reverse dynamization," a straightforward and inexpensive process, could help speed healing of…

Elsevier has launched a new open access, online journal, Leukemia Research Reports. It will publish  a range of peer-reviewed short form papers, including brief communications, case reports, letters to the editors, images and debate articles about basic and/or applied clinical research in leukemias, lymphomas, multiple myeloma and other hematologic malignancies.  The editors of Leukemia Research Reports are: Dr Suneel Mundle (Janssen Services LLC and Rush Medical College, Chicago, IL) and Dr Meir Wetzler (State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine and Roswell Park…

Mind Sports has created arguably the most expensive and advanced tournament Scrabble system in the world. It's set to be unveiled at the Prague Mind Sports Festival next month and is a tech-lovers dream. It cost over $25,000 to produce because it utilizes custom-built RFIDs to read the entire Scrabble board almost instantaneously (974 milliseconds), transmitting the information via software to viewers online. The Scrabble board consists of nine RFID circuit boards that house 225 RFID antennas, which read each individual Scrabble square. Each Scrabble letter tile has its own uniquely…

In the Journal of Minimal Access Surgery, a case report details a 46-year-old physically fit female with a history of excessive bleeding and benign growths on her uterus. Her surgery was performed through a two inch-long incision in the belly button, the thinnest part of the abdomen, using the robotic arms in a "chopstick" fashion, said Dr. John R. Lue, Chief of the Medical College of Georgia Section of General Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgia Health Sciences University, showing that the precision and three-dimensional view provided by robots can enable essentially scar-free surgery…

Want to help unlock the secrets of magnetism at the molecular scale without getting a PhD in physics? A citizen science project entitled Feynman’s Flowers lets volunteers from across the world analyze microscope images of individual molecules, which have characteristic flower shapes. Anyone can take part, and only a few clicks of the computer mouse are required to collect valuable information. Feynman’s Flowers is named after the Richard Feynman, who in his 1959 talk entitled “There’s plenty of room at the bottom” discussed what might happen if it were possible to manipulate matter at the…

It's election day in America, which means by midnight up to 47 percent of the USA will have tremendous cerebral pressure and a conviction the country is ruined. It's unknown why cerebral pressure in certain people suddenly increases but the consequences are better understood: The blood circulation is disrupted and after a while parts of the brain may die off, similar to what occurs in a stroke.  And dementia. Estimates are that up to ten percent of all cases of dementia in Europe can be attributed to rising blood pressure in the brain, though how that is determined us unclear since…

An experimental device converts kinetic energy from beating hearts into electricity than can power a pacemaker, meaning the chance for no more batteries in the future, according to a talk at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2012. The study is preliminary but a piezoelectric approach is promising for pacemakers because they require only small amounts of power to operate. Batteries must be replaced every five to seven years, which is costly and inconvenient.  Piezoelectricity might also power other implantable cardiac devices like defibrillators, which also have minimal…