Research

Graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of carbon, is considered the strongest material known to mankind. It has found countless applications in the field of nanotechnology, including the manufacturing of stronger-than-steel-by-a-hundredfold nanotubes. However, Assistant Professor Chris Marianetti at Columbia University has exposed a fundamental structural weakness of graphene that leads to its possible mechanical failure under strain, and could change the way we use this and other materials to build nanotech devices. Read More

There’s a lot of scientific research projects out there that could produce some interesting results, if only they had access to a supercomputer. With that in mind, this week the US Department of Energy (DoE) announced that it has awarded 57 deserving projects with a total of almost 1.7 billion processor hours on two of its (and the world’s) most powerful computers. It’s part of the DoE’s cleverly-acronymed Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, the aim is of which is primarily “to further renewable energy solutions and understand of the environmental impacts of energy use.” That said, the program is open to all scientists in need of heavy-duty data crunching. Read More

There is no known cure for food allergies with sufferers forced to constantly check the ingredients on food packaging and make enquiries at restaurants before digging into a meal. Even taking such precautions it is almost impossible to avoid all food allergen exposure, especially with children. With even minor exposure having the potential to cause severe or even life threatening reactions in some people, the discovery of a way to turn off the immune system’s allergic reaction to certain proteins in mice, could have implications for the millions of food allergy sufferers worldwide. Read More

There’s no arguing that batteries are an essential element of today’s electronics landscape. Without them our mobile devices would be a lot less mobile and we might still be crank starting our cars. The explosion in mobile electronic devices enabled by batteries and miniaturization has a major downside in the form of discarded batteries, the majority of which contain toxic heavy metals. Chemists have now discovered a new way to pass electrons back and forth between two molecules that could see the development of organic batteries that are lightweight and work without the need for toxic heavy metals. Read More

Molecular machines that seem to "walk" in living organisms transporting proteins between cells are the subject of a new study by University of California, Riverside researchers who hope to find out more about how these remarkable machines behave, in a development that could lead to important breakthroughs in medicine and the manufacturing of electronic devices. Read More

The cloning of human viruses may sound like the stuff of biological warfare, but breakthroughs in the area are helping in the development of antivirals and vaccines for life-threatening diseases. Now Welsh scientists have made the first complete copy of the virus Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) – a common infectious disease that is responsible for congenital malformations and potentially deadly to transplant patients or HIV/AIDS carriers. Read More

Money won't make you happy, or at least, not as happy as you might think. A study by Princeton University researchers has shown that the link between earning more money and day-to-day happiness is a tenuous one – and extra dollars in your pocket doesn't necessarily translate to spending more time doing the things you enjoy. Read More

Star Trek’s Scotty was adamant that you “canna change the laws of physics,” but, according to a report from a team of astrophysicists based in Australia and England, that could be exactly what happens in different parts of the universe. The report describes how one of the supposed fundamental constants of Nature appears not to be constant after all. Instead, this 'magic number' known as the fine-structure constant – 'alpha' for short – appears to vary throughout the universe. Read More

Earlier this year we reported how Californian robotics company Willow Garage was giving away a number of its PR2 robots to various institutions as part of its PR2 Beta program. Lucky PR2 recipients were asked to use the robot to pursue their research and development goals and share their progress with the open source robotics community so that the community as a whole can build on each other’s results. Now anyone can get in the act with Willow Garage officially announcing commercial availability of the robot. And if you’ve got a proven track record in the open source community you could be eligible for a hefty discount. Read More