news 2010

Medicine/Pharmacology - Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 16.04
How common is off-label drug prescription?
McGill team examines the practice of prescribing medications for indications that have not received regulatory approval from Health Canada A new McGill University study evaluating off-label prescribing of medications by primary care physicians in Quebec suggests the practice is common, although it varies by medication, patient and physician characteristics.

Electroengineering/Microtechnics - Physics/Astronomy - 7.12.2011
Researchers develop one of the world’s smallest electronic circuits
Discovery is of a fundamental interest for the development of future electronics A team of scientists, led by Guillaume Gervais from McGill's Physics Department and Mike Lilly from Sandia National Laboratories, has engineered one of the world's smallest electronic circuits.

Electroengineering/Microtechnics - Chemistry - 22.11.2011
Blocked holes can enhance rather than stop light going through, engineers find
by Steven Schultz Conventional wisdom would say that blocking a hole would prevent light from going through it, but Princeton University engineers have discovered the opposite to be true. A research team has found that placing a metal cap over a small hole in a metal film does not stop the light at all, but rather enhances its transmission.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 13.07.2011
College of Medicine receives additional funding from Gates Foundation
Hershey, Pa. - Penn State College of Medicine announced Wednesday (July 13) that it will receive additional funding through Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that enables researchers worldwide to test unorthodox ideas that address persistent health and development challenges.

Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 5.07.2011
With a simple coating, nanowires show a dramatic increase in efficiency and sensitivity
You are here: Home - News & Events - Press Releases - With a simple coating, nanowires show a dramatic increase in efficiency and sensitivity Development holds promise for photodetectors and energy harvesting applications like solar cells By applying a coating to individual silicon nanowires, researchers at Harvard and Berkeley have significantly improved the materials? efficiency and sensitivity.

Chemistry - Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 13.06.2011
How to choose a catalyst
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - MIT researchers have found a new way to predict which materials will perform best as catalysts for oxygen reduction, a core process in metal air batteries and fuel cells, opening up the possibility of faster and more effective development of new high-efficiency, low-cost energy-storage technologies.

Physics/Astronomy - Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 14.04.2011
New spin on graphene
Scientists including an MIT physics professor have found a way to make wonder material graphene magnetic, opening up a new range of opportunities for the world's thinnest material in the area of spintronics.

Physics/Astronomy - Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 2.11.2010
Unique duality: Princeton-led team discovers 'exotic' superconductor with metallic surface
A new material with a split personality - part superconductor, part metal - has been observed by a Princeton University-led research team. The discovery may have implications for the development of next-generation electronics that could transform the way information is stored and processed.  The new material - a crystal called a topological superconductor - has two electronic identities at once.

Physics/Astronomy - Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 30.03.2010
Large Hadron Collider Shatters Particles and World Record
On March 30, physicists in Geneva successfully smashed together two proton beams energized with seven trillion electron volts, breaking the previous world record by 350 percent and setting the stage for new insights into the forces of nature and full dimensions of space.

Electroengineering/Microtechnics - Computer Science/Telecom - 24.03.2010
A system that’s worth its salt
Potable water is often in high demand and short supply following a natural disaster like the Haiti earthquake or Hurricane Katrina. In both of those instances, the disaster zones were near the sea, but converting salty seawater to potable fresh water usually requires a large amount of dependable electrical power and large-scale desalination plants — neither of which were available in the disaster areas.

Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 9.05
Portable diagnostics designed to be shaken, not stirred
As medical researchers and engineers try to shrink diagnostics to fit in a person's pocket, one question is how to easily move and mix small samples of liquid. "This allows us to move drops as far as we want, and in any kind of layout that we want," said Karl Böhringer , a UW professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering.

Physics/Astronomy - Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 2.04
South Pole Telescope data shedding light on dark energy
Results provide fresh support for Einstein's cosmological constant Analysis of data from the 10-meter South Pole Telescope is providing new support for the most widely accepted explanation of dark energy, the source of the mysterious force that is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Physics/Astronomy - Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 15.02
Plasmas Torn Apart
January saw the biggest solar storm since 2005, generating some of the most dazzling northern lights in recent memory. The source of that storm—and others like it—was the sun's magnetic field, described by invisible field lines that protrude from and loop back into the burning ball of gas.

Electroengineering/Microtechnics - Physics/Astronomy - 6.02
First materials developed for new high-speed-electronic optical fibers
For the first time, a group of chemists, physicists and engineers has developed crystalline materials that allow an optical fiber to have integrated, high-speed electronic functions. The potential applications of such optical fibers include improved tele and other hybrid optical and electronic technologies, improved laser technology, and more-accurate remote-sensing devices.

Electroengineering/Microtechnics - 29.11.2011
A smarter way to make ultraviolet light beams
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Existing coherent ultraviolet light sources are power hungry, bulky and expensive. University of Michigan researchers have found a better way to build compact ultraviolet sources with low power consumption that could improve information storage, microscopy and chemical analysis.