Theoretical physicists at Rice University are living on the edge as they study the astounding properties of graphene. In a new study, they figure out how researchers can fracture graphene nanoribbons to get the edges they need for applications.

One of the reasons solar cells are not used more widely is cost—the materials used to make them most efficient are expensive. Engineers are exploring ways to print solar cells from inks, but the devices don't work as well.

A research team led by North Carolina State University has developed a new technique for determining the role that a material's structure has on the efficiency of organic solar cells, which are candidates for low-cost, next generation solar power. The researchers have used the technique to determine that materials with a highly organized structure at the nanoscale are not more efficient at creating free electrons than poorly organized structures – a finding which will help guide future research and development efforts.

With its high electrical conductivity and optical transparency, indium tin oxide is one of the most widely used materials for touchscreens, plasma displays, and flexible electronics. But its rapidly escalating price has forced the electronics industry to search for other alternatives.

Microsoft didn't use skydivers or stunt cyclists to introduce what it hopes will be the next big leap in computing technology. Instead, with its new HoloLens headset, the company is offering real-world examples to show how you might use three-dimensional digital images—or holograms—in daily life.

Workers in all industries know by now that having a "desk" job might have its perks but frequent exercise is not one of them. Ample warnings from health experts have been headlined in the press reminding workers that in their typical work days, their muscles may be burning less fat and blood flowing more sluggishly while they stay rooted in their chairs. Small wonder that technology futurists are pointing to the potential in technology solutions that can be seamlessly built into the physical world with "smart" furniture that supports physical fitness. One new star performer is a company called StirWorks.

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers has developed a new tool to help plot the future of solar fuels.

A teleportation machine system this week caught the attention of tech writers this week, including John Biggs, East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. The system involves units of off-the-shelf 3D printers extended with a 3-axis milling machine, camera, and a microcontroller for encryption, decryption and transmission. Users place an object into the sender unit, enter the address of a receiver unit and press the teleport button. The sender unit digitizes the original object layer-by-layer, shaving off material using the milling machine, takes a photo using the camera, encrypts the layer using the public key of the receiver, and sends it. The receiving unit decrypts the layer and starts printing right away. So the object sent by one person is destroyed and reassembled elsewhere.

Apple CEO Tim Cook got a hefty cash bonus that brought his total compensation to $9.2 million last year. That's more than double what he received the previous year, as the company enjoyed a surge in sales and profit fueled by the popularity of its new, over-sized iPhone 6 models.

China is blocking VPN services that let users skirt online censorship of popular websites such as Google and Facebook amid a wider crackdown on online information, tech companies and specialists said Friday.

Online storage provider Box has wrapped up its long-delayed IPO at $14 per share, setting up a test of investors' appetite for a rapidly growing technology company that hasn't proven it can make money.

A European entrepreneur who challenged the right of US authorities to regulate small drones has settled his case with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), his lawyer said Thursday.

A new technology invented at the University of Arizona offers a positive environmental impact by slowing the evaporation of water from bodies of water such as mining tailings ponds and reservoirs, while simultaneously generating solar energy.

Expanding customer access to energy data can bring cleaner, more efficient power to Californians, save money and boost emerging clean technologies, according to a new report by the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative, a partnership between the UCLA School of Law's Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and UC Berkeley School of Law's Center for Law, Energy and the Environment. Greater access to the data can also help the state meet the ambitious environmental goals recently outlined by Gov. Jerry Brown in his fourth inaugural address.

To overcome the problem of interference between wireless networks, a doctoral student at EPFL has developed an algorithm that automatically selects the best frequency band according to the usage of neighboring networks. This system increases the initial capacity of the data path by up to seven times.

The hype around the next generation of Windows reached a new high this week with the Windows 10 Preview, held at Microsoft's Redmond HQ in the US.

Fuel prices may be at historic lows at the moment but when they rise again, what is the best strategy to save money at the bowser?

Pioneering new research could pave the way for solar energy to be converted into household electricity more cheaply than ever before.

The Dutch government on Friday approved large-scale testing of self-driving cars and trucks on public roads, saying the technology could greatly reduce traffic jams and improve road safety.

Cloud storage startup Box soared in its Wall Street debut Friday after a public share offering, pushing its market value to $2.7 billion.

Expedia said Friday it is buying rival Travelocity in a $280 million deal merging two of the largest online travel operators.

Bowing to privacy concerns, the Obama administration reversed itself Friday, scaling back the release of consumers' personal information from the government's health insurance website to private companies with a commercial interest in the data.

The F/A-18 Super Hornet infrared search and track (IRST) system, developed and integrated by Boeing [NYSE: BA] and Lockheed Martin, received approval from the U.S. Navy to enter low-rate initial production.

A bubbly shopping guide, a charitable "internetainerpreneur" and a comedian who wears green lipstick and eats ladles of cinnamon quizzed US President Barack Obama Thursday in a series of unorthodox YouTube presidential interviews.

Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing's flagship company said Friday it's offering about $15 billion for the British business of European mobile phone operator Telefonica.

Ice hockey fans will get a new perspective on the fast-moving game when National Hockey League players don GoPro cameras, starting with this weekend's all-star fixture.

A new procedure can quickly and efficiently increase the length of human telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that are linked to aging and disease, according to scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

A single gene that coordinates a network of about 400 genes involved in epilepsy could be a target for new treatments, according to research.

Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Huntington's or Parkinson's are caused by defect and aggregated proteins accumulating in brain nerve cells that are thereby paralyzed or even killed. In healthy cells this process is prevented by an enzyme complex known as the proteasome, which removes and recycles obsolete and defective proteins. Recently, researchers in the team of Wolfgang Baumeister at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich were the first to observe and structurally characterize proteasomes at work inside healthy brain cells. "When we saw the proteasomes on our screen, we were immediately aware of the major importance of the results", remembers Shoh Asano, first author of the study. The study has now been published in the journal Science.

High brain iron levels have been associated with neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Even healthy adults have higher iron concentrations in their brains as they age. But just how environmental factors, including diet, influence iron levels in the brain has not been well understood.

(Medical Xpress)—A team of researchers working in Sweden has found that one bird species suffers from a shortened life span when infected by the malaria virus. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes how they examined data from various studies of the great reed warbler, which occurred over a 25 year period, and what they found in doing so.

Want to ace that test tomorrow? Here's a tip: Put down the coffee and hit the sack.

To control one's dreams and to live out there what is impossible in real life - a truly tempting idea. Some persons - so-called lucid dreamers -can do this. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich have discovered that the brain area which enables self-reflection is larger in lucid dreamers. Thus, lucid dreamers are possibly also more self-reflecting when being awake.

A revolutionary device has been shown to significantly lower blood pressure among patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure, compared to those treated with usual drug measures - according to research from Queen Mary University of London and published in The Lancet.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) include actions individuals can take to reduce disease spread, such as hand washing and minimizing contacts with sick people. These can play a key role in reducing the spread of infectious diseases such as influenza, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Infectious Diseases.

Thyroid disease can have significant effects on a woman's reproductive health and screening for women presenting with fertility problems and recurrent early pregnancy loss should be considered, suggests a new review published today (23 January) in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG).

Studying the brain activity of blind people, scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are challenging the standard view of how the human brain specializes to perform different kinds of tasks, and shedding new light on how our brains can adapt to the rapid cultural and technological changes of the 21st Century.

The evidence to date suggests that up to 1% of all children in the UK have blood markers for coeliac disease, an autoimmune reaction to dietary gluten from wheat, barley, and rye.

California is battling a surge of measles cases clustered around the famous Disneyland theme park, despite the virus being all but eliminated in the United States, authorities said Thursday.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are 26,000 stillbirths in the United States each year. Stillbirth is defined as a fetal death that occurs any time after 20 weeks of pregnancy until date of birth.

When patients undergo surgery, there is a doctor in the operating room – the anesthesiologist – whose job is a mystery to many of them, according to new research by a Rutgers physician. That is unfortunate, the researcher says, because if patients had a better sense of what this doctor does, it would improve the chances that their surgery will be both successful and more comfortable.

New global estimates for herpes simplex virus type 2 show that over 400-million people worldwide were infected with the virus in 2012. The estimates underline the extent to which herpes simplex virus type 2 – the virus which causes genital herpes – is widespread throughout the world causing a significant burden of disease. The research, led by University of Bristol academics and the World Health Organisation [WHO], is published in the journal PLOS ONE.

UA researchers have identified a molecular defect in motor neurons that may help explain the mechanisms underlying ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease.

The recommendation that adults should get 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week may be too ambitious for many middle-aged and older adults. That's one key recommendation from physical activity and health experts in the United States and Australia who published a paper this week in the British Medical Journal.

Daytime naps may hold the key to treating insomnia, Flinders University researchers believe.

The adaptive immune system has the ability to 'remember' a given pathogen or cancer cell by producing memory T cells that can mount a rapid counterattack against future threats. The innate immune system, on the other hand, is seen as more of a blunt instrument, only capable of launching a broad defensive response against potential invaders. A research team led by Shin-Ichiro Fujii and colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences has now identified a population of innate immune cells that display the attributes of memory cells and which may help keep tumor growth at bay.

Sexual preferences are not set in stone and can change over time, often depending on the immediate situation the individual is in. This has been described as sexual fluidity. For example, if someone identifies as heterosexual but then finds themselves in an environment with only people of the same gender, they might feel increased sexual or romantic attraction to those same-gender partners. Like any other social trait, sexual preferences, attitudes, behaviours and identity can be flexible to some degree.

The brain's alphabet is a mix of rate and precise timing of electrical pulses: the observation was made by researchers at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste and the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) of Rovereto, and has been published in the international journal Current Biology. The study shows that the nervous system features a "multichannel" language that makes up the neural code, or the alphabet that processes information in the brain.

How can our immune system defend us against aggressors so diverse such as viruses, parasites, fungi and tumours? The secret lies in the large number of clones of T and B lymphocytes, each of which expresses a particular specific receptor. Until a few years ago, deciphering the complexity of this vast repertoire was considered impossible. A "Rosetta stone," or a key for decoding, was missing in order to "translate" and understand this "language" in all its complexity. Today, thanks to the development of new methods for DNA sequencing (Next Generation Sequencing, NGS), it is possible to obtain millions of sequences that represent the "identity card" of T lymphocytes. But how is it possible to use this data to trace back to the specificity of the single clones, and how can we understand their function?

An international team of scientists together with the University of Bonn Hospital have taken a new path in the research into causes of epilepsy: The researchers determined the networks of the active genes and, like a dragnet, looked for the "main perpetrators" using a computer model. In doing so, they discovered the molecule sestrin-3 as a central switch. In animal models, the scientists were able to demonstrate that inhibition of sestrin-3 leads to a reduction in seizures. The results are now being presented in the renowned journal Nature Communications.

It might be a lucky pair of socks, or a piece of jewelry; whatever the item, many people turn to a superstition or lucky charm to help achieve a goal. For instance, you used a specific avatar to win a game and now you see that avatar as lucky. Superstitions are most likely to occur under high levels of uncertainty. Eric Hamerman at Tulane University and Carey Morewedge at Boston University have determined that people are more likely to turn to superstitions to achieve a performance goal versus a learning goal. Their research is published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit have identified a gene that may offer a better understanding of how keloid scars develop and potentially open the door to improved treatment for the often painful, itchy and tender scars.

Numerous studies have shown that socioeconomic factors play a major role in students' success in kindergarten. Children whose parents are more educated and have better jobs and higher incomes tend to have stronger math and reading skills than their peers.

If you think that Ebola is bad – and it is – the current outbreak in West Africa is small compared with another deadly epidemic that engulfed much of the globe centuries ago. It is realistic to estimate that during the Middle Ages, plague – also known as the Black Death – wiped out 40 to 60 percent of the population in large areas of Europe, Africa and Asia, according to Nükhet Varlik, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark.

The first large prospective cohort study to examine the relationship between menopausal symptoms and bone health in postmenopausal women has found that those who experience moderate to severe hot flashes and night sweats during menopause tend to have lower bone mineral density and higher rates of hip fracture than peers with no menopausal symptoms.

(HealthDay)—For patients with clinically suspected deep vein thrombosis (DVT), systematic imaging of both legs has a very low yield, according to a study published online Jan. 20 in the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

(HealthDay)—Four factors have been identified that affect quality of life from the perspective of people with dementia. The findings were published in the January issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

(HealthDay)—For patients in the developing world, total knee replacement (TKR) increases participation in physical activities in several life domains, according to a study published in the January issue of Arthritis Care & Research.

A recent study may help begin to explain how cancer develops though the abnormal turning on and off of genes. Researchers have discovered that the increase of methyl tags in cancer cells is due to highly efficient DNA methyl transferase 1 (DNMT1) enzymes found in these cells. The findings appear in the Journal of Proteomics and Bioinformatics.

People have a distinctive way of talking to babies and small children: We speak more slowly, using a sing-song voice, and tend to use cutesy words like "tummy". While we might be inclined to think that we talk this way because it is easier for children to understand, new research published in Psychological Science suggests that, surprisingly, mothers may actually speak less clearly to their infants than they do to adults.

(HealthDay)—For patients with diabetes, a self-management-oriented group program (Diabetes Motivation Strengthening [DIAMOS]) is associated with reductions in depressive symptoms, according to a study published online Jan. 20 in Diabetes Care.

(HealthDay)—Utilization patterns indicate that antimicrobial prophylaxis is overused for urological surgeries in the community practice setting, according to research published in the February issue of The Journal of Urology.

(HealthDay)—For some obese women, gestational weight gain (GWG) below that recommended in the current guidelines may be advised to reduce the risk of certain adverse pregnancy outcomes, according to research published online Jan. 18 in Obesity Reviews.

(HealthDay)—For endoluminal procedures relying on barrier protection to avoid contamination, permeability of materials may not always be considered, according to a study published in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Ultrasound.

(HealthDay)—For patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in the Veterans Affairs (VA) system, the variation in one-year risk-adjusted mortality is smaller than variation in risk-standardized costs, according to a study published in the Jan. 27 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

(HealthDay)—Nearly 5 percent of older Medicare beneficiaries seen in the emergency department have a hospital inpatient admission within seven days after discharge, according to a study published in the January issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

A tool designed to assess what interferes with acute heart failure patients' ability to care for themselves after hospital discharge holds promise for improving patient outcomes and reducing readmissions to the hospital. The patient survey, designed by researchers at Vanderbilt University, was published online Tuesday in Annals of Emergency Medicine, along with patient responses that shed light on the non-medical issues that limit patients' ability to care for themselves.

A Wake Forest University study to investigate the effects of acute beetroot juice ingestion on the exercise capacity of COPD patients shows some promise, but a larger clinical trial is needed to verify results.

For patients experiencing non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes (NSTE-ACS), a rapid invasive strategy (within 24 hours) using coronary angiography and other interventions is beneficial for high-risk as well as low-risk patients. However, this treatment may be constrained on weekends by the need to mobilize on-call catheterization teams. A new study published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology evaluated costs associated with an early versus delayed invasive intervention strategy for patients presenting on weekdays and weekends. Investigators determined that early invasive strategy for Canadian NTSE-ACS patients significantly reduced costs, even on weekends, because of resulting shorter length of hospital stays (LOS).

Federal health regulators have approved a second vaccine to prevent a strain of bacteria that can cause deadly cases of meningitis.

Sierra Leone lifted quarantine measures imposed at the height of the Ebola epidemic Friday, as the World Health Organization warned the crisis was still "extremely alarming" despite a drop in new cases.

Ongoing research at Iowa State University is investigating the long-term neurological damage caused by hydrogen sulfide poisoning, a threat to both humans and animals that can originate from sources as varied as swamps to industrial processes to manure pits.

Researchers are exploring new and innovative methods to solve the complex mystery that is the Ebola virus.

The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) among young adults ages 20-39 years has increased during the past 20-30 years, despite declining rates of CRC for the U.S. population overall. This surprising new finding, an analysis of how CRC incidence varies based on race and gender, and differences in tumor location, for young adults compared to the general population are presented in Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology (JAYAO).

Flu season is now peaking. The rate of effectiveness for this year's vaccine has been disappointing, with at least half the states reporting widespread incidence of influenza. Dr. Paul Skolnik, an infectious diseases physician who chairs the Department of Medicine at UConn Health, explains what's happening and what can be done.

When cancer patients take part in a clinical trial to develop new therapies, they and their physicians want to know how they will feel and function during treatment. A new collaboration between Bayer and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center will go straight to the patients to learn how certain investigational new drugs affect them. The project will involve the use of questionnaires to assess how a drug may impact a patient's disease-related symptoms.

There is no licensed vaccine or treatment for Ebola, which has killed more than 8,600 people in West Africa out of more than 21,700 infected since the start of 2014.

Fewer California parents opted out of vaccinations for their children entering kindergarten last year following the adoption of a law that makes it harder to go without the shots, state figures show.

(Phys.org)—Scientists at Rice University and the University of Minnesota have identified synthetic materials that may purify ethanol more efficiently and greatly improve the separation of long-chain hydrocarbons in petroleum refining.

In research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Saint Louis University Mee-Ngan F. Yap, Ph.D., discovered new information about how antibiotics like azithromycin stop staph infections, and why staph sometimes becomes resistant to drugs.