News Digest : 10 Dec 2014

Get the IT edge : In a crowded technology market, IT professionals need to stand out and here's how you can do just that…

Ahmedabad Mirror | 5 Dec 2014

For more than two decades, the Indian IT industry has moved at an astonishing rate. India already has nearly 2.75 million software developers, according to recent estimates, and by 2018, this is expected to be over five million. The outcome of this influx is that many technology skills that once were hard to find are now available in abundance. Also, advances in technology are happening at an accelerated rate, thus rapidly pushing existing technology skills and capabilities into obsolescence. Read More

Life's first spark recreated in a lab

Ahmedabad Mirror | 10 Dec 2014

Researchers have used a laser, clay and chemical soup to successfully recreate the building blocks of life. Giving credibility to the theory that life on Earth might have begun after a an asteroid struck the planet. Scientists in a lab used a powerful laser to re-create what might have been the original spark of life on Earth. Researchers zapped clay and a chemical soup with the laser to simulate the energy of a speeding asteroid smashing into the planet. They ended up creating what can be considered crucial pieces of the building blocks of life. Read More

Microwaves can turn muck into aluminium

Ahmedabad Mirror | 09 Dec 2014

Researchers have devised a way to use microwaves to turn aluminium-laminated plastic waste into aluminium for smelting and hydrocarbons for fuel in just three minutes. It started with a bacon roll and a microwave oven, and now it’s poised to transform the recycling of a packaging material that has been as unrecyclable as it is useful. The bacon roll, as the story goes, was microwaved for so long it turned into a charred mass of carbon that began to glow red-hot. What was happening was an intense heating process called microwave-induced pyrolysis. Read More

Computers to use light instead of wires for data

Ahmedabad Mirror | 09 Dec 2014

Stanford engineers have inched closer to developing faster and more efficient computers that use light instead of wires to carry data. Researchers have designed and built a prism-like device that can split a beam of light into different colours and bend the light at right angles. The development could eventually lead to computers that use optics, rather than electricity, to carry data. Read More

Device tests for HIV sans electricity

Ahmedabad Mirror | 06 Dec 2014

Researchers have created an HIV test that uses a chemical reaction instead of electricity. Rural docs can also use device to check for malaria and TB. Diagnosing HIV and other infectious diseases presents unique challenges in remote locations that lack electric power, refrigeration, and appropriately trained health care staff. Read More

New technique could harvest more of the sun's energy

As solar panels become less expensive and capable of generating more power, solar energy is becoming a more commercially viable alternative source of electricity. However, the photovoltaic cells now used to turn sunlight into electricity can only absorb and use a small fraction of that light, and that means a significant amount of solar energy goes untapped. A new technology represents a first step toward harnessing that lost energy. Read More

Warmer Pacific Ocean could release millions of tons of seafloor methane

Water off Washington's coast is warming a third of a mile down, where seafloor methane shifts from a frozen solid to a gas. Calculations suggest ocean warming is already releasing significant methane offshore of Alaska to Northern California. Read More

Computers that teach by example

New computer system enables pattern-recognition systems to convey what they learn to humans. Computers are good at identifying patterns in huge data sets. Humans, by contrast, are good at inferring patterns from just a few examples. Researchers have developed a new system that bridges these two ways of processing information, so that humans and computers can collaborate to make better decisions. Read More

New technique allows low-cost creation of 3-D nanostructures

Researchers have developed a new lithography technique that uses nanoscale spheres to create 3-D structures with biomedical, electronic and photonic applications. The new technique is less expensive than conventional methods and does not rely on stacking two-dimensional patterns to create 3-D structures. Read More

New model to detect aggressive driving

Researchers have developed a system capable of detecting patterns of reckless driving behavior with non intrusive methods for the driver. Read More

Wetlands more vulnerable to invasives as climate changes

Changing water temperatures, rainfall patterns and seasonal river flows linked to global warming may give invasive wetland plants a slight but significant competitive edge over less adaptable native species, according to a groundbreaking three-year field study conducted at 24 riparian wetland sites in the US Southeast. Read More

Abandoned wells can be 'super-emitters' of greenhouse gas

Researchers have uncovered a previously unknown, and possibly substantial, source of the greenhouse gas methane to the Earth's atmosphere. After testing a sample of abandoned oil and natural gas wells in northwestern Pennsylvania, the researchers found that many of the old wells leaked substantial quantities of methane. Because there are many abandoned wells nationwide, the researchers believe the overall contribution of leaking wells could be significant. Read More

Roll-to-roll process improves viability of spray on solar cells

Researchers in Canada believe they’ve made a significant advance toward making spray-on solar cells easier and more economical to manufacture. Illan Kramer and colleagues at the University of Toronto said they have made the breakthrough by devising a new way to spray solar cells onto flexible surfaces using miniscule, light-sensitive colloidal quantum dots (CQDs). Read More

Shetland Composites to construct tidal turbine blades

Shetland glass-reinforced plastic technology developer Shetland Composites is to expand manufacturing capacity at its existing production facility in order to construct tidal turbine blades. The company plans to create a new business that will build on its work constructing fibreglass wave and tidal energy prototypes. Read More