Futurity.org » Vanderbilt University

Top Super Bowl ads, like Young Vader, tell a story

Amy Wolf-Vanderbilt — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:03:12 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — Although shock can create a splash, research shows Super Bowl ads with a storyline score big.

One of the most anticipated commercials of the 2012 Super Bowl is the follow up to last year’s Volkswagen “Young Darth Vader” ad. In the original VW ad, a boy dressed as Darth Vader tries to use ‘The Force’ to raise inanimate household items.

Tiny planet triplets orbit dwarf star

Deborah Williams-Hedges-Caltech — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:55:59 +0000

CALTECH (US) — Astronomers have discovered the three smallest confirmed planets ever detected outside our solar system.

The trio of new planets that are smaller than Earth and appear rocky, orbit a single star too closely to be in its habitable zone—the ring-shaped region around a star where the temperature is mild enough for liquid water, and possibly life, to exist.

Paired nanoribbons boost conductivity

David Salisbury-VU — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:34:13 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — A new way to enhance thermal conductivity may help engineers manage thermal effects in smart phones, computers, and lasers, say researchers.

Deyu Li, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, and colleagues discovered that the thermal conductivity of a pair of thin strips of material called boron nanoribbons can be enhanced by up to 45 percent depending on the process that they used to stick the two ribbons together.

Fastest-ever data transfer: 186 Gbps

Sonia Chernobieff-Caltech — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:18:21 +0000

CALTECH (US) — Researchers have set a new world record for data transfer, helping to usher in the next generation of high-speed network technology.

At the SuperComputing 2011 (SC11) conference in Seattle during mid-November, the international team transferred data in opposite directions at a combined rate of 186 gigabits per second (Gbps) in a wide-area network circuit.

‘Hazard pay’ for sexual harassment

Amy Wolf-Vanderbilt — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:08:47 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — Both men and women workers who are at risk of sexual harassment on the job are paid more for exposure to that risk.

But while women are six times more likely to experience sexual harassment than men, they are paid 25 cents per hour more than workers who are not at risk—compared to men who receive 50 cents per hour more.

Largest ever human-engineered protein

David Salisbury-VU — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:01:05 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — If Guinness World Records had a category for the largest human-designed protein, then a team of Vanderbilt University chemists would have just claimed it.

They have designed and successfully synthesized a variant of a protein that nature uses to manufacture the essential amino acid histidine. It is more than twice the size of the previous record holder, a protein created by researchers at the University of Washington in 2003.

Mind-body reconnect in schizophrenia

David Salisbury-VU — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:59:49 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — People with schizophrenia have a weakened sense of body ownership, a finding that suggests movement therapy may be useful in treating those suffering from the mental disorder.

The experiment, reported in the journal PLoS One, measured the strength of body ownership of 24 schizophrenia patients and 21 matched control subjects by testing their susceptibility to the “rubber hand illusion” or RHI. This tactile illusion, which was discovered in 1998, is induced by simultaneously stroking a visible rubber hand and the subject’s hidden hand.

Fish oil may harm lung injury patients

Bill Snyder-Vanderbilt — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:28:05 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — Lung injury patients who were given a supplement of omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants did not fare better, and in some cases fared worse, than those who did not receive the supplement.

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reports that patients that received the supplements in their enteral nutrition experienced longer stays in intensive care, more days on a ventilator, and a slight increase in mortality than those that received omega-6 fatty acids and carbohydrates.

Brainy robot gets an ‘A’ in biology

David Salisbury-VU — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:16:37 +0000

VANDERBILT / CORNELL (US) — Engineers have demonstrated for the first time that a computer can take raw experimental data and solve a complex biological modeling problem from scratch.

The research is published online in the journal Physical Biology and is a collaboration between John P. Wikswo, professor of living state physics at Vanderbilt University, Michael Schmidt and Hod Lipson at Cornell University, and Jerry Jenkins and Ravishankar Vallabhajosyula at CFD Research Corp. in Huntsville, Ala.

Method maps tiny ‘two-faced’ nanoparticles

David Salisbury-VU — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:41:07 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — Chemists have developed a way to rapidly map the surfaces of tiny particles that possess two chemically distinct faces. Potential applications range from drug delivery to video displays, say researchers.

These particles are named after the two-faced Roman god Janus and their twin chemical faces allow them to form novel structures and new materials. As scientists have reduced the size of Janus particles down to a few nanometers in diameter—that’s about the size of individual proteins, which has the greatest potential for drug therapy—their efforts have been hampered because they haven’t had a way to accurately map the surfaces of the particles they produce.

This uncertainty has made it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of these particles for various applications and to improve the methods researchers are using to produce them.