Cashing in on additive manufacturing

Three-dimensional printing, 3-D printing, has developed steadily over the last three decades or so. It has become, if not commonplace, then more well-known and utilized in wide-ranging industries, it is. It has been something of a long-term technological revolution changing the way low-demand objects are designed and produced. So much so that it is often referred to as additive manufacturing.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-cashing-additive.html

Japan's renewable energy sector seeks carbon-neutral windfall

Japan needs to boost renewable energy by reforming outdated policies on land use and the national grid if it is to meet a new goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, industry players and experts say.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-japan-renewable-energy-sector-carbon-neutral.html

Musk: Apple CEO didn't take meeting about buying Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he once considered selling the electric car maker to Apple, but the iPhone maker's CEO blew off the meeting.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-musk-apple-ceo-didnt-tesla.html

Lyft to offer 60 million free and discounted rides to vaccination sites

Lyft announced it would provide 60 million rides to and from vaccination sites for low-income, uninsured and at-risk communities as vaccines roll out.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-lyft-million-free-discounted-vaccination.html

Can we be manipulated into sharing private info online? Yes, says study

Online users are more likely to reveal private information based on how website forms are structured to elicit data, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have determined.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-private-info-online.html

It's electrifying! This is how Earth could be entirely powered by sustainable energy

Can you imagine a world powered by 100% renewable electricity and fuels? It may seem fantasy, but a collaborative team of scientists has just shown this dream is theoretically possible—if we can garner global buy-in.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-electrifying-earth-powered-sustainable-energy.html

Google, Facebook, coordinated antitrust response: report

Google and Facebook worked together to help fend off an antitrust investigation into the two tech giants which dominate digital advertising, according to a media report citing a draft of a state lawsuit.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-google-facebook-antitrust-response.html

Cornell University to extract energy from manure to meet peak heating demands

Cornell University is developing a system to extract energy from cattle manure to meet the campus's peak demands for heat in the winter months. In the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, scientists involved with the project give a detailed analysis of the issues required to make this work, including scientific, economic, and energy policy considerations.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-cornell-university-energy-manure-peak.html

The first endovascular technology that can explore capillaries

At EPFL, Lucio Pancaldi, a Ph.D. student, and Selman Sakar, an assistant professor, have harnessed hydrokinetic energy (mechanical energy resulting from the motion of liquids) to get an instrument into places in the human body without resorting to invasive methods. "Large proportions of the brain remain inaccessible because the existing tools are unwieldy, and exploring the tiny, intricate cerebral vascular system without causing tissue damage is extremely difficult," says Sakar.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-endovascular-technology-explore-capillaries.html

iPhone again best tech seller of the year, thanks to work-from-home trend

Once again, the best-selling tech product of 2020 was Apple's iPhone—topping the phone's sales in 2019—despite being a pandemic year when so many people were thrown out of work and money was harder to come by.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-iphone-tech-seller-year-work-from-home.html

Groups of bacteria can work together to better protect crops and improve their growth

Certain bacteria, known as plant-growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB), can improve plant health or protect them from pathogens and are used commercially to help crops. To further improve agricultural yields, it is helpful to identify factors that can improve PGPB behavior.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-groups-bacteria-crops-growth.html

Primordial black holes and the search for dark matter from the multiverse

The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) is home to many interdisciplinary projects which benefit from the synergy of a wide range of expertise available at the institute. One such project is the study of black holes that could have formed in the early universe, before stars and galaxies were born.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-primordial-black-holes-dark-multiverse.html

High-speed atomic force microscopy takes on intrinsically disordered proteins

Our understanding of biological proteins does not always correlate with how common or important they are. Half of all proteins, molecules that play an integral role in cell processes, are intrinsically disordered, which means many of the standard techniques for probing biomolecules don't work on them. Now researchers at Kanazawa University in Japan have shown that their home-grown high-speed atomic force microscopy technology can provide information not just on the structures of these proteins but also their dynamics.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-high-speed-atomic-microscopy-intrinsically-disordered.html

Archaeologists create 3-D model of part of the Tepsei archaeological site

Archeologists from Kemerovo State University are exploring the Tepsei site of Minusinsk Basin, located in Krasnoturansky district (Krasnoyarsk region). Their research objective is to describe the culture and history of the site, covering over 27 square kilometers. The territory includes Mount Tepsei (630 m high) and the river valley below. The site has already revealed numerous archeological artifacts, burial grounds, and ancient villages of the Yenisey culture. The local rock art ranges from the Stone Age to ethnographic times and is represented by numerous petroglyphs on rocks, horizontal stone plates, and Tagar burrows.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-archaeologists-d-tepsei-archaeological-site.html

Study suggests link between word choices and extraverts

A study by a team of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) psychologists has found a link between extraverts and their word choices.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-link-word-choices-extraverts.html

New research makes strong case for restoring Hong Kong's lost oyster reefs

New research produced jointly by The Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS), Faculty of Science, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), published recently in the scientific journal Restoration Ecology, shows the enormous potential of restoring lost oyster reefs, bringing significant environmental benefits.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-strong-case-hong-kong-lost.html

Important milestone in the creation of a quantum computer

Quantum computer: One of the obstacles for progress in the quest for a working quantum computer has been that the working devices that go into a quantum computer and perform the actual calculations, the qubits, have hitherto been made by universities and in small numbers. But in recent years, a pan-European collaboration, in partnership with French microelectronics leader CEA-Leti, has been exploring everyday transistors—that are present in billions in all our mobile phones—for their use as qubits. The French company Leti makes giant wafers full of devices, and, after measuring, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, have found these industrially produced devices to be suitable as a qubit platform capable of moving to the second dimension, a significant step for a working quantum computer. The result is now published in Nature Communications.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-important-milestone-creation-quantum.html

Novel method to quantify decomposition of rhizodeposits

Rhizodeposition of labile organic carbon is one of the main pathways linking above- and below-ground biota to affect soil carbon cycling. Rhizodeposition is also a strategic physiological process for plants to cope with environmental stress, such as nutrient deficiency and drought, via the interaction with microbes. Nevertheless, separating decomposition of rhizodeposit carbon from root respiration in intact plant-soil systems has not yet been achieved due to methodological limitations, even though rhizosphere respiration has been intensively investigated.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-method-quantify-decomposition-rhizodeposits.html

Chinese astronomers discover 591 high-velocity stars with LAMOST and Gaia

A research team, led by astronomers from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), has discovered 591 high velocity stars based on data from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) and Gaia, and 43 of them can even escape from the Galaxy.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-chinese-astronomers-high-velocity-stars-lamost.html

New quantum nanodevice can simultaneously act as a heat engine and a refrigerator

A multitasking nanomachine that can act as a heat engine and a refrigerator at the same time has been created by RIKEN engineers. The device is one of the first to test how quantum effects, which govern the behavior of particles on the smallest scale, might one day be exploited to enhance the performance of nanotechnologies.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-quantum-nanodevice-simultaneously-refrigerator.html

Neurologists say there is no medical justification for police use of neck restraints

Some police departments in the United States continue to teach officers that neck restraints are a safe method for controlling agitated or aggressive people, but that's a dangerous myth, according to a Viewpoint written by three neurologists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in JAMA Neurology.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-neurologists-medical-justification-police-neck.html

Big bumblebees learn locations of best flowers

Big bumblebees take time to learn the locations of the best flowers, new research shows.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-big-bumblebees.html

Faster, greener way of producing carbon spheres

A fast, green and one-step method for producing porous carbon spheres, which are a vital component for carbon capture technology and for new ways of storing renewable energy, has been developed by Swansea University researchers.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-faster-greener-carbon-spheres.html

Chemists and collaborators develop a new drug discovery strategy for "undruggable" drug targets

A research team led by Dr. Xiaoyu Li from the Research Division for Chemistry, Faculty of Science, in collaboration with Professor Yizhou Li from School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chongqing University and Professor Yan Cao from School of Pharmacy, Second Military Medical University in Shanghai has developed a new drug discovery method targeting membrane proteins on live cells.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-chemists-collaborators-drug-discovery-strategy.html

Second Taiwan-born panda cub makes media debut

A second Taiwan-born giant panda made her media debut on Monday, clambering over a wooden climbing frame and playing with sawdust to the sound of clicking cameras.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-taiwan-born-panda-cub-media-debut.html

Discovery boosts theory that life on Earth arose from RNA-DNA mix

Chemists at Scripps Research have made a discovery that supports a surprising new view of how life originated on our planet.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-discovery-boosts-theory-life-earth.html

Ripples in space-time could provide clues to missing components of the universe

There's something a little off about our theory of the universe. Almost everything fits, but there's a fly in the cosmic ointment, a particle of sand in the infinite sandwich. Some scientists think the culprit might be gravity—and that subtle ripples in the fabric of space-time could help us find the missing piece.

source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-ripples-space-time-clues-components-universe.html

China orders Ant Group to return to online payment roots

Chinese fintech giant Ant Group has been ordered by regulators to drastically change its business model and return to its roots as a payment services provider, as the state squeeze continues on the once unbridled empire of tech tycoon Jack Ma.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-china-ant-group-online-payment.html