Challenges to grow with electric cars' sales: Aging grid needs to handle more power

President Barack Obama and others are calling for a boom in electric vehicle production, which seems simple enough on the surface: Build the cars and plug them in. If only...

Carbon Dioxide Transformed Into Methanol

Scientists have succeeded in unlocking the potential of carbon dioxide -- a common greenhouse gas -- by converting it into a more useful product.

Scientists Synthesize Gold To Shed Light On Cells' Inner Workings

Highly fluorescent gold nanoclusters for sub-cellular imaging have been synthesized. Measuring less than 1 nanometer in diameter, the gold clusters are much smaller than currently available nanoscale imaging technologies.

A Clock So Precise It Loses Only A Second Every 300 Million Years: Advance Uses Colliding Fermions

Physicists have measured and controlled seemingly forbidden collisions between neutral strontium atoms -- a class of antisocial atoms known as fermions that are not supposed to collide when in identical...

Putting the squeeze on an old material could lead to 'instant on' electronic memory

The technology of storing electronic information - from old cassette tapes to shiny laptop computers - has been a major force in the electronics industry for decades.

U.K. announces $9,000 electric car subsidy

The British government announced Thursday that it will subsidize first-time electric car buyers up to $9,000 beginning in 2011.

Cloud computing: a new horizon

The outlook is bleak for laptops, hard drives and desktops - clouds are on the horizon and could change the way we use computers forever. For some, the ‘cloud` is...

Novel CU-Boulder technique shrinks size of nanotechnology circuitry

A University of Colorado at Boulder team has developed a new method of shrinking the size of circuitry used in nanotechnology devices like computer chips and solar cells by using...

Running on fumes: Ontario company turns manure into money

A company in Carleton Place, Ont., has developed a machine it hopes will help farmers get off the electrical grid as they clean up after their cows.

UBC researchers put a new spin on electrons

In the first demonstration of its kind, researchers at the University of British Columbia have controlled the spin of electrons using a ballistic technique - bouncing electrons through a microscopic...

Rice researchers unzip the future

Scientists at Rice University have found a simple way to create basic elements for aircraft, flat-screen TVs, electronics and other products that incorporate sheets of tough, electrically conductive material...

Nanoribbons from sliced open nanotubes: New, faster, more accurate method from Stanford

A world of potential may lie tied up in graphene nanoribbons, particularly for electronics applications. But researchers have been hampered in their efforts to fully explore that potential because they...

Nasal Irrigation: Spring Cleaning for Your Nose

Before you reach for expensive remedies, you might want to try this cheap alternative treatment.

Scientists synthesize herbal alkaloid

NASHVILLE, April 16 (UPI) -- U.S. chemists say they have developed an efficient technique to produce the synthesized herbal alkaloid Serratezomine from the club moss Lycopodium serratum.

New Theory: People Need to Play More

Goofing around goes way back, and a new theory that suggests society can break down when we don't take time to play.

Electrical Implant Might Help With Bladder Control

For people with urinary incontinence who have run out of options, an electrical device might help, according to a new review.

New Method Could Lead To Narrower Chip Patterns

Researchers have found a novel method for etching extremely narrow lines on a microchip, using a material that can be switched from transparent to opaque, and vice versa, just by...

The electric car: a power bank

(PhysOrg.com) -- Can you imagine an electric car that stores power and, depending on variable utility rates, returns it to the power grid over the course of a day? Fraunhofer...

Specialized polymer used to detect nerve agents, toxic chemicals for air monitoring in emergencies

(PhysOrg.com) -- A unique polymer that allows sensors to detect nerve agents and other toxic industrial chemicals in the air is now available to companies developing chemical detectors for emergency...

Green light from Silicon

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of St Andrews have made a surprise discovery that the material at the heart of the microelectronics industry can emit green light.

Potassium leads to better hydrogen-storage materials

An international research team, including Professor Rajeev Ahuja's research group at Uppsala University, has shown that small additions of potassium drastically improve the hydrogen-storage properties of certain types of hydrogen...

Homage to Rube Goldberg

Scientists to study diamond-based quantum information processing, communication

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- In the quest for quantum information processing, diamonds may be a physicist's best friend.

Making picky proteins

Interactions between proteins underlie nearly everything that happens inside a cell. MIT researchers have developed a model that can be used to design new protein interactions and could help scientists...

X Marks The Spot: Ions Coldly Go Through NIST Trap Junction

Physicists have demonstrated a new ion trap that enables ions to go through an intersection at temperatures ten million times cooler than prior similar trips. The demonstration is a step...

A synthetic-biology reality check

Is the abrupt closure of prominent player Codon Devices an omen for the field?

Ordered Water: Just how much water is there in calcined gypsum?

(PhysOrg.com) -- Gypsum was used as a building material in antiquity and is still widely used as a binder in plaster, drywall, and spackling paste. Known as dihydrate in construction...

Smart Material Technology Adapted To The Repair Of Skeletal Malformations Succeeds

Scientists are a step closer to the repair of skeletal malformations. New technology has been developed with limb lengthening treatment in mind, but it can be more widely applied to...