Futurity.org » University of California at Berkeley

Team taps viruses to make electricity

Dan Krotz-UC Berkeley — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:24:13 +0000

UC BERKELEY (US) — Scientists have developed a way to generate power using harmless viruses that convert mechanical energy into electricity.

The scientists tested their approach by creating a generator that produces enough current to operate a small liquid-crystal display. It works by tapping a finger on a postage stamp-sized electrode coated with specially engineered viruses. The viruses convert the force of the tap into an electric charge.

‘Faulty’ computer chip is 15x more efficient

Jade Boyd-Rice — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:34:03 +0000

RICE (US) — Researchers have created an “inexact” computer chip that’s super efficient, challenging the industry’s 50-year pursuit of accuracy.

The design improves power and resource efficiency by allowing for occasional errors. Scientists unveiled prototypes this week at the ACMInternational Conference on Computing Frontiers in Cagliari, Italy.

In wine country, trout struggle to survive

Sarah Yang-Berkeley — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:45:57 +0000

UC BERKELEY (US) — The competition between farmers and fish for precious water is intensifying in California.

A new study by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, links higher death rates for threatened juvenile steelhead trout with low water levels in the summer and the amount of vineyard acreage upstream.

Smartphones in tow, robots take a swim

Sarah Yang-Berkeley — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:41:50 +0000

UC BERKELEY (US) — Researchers recently launched a fleet of 100 smartphone-equipped robots into California’s Sacramento River to get an unprecedented look at how water flows.

The Floating Sensor Network project offers a network of mobile sensors that can be deployed rapidly to provide real-time, high-resolution data in hard-to-map waterways. A recent field test, organized by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, illustrated how the water-monitoring technology could transform the way government agencies monitor water resources.

Compassion may motivate faithful less

Yasmin Anwar-UC Berkeley — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:16:53 +0000

UC BERKELEY (US) — The highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics, and less religious people, according to new research.

In three experiments, social scientists found that compassion consistently drove less religious people to be more generous.

For highly religious people, however, compassion was largely unrelated to how generous they were, according to the findings, which are published in the most recent online issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

‘Text therapy’ may ease isolation

Yasmin Anwar-UC Berkeley — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:03:43 +0000

UC BERKELEY (US) — As part of cognitive behavioral therapy, receiving text messages can make people feel less isolated.

Text messaging often gets a bad rap for contributing to poor spelling and high-risk behavior such as reckless driving. But Adrian Aguilera, a social welfare professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has found an upside to texting, especially for people who feel stressed out, isolated, and alone.

Aguilera, a clinical psychologist who treats many low-income Latinos for depression and other mental disorders, says his patients report feeling more connected and cared for when they receive text messages asking them to track their moods, reflect on positive interactions, and take their prescribed medications.

‘Math Fever’ game is prep for epidemics

Donna Hesterman-Florida — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:21:50 +0000

U. FLORIDA / UC BERKELEY (US) — What seems like a macabre game of tag is actually an innovative tool for understanding how infectious diseases move through a population.

University of Florida biologist Juliet Pulliam is among an international team of scientists who teach a workshop annually in South Africa that helps epidemiologists improve mathematical models they use to study outbreaks of diseases like cholera, AIDS, and malaria.

Pulliam and colleague Steve Bellan from the University of California Berkeley created the game in 2010 as a teaching aid for the workshop. The exercise has proven so effective in demonstrating concepts in epidemiology that a discussion of the game is presented in the April 3 edition of the journal PLoS Biology.

South Pole Telescope hunts down dark energy

Steve Koppes-Chicago — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:56:34 +0000

U. CHICAGO (US) — Astronomers are beginning to unravel the modern mystery of dark energy based on data from the South Pole Telescope.

Recent analysis offers new support for the widely accepted explanation of dark energy, the source of the mysterious force that is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Millions of germs fly when you enter the room

Eric Gershon-Yale — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:20:00 +0000

YALE (US) — A person’s mere presence in a room can add 37 million bacteria to the air every hour, a new study finds.

The bacterial material is largely left behind by previous occupants and stirred up from the floor when someone enters.

Cosmic effect pinpoints velocity in space

Morgan Kelly-Princeton — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:47:01 +0000

PRINCETON (US) — A cosmic effect could help measure the velocity of objects in the distant universe, and clarify the nature of dark energy and dark matter.

A large research team from two major astronomy surveys reports in a paper submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters that scientists detected the movement of distant galaxy clusters via the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (kSZ) effect, which has never before been seen.