Battery development may extend range of electric cars

New anode quadruples life of lithium-sulfur battery, could also help store renewable energy more cheaply

13-Jan-2014 - It's known that electric vehicles could travel longer distances before needing to charge and more renewable energy could be saved for a rainy day if lithium-sulfur batteries can just overcome a few technical hurdles. Now, a novel design for a critical part of the battery has been shown to ...

New, simple technique may drive down biofuel production costs

09-Jan-2014 - Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a simple, effective and relatively inexpensive technique for removing lignin from the plant material used to make biofuels, which may drive down the cost of biofuel production. Lignin, nature’s way of protecting plant cell walls, is ...

Researchers propose alternative way to allocate science funding

09-Jan-2014 - Researchers in the United States have suggested an alternative way to allocate science funding. The method, which is described in EMBO reports, depends on a collective distribution of funding by the scientific community, requires only a fraction of the costs associated with the traditional peer ...

RAMBO a small but powerful magnet

Rice University system allows high-magnetic-field experiments on a tabletop

08-Jan-2014 - Rice University scientists have pioneered a tabletop magnetic pulse generator that does the work of a room-sized machine – and more. The device dubbed “RAMBO” – short for Rice Advanced Magnet with Broadband Optics – will allow researchers who visit the university to run spectroscopy-based ...

New compounds discovered that are hundreds of times more mutagenic

08-Jan-2014 - Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered novel compounds produced by certain types of chemical reactions – such as those found in vehicle exhaust or grilling meat - that are hundreds of times more mutagenic than their parent compounds which are known carcinogens. These compounds ...

Three-star system to challenge Einstein’s theory of General Relativity

08-Jan-2014 - A newly discovered system of two white dwarf stars and a superdense pulsar–all packed within a space smaller than the Earth’s orbit around the sun–is enabling astronomers to probe a range of cosmic mysteries, including the very nature of gravity itself. The international team, which includes UBC ...

The entropy of nations

Global energy inequality lessens, but for how long?

07-Jan-2014 - The 18th century writer Adam Smith provided a workable metaphor for the way society utilizes resources. In his book "The Wealth of Nations," he argued that even as individuals strive, through personal industry, to maximize their advantage in life, they inadvertently contribute---as if under the ...

Understanding the quantum behaviour of cold atoms

07-Jan-2014 - The UPV/EHU physicist Eneko Malatsetxebarria has explored, on a theoretical level, some quantum effects that take place in atoms at a very low temperature. Firstly, he has discovered that boson-type atoms and fermion-type ones can be mixed in a specific way. So he has made the necessary ...

Roses are red -- why some petunias are blue

06-Jan-2014 - Researchers have uncovered the secret recipe to making some petunias such a rare shade of blue. The findings may help to explain and manipulate the color of other ornamental flowers, not to mention the taste of fruits and wine, say researchers. From the flowers' point of view, the findings also ...

Significant step forward in biofuels quest

03-Jan-2014 - Scientists at the University of York have made a significant step in the search to develop effective second generation biofuels. Researchers from the Department of Chemistry at York have discovered a family of enzymes that can degrade hard-to-digest biomass into its constituent sugars. 'First ...