New all-solid sulphur-based battery outperforms lithium-ion technology:
'A new all-solid lithium-sulphur battery developed by an Oak Ridge National Laboratory team led by Chengdu Liang has the potential to reduce cost, increase performance and improve safety compared with existing designs. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulphur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today's electronics.'
Atomic bombs help solve brain mystery:
'The mushroom clouds produced by more than 500 nuclear bomb tests during the Cold War may have had a silver lining, after all. More than 50 years later, scientists have found a way to use radioactive carbon isotopes released into the atmosphere by nuclear testing to settle a long-standing debate in neuroscience: Does the adult human brain produce new neurons? After working to hone their technique for more than a decade, the researchers report that a small region of the human brain involved in memory makes new neurons throughout our lives—a continuous process of self-renewal that may aid learning.'
MRI study shows that breastfeeding boosts babies' brain-growth:
'A study using brain images from "quiet" MRI machines adds to the growing body of evidence that breastfeeding improves brain development in infants. Breastfeeding alone produced better brain development than a combination of breastfeeding and formula, which produced better development than formula alone.'
The wiring in our biological clocks has been mapped:
'The World Health Organization lists shift work as a potential carcinogen, says Erik Herzog, PhD, Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. And that's just one example among many of the troubles we cause ourselves when we override the biological clocks in our brains and pay attention instead to the mechanical clocks on our wrists.
'In the June 5 issue of Neuron, Herzog and his colleagues report the discovery of a crucial part of the biological clock: the wiring that sets its accuracy to within a few minutes out of the 1440 minutes per day. This wiring uses the neurotransmitter, GABA, to connect the individual cells of the biological clock in a fast network that changes strength with time of day.'
'These synchronized networks are very precise, says Herzog. If you let them free-run in constant darkness they will lose or gain only a few minutes out of the 1,440 minutes in a day. So they're accurate to within 1 or 2 percent. But they're ever so slightly off the 24-hour cycle tied to one turn of the planet on its axis. Over time they would drift far enough off that cycle to be of little use to us, unless they also had some means of synchronizing to local time.'
Metal-free catalyst outperforms platinum catalyst:
'Researchers from South Korea, Case Western Reserve University and University of North Texas have discovered an inexpensive and easily produced catalyst that performs better than platinum in oxygen-reduction reactions. The finding, detailed in Nature's Scientific Reports online today, is a step toward eliminating what industry regards as the largest obstacle to large-scale commercialization of fuel-cell technology.'
'A new all-solid lithium-sulphur battery developed by an Oak Ridge National Laboratory team led by Chengdu Liang has the potential to reduce cost, increase performance and improve safety compared with existing designs. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulphur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today's electronics.'
Atomic bombs help solve brain mystery:
'The mushroom clouds produced by more than 500 nuclear bomb tests during the Cold War may have had a silver lining, after all. More than 50 years later, scientists have found a way to use radioactive carbon isotopes released into the atmosphere by nuclear testing to settle a long-standing debate in neuroscience: Does the adult human brain produce new neurons? After working to hone their technique for more than a decade, the researchers report that a small region of the human brain involved in memory makes new neurons throughout our lives—a continuous process of self-renewal that may aid learning.'
MRI study shows that breastfeeding boosts babies' brain-growth:
'A study using brain images from "quiet" MRI machines adds to the growing body of evidence that breastfeeding improves brain development in infants. Breastfeeding alone produced better brain development than a combination of breastfeeding and formula, which produced better development than formula alone.'
The wiring in our biological clocks has been mapped:
'The World Health Organization lists shift work as a potential carcinogen, says Erik Herzog, PhD, Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. And that's just one example among many of the troubles we cause ourselves when we override the biological clocks in our brains and pay attention instead to the mechanical clocks on our wrists.
'In the June 5 issue of Neuron, Herzog and his colleagues report the discovery of a crucial part of the biological clock: the wiring that sets its accuracy to within a few minutes out of the 1440 minutes per day. This wiring uses the neurotransmitter, GABA, to connect the individual cells of the biological clock in a fast network that changes strength with time of day.'
'These synchronized networks are very precise, says Herzog. If you let them free-run in constant darkness they will lose or gain only a few minutes out of the 1,440 minutes in a day. So they're accurate to within 1 or 2 percent. But they're ever so slightly off the 24-hour cycle tied to one turn of the planet on its axis. Over time they would drift far enough off that cycle to be of little use to us, unless they also had some means of synchronizing to local time.'
Metal-free catalyst outperforms platinum catalyst:
'Researchers from South Korea, Case Western Reserve University and University of North Texas have discovered an inexpensive and easily produced catalyst that performs better than platinum in oxygen-reduction reactions. The finding, detailed in Nature's Scientific Reports online today, is a step toward eliminating what industry regards as the largest obstacle to large-scale commercialization of fuel-cell technology.'
