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PhysOrg.com
New Nanowire-Based Memory Could Beef Up Information Storage Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have created a type of nanowire-based information storage device that is capable of storing three bit values rather than the usual two—that is, "0," "1," and "2" instead of just "0" and "1." This ability could lead to a new generation of high-capacity information storage for electronic devices. Where is your soil water? Crop yield has the answer Crop yield is highly dependent on soil plant-available water, the portion of soil water that can be taken up by plant roots. Quantitative determination of the maximum amount of plant-available water in soil using traditional methods on soil samples remains challenging, especially at the scale of an entire field. An oblivious transfer protocol for quantum cryptography “It's hard to beat the noise that you have with quantum information,” Barbara Terhal tells PhysOrg.com. “So our security protocol relies on the fact that storing quantum bits noiselessly is hard to do with current technology.” Rocky Mountain conservation deal tops $500 million (AP) -- Some of the most prized land in the northern Rocky Mountains is being protected from development in a conservation land deal hailed as the largest of its kind in U.S. history. Happiness is rising around the world: study People in most countries around the world are happier these days, according to newly released data from the World Values Survey based at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. The 21st century tomato When tomatoes ripen in our gardens, we watch them turn gradually from hard, green globules to brightly colored, aromatic, and tasty fruits. This familiar and seemingly commonplace transformation masks a seething mass of components interacting in a well-regulated albeit highly complex manner. For generations, agriculturalists and scientists have bred tomatoes for size, shape, texture, flavor, shelf-life, and nutrient composition, more or less, one trait at a time. With the advent of molecular biology, mutagenesis and genetic transformation could produce tomatoes that were more easily harvested or transported or turned into tomato paste. Frequently, however, optimizing for one trait led to deterioration in another. For example, improving flavor could have a negative effect on yield. NIST releases preview of much-anticipated online mathematics reference The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a five-chapter preview of the much-anticipated online Digital Library of Mathematical Functions (DLMF). In development for over a decade, the DLMF is designed to be a modern successor to the 1964 "Handbook of Mathematical Functions," a reference work that is the most widely distributed NIST publication (with over a million copies in print) and one of the most cited works in the mathematical literature (still receiving over 1,600 yearly citations in the research literature). The preview of the new DLMF is a fully functional beta-level release of five of the 36 chapters. Novel memory device is set to rival transistor-switched silicon-based memory Working with an international group of researchers, Professor Gehan Amaratunga has produced a novel memory device which is set to rival transistor-switched silicon-based memory. Managing incidental findings in human subjects research Article offers first major consensus recommendations for IFs An incidental finding (IF) is a finding concerning an individual research participant that has potential health or reproductive importance, is discovered in the course of conducting research, but is beyond the aims of the study. IFs are an increasingly common byproduct of research using powerful technologies that generate "extra" data. Because IFs can potentially save lives but also cause alarm, the decision on whether or not to disclose them to research participants has been a major dilemma. Little guidance currently exists on how to approach this problem. A two-year project supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH has now published the first major recommendations for how to anticipate and manage IFs in genetic, genomic, and imaging research, suggesting broader application to other research domains. This project, led by Prof. Susan Wolf at the University of Minnesota's Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences, involved a multidisciplinary group of leading experts from the U.S. and Canada. The project has published a 17-article symposium including the consensus paper, which appears in the Summer '08 issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. 'Neglected infections of poverty' in US disable hundreds of thousands of Americans annually An analysis published June 25th in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases highlights that diseases very similar to those plaguing Africa, Asia, and Latin America are also occurring frequently among the poorest people in the United States, especially women and children. These diseases — the "neglected infections of poverty" — are caused by chronic and debilitating parasitic, bacterial, and congenital infections. ... |