news 2018

Highlights: > Harvard researchers have demonstrated the longest-lasting high-performance organic flow battery to date. > Nicknamed the Methuselah quinone - after the longest-lived Biblical figure - this molecule could usefully store and release energy many tens of thousands of times over multi-year periods > The new chemistry has both long-term stability and comes in at more than one volt, making it the first organic-based flow battery that meets all of the technical criteria for practical implementation.

UC Berkeley associate professor of architecture Ronald Rael's " Cabin of Curiosities" is a livable, water-tight structure in Oakland that was unveiled in May of 2018. With succulents growing off the exterior walls and a translucent interior, the cabin catches the eye and inspires wonder. What makes the structure truly unique, however, is not its beauty, but the fact that nearly every element of the cabin was constructed out of 3D-printed materials.

A new system for monitoring fetal movements in the womb, developed by Imperial researchers, could make keeping an eye on high-risk pregnancies easier. Our device is the first to use acoustic sensors to detect movements. Dr Niamh Nolan Department of Bioengineering Monitoring the movements of babies in the womb is crucial to providing medical help when it's needed.

A new form of solar-powered supercapacitor could help make future wearable technologies lighter and more energy-efficient, scientists say.‌ In a paper published in the journal Nano Energy, researchers from the University of Glasgow's Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies (BEST) group describe how they have developed a promising new type of graphene supercapacitor, which could be used in the next generation of wearable health sensors.

Researchers from Cardiff University are piloting a new system that uses ammonia as an energy storage solution. A £1.5m 'world-first' proof-of-concept demonstrator has been opened at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Harwell, Oxfordshire to test the next-generation technology. Its aim is to create a brand new sustainable system that can generate and use power when required, whilst efficiently storing energy in the form of ammonia when the demand for, or price, of electricity is low.

New federal restrictions on the temporary H-1B visa, which allows high-skilled foreign workers to be employed by U.S. companies, have increased debate on the economic impacts of the program, but little is known about its effect on product innovation—until now. New research from the University of California San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy shows that hiring high-skilled workers from abroad may have a meaningful impact on the birth of new products and phasing out of older ones, with implications on both firm profits and consumer welfare.

Explore the future of apartment living: The University of Sydney undertakes new research into housing needs and reveals an exciting apartment prototype that allows residents to adapt internal space to suit their living needs. The University of Sydney 's Innovation in Applied Design Lab at the School of Architecture, Design and Planning has undertaken a complex multi-year project in collaboration with Lendlease to deliver the Innovation in Multi-Storey Housing Project.

The struggle to shape the experiences young people have online is now part of modern parenthood. As children and teenagers spend increasing amounts of time online, a significant share of parents and guardians now use Internet filtering tools (such as parental controls) to protect their children from accessing sexual material online.

University of Nottingham research into the out-of-hours workloads of UK hospital doctors has informed a new safe staffing report, released today (Friday 13 July) by the Royal College of Physicians. Doctors on out-of-hours shifts work in stressful environments, performing complex tasks which are difficult to prioritise.

As manufacturing shifts towards smart factories, with interconnected production systems and automation, engineers at the University of Nottingham are leading a £1.9m project to develop a predictive toolkit to optimise productivity and communication between human workers and robots. DigiTOP is one of seven national projects to create novel digital tools, techniques and processes to support the translation of digital capabilities into the manufacturing sector, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Researchers have made a breakthrough in more precisely targeting drugs to cancers. Using ultrasound and lipid drug carriers (liposomes), a multi-disciplinary team of biomedical engineers, oncologists, radiologists and anaesthetists at the University of Oxford have developed a new way to improve the targeting of cancer drugs to tumours.

TU Wien has succeeded in shaping terahertz beams with extremely high precision. All that is needed for this is a simple plastic screen from a 3D printer. Terahertz radiation can be used for a wide variety of applications and is used today for airport security checks just as much as it is for material analysis in the lab.

Berkeley Lab research scientist Erica Woodburn is developing a new modeling technique that employs a remote sensing technology to understand the effects of climate change on California's water supply. (Credit: Marilyn Chung/Berkeley Lab) Erica Woodburn first fell in love with hydrogeology - the study of the distribution and movement of groundwater - as an undergraduate majoring in geology.

A new Imperial review suggests more work is needed to tackle emissions in easier sectors and the difficult. The new research by Imperial College London and the University of California, Irvine, suggests that though many areas are difficult to decarbonise, solutions using current technology exist for the majority.

Will automation, AI and robotics mean a jobless future, or will their productivity free us to innovate and explore? Is the impact of new technologies to be feared, or a chance to rethink the structure of our working lives and ensure a fairer future for all? If routine cognitive tasks are taken over by AI, how do professions develop their future experts? Stella Pachidi On googling 'will a robot take my job'' I find myself on a BBC webpage that invites me to discover the likelihood that my work will be automated in the next 20 years.

100 times faster broadband is coming: 5G passes first test for indoor coverage at University of Sussex Initial testing on the next generation of mobile technology with the capability of delivering 100 times faster broadband has been successful, engineers at the University of Sussex and collaborators from telecom consultancy firm Plum have confirmed.

Analysis carried out at Cardiff University reveals the full impact of digital technologies on the productivity of businesses. The Economic Impact Report for Wales was carried out at Cardiff Business School's Welsh Economy Research Unit and draws on survey data collected from more than 450 SMEs across Wales.

New research suggests there's a large untapped resource for many of the increasingly water-limited regions of the U.S. and around the world: brackish groundwater, which, in theory at least, would require much less energy to desalinate than seawater. The amount of brackish groundwater in the United States is about 800 times greater than the total amount of groundwater withdrawn nationwide for all uses, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study.

By observing changes in materials as they're being synthesized, scientists hope to learn how they form and come up with recipes for making the materials they need for next-gen energy technologies. Over the last decade, scientists have used supercomputers and advanced simulation software to predict hundreds of new materials with exciting properties for next-generation energy technologies.

The handwritten inventories had lain largely untouched for centuries. Sand used to dry the ink still lay between the pages.