Recent articles in ScienceDaily

• Cold atoms image microwave fields. Microwaves are an essential part of modern communication technology. Mobile phones and laptops, for example, are equipped with integrated microwave circuits for wireless communication. Sophisticated techniques for measurement and characterization of microwave fields are an essential tool for the development of such circuits. A novel technique allows for the direct and complete imaging of microwave magnetic fields with high spatial resolution.
• EEG predicts response to medication for schizophrenia. Engineering and health sciences researchers have applied machine learning to EEG patterns and successfully predicted how patients with schizophrenia would respond to clozapine therapy.
• Medical students open to learning with video games. Today's college students were raised with a digital mouse in their hands. So it should be no surprise that a majority of medical school students surveyed say video games and virtual reality environments could help them become better doctors. For example, a virtual environment could help medical students learn how to interview a patient or run a patient clinic.
• Computer scientists build 'pedestrian remover'. Imagine encountering leashed dogs without dog walkers, or shoes filled just with ankles -- when scoping out potential apartments using Google Street View. These are the sorts of visual hiccups that an experimental computer vision system occasionally generates when it automatically removes individual pedestrians from images that populate Google Street View.
• Gaming for a cure: Computer gamers tackle protein folding. Computer scientists and biochemists two years ago launched an ambitious project harnessing the brainpower of computer gamers to solve medical problems. Results now show more than 55,000 players have played protein-folding Tetris, and beat the world's most powerful computers on problems that required radical moves, risks and long-term vision.
• Thought-controlled prosthetic limb system to be tested on human subjects. Researchers will soon be testing the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) system on human subjects, using a brain-controlled interface. Scientists and engineers developed the underlying technology under an ambitious four-year U.S. government-funded effort to create a prosthetic arm that would by far eclipse the World War II era hook-and-cable device used by most amputees. The program has already produced two complex prototypes, each advancing the art of upper-arm prosthetics.
• Securing critical computer systems begins at the beginning, new report advises. A new report discusses the challenge of maintaining information system security throughout a system's life cycle, and provides an array of practices designed to help mitigate supply chain security risks.
• When screen time becomes a pain. The amount of time teenagers spend in front of TV screens and monitors has been associated with physical complaints. A large study of more than 30,000 Nordic teenagers has shown that TV viewing, computer use and computer gaming (screen time) were consistently associated with back pain and recurrent headaches.
• Can't place that face?. Researchers are trying to understand the mechanisms at work in the face area of the brain called the "fusiform gyrus" by combining cognitive psychology with techniques like brain imaging and electrophysiology. This research may help business executives better match names with faces, and can lead to better facial recognition software to identify terrorists or criminals.
• Talking touchscreens aid patients. Multimedia talking touchscreens, housed in computer kiosks at clinics and hospitals, are helping researchers and clinicians at local health care centers enhance patient-centered care for patients with diverse language, literacy and computer skills.
• Computer game helps nurses master drug calculations. Drug calculations is a very hard course for many nursing students. A specially made computer game, developed in Norway, is set to help them pass a vitally important exam.
• Who gives a tweet? Nuanced feedback for microbloggers. Researchers are launching a study to understand what aspects of Twitter content are considered valuable, and how that impacts presentation and perception of online identity.
• Data sorting world record falls: Computer scientists break terabyte sort barrier in 60 seconds. Computer scientists from the University of California, San Diego broke "the terabyte barrier" -- and a world record -- when they sorted more than one terabyte of data (1,000 gigabytes or 1 million megabytes) in just 60 seconds. During this 2010 "Sort Benchmark" competition -- the "World Cup of data sorting" -- the computer scientists from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering also tied a world record for fastest data sorting rate.
• Invention enables people with disabilities communicate and steer a wheelchair by sniffing. Neurobiologists and electrical engineers have invented a new technology that lets the severely disabled communicate or steer a wheelchair by sniffing. Sniffing is a precise motor skill that is controlled, in part, by the soft palate -- the flexible divider that moves to direct air in or out through the mouth or nose.
• More accurate than Heisenberg allows? Uncertainty in the presence of a quantum memory. Quantum cryptography is the safest way to encrypt data. It utilizes the fact that transmitted information can only be measured with a strictly limited degree of precision. Scientists have now discovered how the use of a quantum memory affects this uncertainty.
• Radical new computer memory? Emergent resistance network suggests mechanism for colossal magnetoresistance. Research has revealed new clues on the microscopic processes by which resistance in certain materials is dramatically altered by the presence of magnetic fields. The discovery provides fundamental insights toward the development of radically new memory and switching devices.
• Position-based quantum cryptography: New method for securing location-sensitive data. Computer scientists have proved that cryptography, the practice and study of hiding information, based solely on location is possible by using quantum mechanics. This allows one to encrypt and decrypt data without pre-sharing any cryptographic keys that can be used to lock and unlock sensitive information. The idea behind location-based cryptography is that only a recipient at a precise geographic location can receive an encrypted message.
• Organic nanoelectronics a step closer. Scientists have effectively discovered a way to order the molecules in the PEDOT, the single most industrially important conducting polymer.
• Virtual reality gives insight on protein structures. To understand a protein, it helps to get inside of it, and a professor has now figured out a way to do so. A new computer software program and projection system lets a person look at larger-than-life, 3-D structures of proteins in virtual reality. This allows scientists to walk inside, through or around the protein of interest for investigating its structure and function.
• Supercomputer reproduces a cyclone's birth, may boost forecasting. Scientists have employed NASA's Pleiades supercomputer and atmospheric data to simulate tropical cyclone Nargis -- with the first model to replicate the formation of the tropical cyclone five days in advance.
• Data mining made faster: New method eases analysis of 'multidimensional' information. To many big companies, you aren't just a customer, but are described by multiple "dimensions" of information within a computer database. Now, a computer scientist has devised a new method for simpler, faster "data mining," or extracting and analyzing massive amounts of such data.
• Poplar tree protein can be used to shrink memory elements and increase computer memory density. Scientists in Israel have succeeded in showing how it is possible to greatly expand the memory capacity of future computers through the use of memory units based on silica nanoparticles combined with protein molecules obtained from the poplar tree.
• Flower organ's cells make random decisions that determine size. The sepals of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana -- commonly known as the mouse-eared cress -- are characterized by an outer layer of cells that vary widely in their sizes, and are distributed in equally varied patterns and proportions. Scientists have long wondered how the plant regulates cell division to create these patterns. Melding time-lapse imaging and computer modeling, a team of scientists has provided a somewhat unexpected answer to this question.
• Computer program predicts MRSA bacteria's next move. Researchers are using computers to identify how one strain of dangerous bacteria might mutate in the same way a champion chess player tries to anticipate an opponent's strategies. The predictive software could result in better drug design to beat antibiotic-resistant mutations.