Applied Sciences
PNNL’s concentrating solar power system reduces greenhouse emissions — at a price that’s competitive with fossil fuel power.
| 3 min read
NEW ORLEANS, April 11, 2013 — Stepping into unexplored territory in efforts to use corn stalks, grass and other non-food plants to make biofuels, scientists today described the discovery of a potential treasure-trove of candidate enzymes in fungi thriving in the feces and intestinal tracts of horses.
| 3 min read
Fear of public speaking tops death and spiders as the nation's number one phobia. But new research shows that learning to rethink the way we view our shaky hands, pounding heart, and sweaty palms can help people perform better both mentally and physically.
| 3 min read
Surgical robots could make some types of surgery safer and more effective, but proving that the software controlling these machines works as intended is problematic. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have demonstrated that methods for reliably detecting software bugs and ultimately verifying software safety can be applied successfully to this breed of robot.
| 3 min read
Marking the culmination of a three-year, multiphase process, a 26-state consortium has released the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a detailed description of the key scientific ideas and practices that all students should learn by the time they graduate from high school.
| 2 min read
Women receive 55 percent of awards this year, their highest ever; 28 fellowships went to veterans.
| 2 min read
NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) recently announced its partnership with four of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) laboratories: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories.
| 4 min read
Sandia National Laboratories is developing a suite of complementary technologies to help the emerging algae industry detect and quickly recover from algal pond crashes, an obstacle to large-scale algae cultivation for future biofuels.
| 2 min read
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) renewed their mutual cooperation and signed a five-year, inter-academy agreement to use their expertise in science, engineering, and medicine to jointly address their countries' most pressing challenges.
| 1 min read
Maybe the boss' staff meeting shouldn't be such a boring snooze, but rather a more structured event to improve the performance of the team, new basic research at The University of Alabama in Huntsville indicates.
| 5 min read
The shrinking size and increasing capacity of batteries in the past few decades has made possible devices that have transformed everyday life. But small isn't the only frontier for battery technology.
| 4 min read
Catalysis may initiate almost all modern industrial manufacturing processes, but catalytic activity on solid surfaces is poorly understood. This is especially true for the cellulase enzymes used to release fermentable sugars from cellulosic biomass for the production of advanced biofuels.
| 4 min read
