News
Wind farms get pass on eagle deaths
May 16, 2013 9:26 am | by Dina Cappiello, Associated Press | CommentsIt happens about once a month here, on the barren foothills of one of America's green-energy boomtowns: A soaring golden eagle slams into a wind farm's spinning turbine and falls, mangled and lifeless, to the ground. Killing these iconic birds is not just an irreplaceable loss for a vulnerable species. It's also a federal crime....
Google boosts photo offerings to rival Facebook
May 15, 2013 7:57 pm | by MICHAEL LIEDTKE - AP Technology Writer - Associated Press | CommentsGoogle is digging deeper into its technology toolkit to turn its social networking service into a more formidable threat to Facebook, sprucing up its photo features at a time when sharing snapshots online and on mobile gadgets is growing more popular. Many of the 41 new features being added to...
Computer Sciences returns to profit in 4Q
May 15, 2013 4:40 pm | by The Associated Press | CommentsComputer Sciences returned to a profit in its fiscal fourth quarter, bolstered in part by a tax benefit and gain on the sale of an Australian IT staffing business. The company, which provides information technology services to a wide range of industries, also boosted its fiscal 2014 forecast for...
Facebook VP, former Diageo exec join Hertz board
May 15, 2013 3:49 pm | by The Associated Press | CommentsRental car company Hertz Global Holdings Inc. said Wednesday that a Facebook marketing executive and a former executive with alcohol maker Diageo have been elected to its board. Carolyn Everson is a marketing vice president for Facebook Inc. and a former Microsoft Corp. executive. The company...
Google unveils maps, photo, music features
May 15, 2013 3:36 pm | by MICHAEL LIEDTKE - AP Technology Writer - Associated Press | CommentsGoogle's sixth annual conference for software developers opened Wednesday with a chance for the company to showcase its latest services. Announcements included new features for online games, maps and search, a new music-streaming service and enhancements to its Google Plus social network,...
NIST demonstrates significant improvement of solar-powered hydrogen
May 15, 2013 1:11 pm | by EurekAlert! | CommentsUsing a powerful combination of microanalytic techniques that simultaneously image photoelectric current and chemical reaction rates across a surface on a micrometer scale, researchers at NIST have shed new light on what may become a cost-effective way to generate hydrogen gas directly from water and sunlight.
Physicists discover a new kind of friction in the nano-world
May 15, 2013 1:00 pm | by Technische Universitaet Muenchen | CommentsWhether in vehicle transmissions, hip replacements, or tiny sensors for triggering airbags: The respective components must slide against each other with minimum friction to prevent loss of energy and material wear. Investigating the friction behavior of nanosystems, scientists have discovered a previously unknown type of friction...
Cells as living calculators
May 15, 2013 1:00 pm | by Massachusetts Institute of Technology | CommentsMIT engineers have transformed bacterial cells into living calculators that can compute logarithms, divide, and take square roots, using three or fewer genetic parts.Inspired by how analog electronic circuits function, the researchers created synthetic computation circuits by combining existing genetic “parts,” or engineered genes, in novel ways.The circuits perform those calculations in an analog fashion by exploiting nat...
Making frequency-hopping radios practical
May 15, 2013 12:33 pm | by MIT | CommentsResearchers at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory have developed a new method for manufacturing such filters that could improve their performance while enabling 14 times as many of them to be crammed on a single chip. The new method uses techniques already common in the production of signal-processing chips ...
Japan watchdog to halt test reactor over safety
May 15, 2013 12:11 pm | by MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press | CommentsJapan's nuclear watchdog announced Wednesday that the nation's trouble-plagued next-generation test reactor will not be allowed to restart due to safety violations, dealing a setback to the country's pro-nuclear government. The Nuclear Regulation Authority's decision is the latest blow to the Monju fast-breeder reactor and Japan's nuclear fuel cycle program.
EU: China may be dumping mobile network equipment
May 15, 2013 11:57 am | by The Associated Press | CommentsA senior EU official says China may be illegally dumping and subsidizing the import into Europe of mobile telephone networks and their essential elements. But Competition Commissioner Karel De Gucht says an official investigation, while approved by the European Commission, won't be launched now as officials seek an amicable resolution.
Google poised to show off latest devices, services
May 15, 2013 1:22 am | by MICHAEL LIEDTKE - AP Technology Writer - Associated Press | CommentsGoogle is expected to use its annual software developers' conference to showcase the latest mobile devices running on its Android software, while also unveiling other features in its evolving product line-up. The gathering, scheduled to begin Wednesday morning in San Francisco, provides Google...
Secret of efficient photosynthesis is decoded
May 14, 2013 5:42 pm | by Massachusetts Institute of Technology | CommentsPurple bacteria are among Earth’s oldest organisms, and among its most efficient in turning sunlight into usable chemical energy. Now, a key to their light-harvesting prowess has been explained through a detailed structural analysis by scientists at MIT.A ring-shaped molecule with an unusual ninefold symmetry is critical, the researchers found. The circular symmetry accounts for its efficiency in converting sunlight, and for its mecha...
Three X-class flares in 24 hours
May 14, 2013 12:29 pm | by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center | CommentsThe sun emitted a third significant solar flare in under 24 hours, peaking at 9:11 p.m. EDT on May 13, 2013. This flare is classified as an X3.2 flare. This is the strongest X-class flare of 2013 so far, surpassing in strength the two X-class flares that occurred earlier in the 24-hour period.
Solar panels as inexpensive as paint? It’s possible
May 14, 2013 12:10 pm | by University at Buffalo | CommentsResearchers are helping develop a new generation of photovoltaic cells that produce more power and cost less to manufacture than what’s available today. One of the more promising efforts involves the use of plasmonic-enhanced organic photovoltaic materials.
