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Another Advance on the Road to Spintronics

By Guest PostOctober 21, 2012Sciencealbert einstein, alexander gray, analyzer, basis, berkeley lab, charles fadley, computing industry, contamination, data, dilute, electron, electronic structure, energy conversion, energy-efficient, exchange model, facility, ferromagnetic, gallium arsenide, gallium atom, gamnas, harpes, hyogo, jan minar, Japan, jun fujii, kelvin, magnetic atom, magnetic semiconductor, memory architecture, nanoscale device, new technique, p d, peter stone, photoelectric effect, photoemission, photovoltaic cell, processing, room temperature, shigenori ueda, spin, spintronic application, spintronic technology, spring8, storage, surface reaction, synchrotron radiation, xray angle, yoshiyuki yamashita

Berkeley Lab Researchers Unlock Ferromagnetic Secrets of Promising Materials

Spintronic technology, in which data is processed on the basis of electron “spin” rather than charge, promises to revolutionize the computing industry with smaller, faster and more energy efficient data storage and processing. Materials drawing a lot of attention for spintronic applications are dilute magnetic semiconductors – normal semiconductors to which a small amount of magnetic atoms is added to make them ferromagnetic. Understanding the source of ferromagnetism in dilute magnetic semiconductors has been a major road-block impeding their further development and use in spintronics. Now a significant step to removing this road-block has been taken.

A multi-institutional collaboration of researchers led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), using a new technique called HARPES, for Hard x-ray Angle-Resolved PhotoEmission Spectroscopy, has investigated the bulk electronic structure of the prototypical dilute magnetic semiconductor gallium manganese arsenide. Their findings show that the material’s ferromagnetism arises from both of the two different mechanisms that have been proposed to explain it. (more…)

Medication Beliefs Strongly Affect Individuals’ Management of Chronic Diseases, MU Expert Says

By Guest PostOctober 21, 2012Healthalternative, basel, belgium, blood pressure, bottle cap, chronic condition, chronic disease, electronic, fabienne dobbels, heart disease, high, leuven, life, medication, medication regimen, missouri, objective feedback, patient, pill, pilot study, quality, risk, sabina de geest, salt consumption, shortened lifespan, side effect, stroke, switzerland, todd ruppar, treatment, university

Health practitioners should use behavior-change tactics so patients take medications as prescribed

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Nearly half of patients taking medications for chronic conditions do not strictly follow their prescribed medication regimens. Failure to use medications as directed increases patients’ risk for side effects, hospitalizations, reduced quality of life and shortened lifespans. Now, a University of Missouri gerontological nursing expert says patients’ poor adherence to prescribed medication regimens is connected to their beliefs about the necessity of prescriptions and concerns about long-term effects and dependency.

MU Assistant Professor Todd Ruppar found that patients’ beliefs about the causes of high blood pressure and the effectiveness of treatment alternatives significantly affected their likelihood of faithfully following prescribed medication regimens. In his pilot study, Ruppar focused on older patients’ adherence to medication treatments that control high blood pressure, a condition that affects nearly 70 million adults in the U.S. and can lead to heart disease and stroke. (more…)

Why Are Coastal Salt Marshes Falling Apart?

By Guest PostOctober 20, 2012Environmentcoastal salt marshes, eastern seaboard, marsh grass, nutrient enriched marsh, plum island ecosystems, protect coastal cities, salt marsh loss

Too many nutrients can cause extensive loss of marshes

Salt marshes have been disintegrating and dying over the past two decades along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and other highly developed coastlines without anyone fully understanding why. (more…)

How Galaxies Grow Up

By Guest PostOctober 20, 2012Scienceadam block, age, andromeda galaxy, astronomer, benjamin weiner, blue galaxies, california, computer program, computer simulation, deep2, emission line, galaxies, Galaxy, galaxy evolution, galaxy population, galaxy type, gas, grow up, hawaii, internal motion, keck telescopes, lick observatory, light years, m88 galaxy, massive system, Milky Way, mount lemmon, NASA, observational data, random motion, redshift survey, rotation speed, santa cruz, skycenter, spiral disk shape, star forming galaxies, susan kassin, ua, universe, university, velocity

A study of 544 star-forming galaxies shows that disk galaxies like our own Milky Way reached their current state as orderly rotating pinwheels much later than previously thought, long after much of the universe’s star formation had ceased.

Galaxies are in no hurry to grow up, a team of astronomers has discovered. A comprehensive study of hundreds of galaxies observed by the Keck telescopes in Hawaii and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has revealed an unexpected pattern of change that extends back 8 billion years, or more than half the age of the universe.

Researchers say the distant blue galaxies they studied are gradually transforming into rotating disk galaxies like our own Milky Way. Until now, it had not been clear how a galaxy’s organization and internal motion change over time, said Benjamin Weiner, assistant astronomer at the UA Steward Observatory and co-author of the paper describing the findings, which are published in The Astrophysical Journal. (more…)

Diana Davis dances her Ph.D.

By Guest PostOctober 20, 2012Education, Sciencediana davis, graduate student, language of dance, math research, veech surfaces

What if the Ph.D. research becomes too complex for words? Dozens of candidates turned to the language of dance in the fifth annual national contest sponsored by Science Magazine. Diana Davis, a graduate student in mathematics, won the first-ever “Dance Your Ph.D.” prize in pure mathematics. (more…)

Driving Force

By Guest PostOctober 20, 2012Sciencechip scale, couplers, delaware, electronic, fabrication, fiber optics, integration, john wright, michael hochberg, modulators, opsis, optical equivalents, optoelectronic, photonic, photonic circuits, photonics devices, photonics revolution, shuttle runs, silicon, silicon substrate, silicon wafers, startups, system, systems, university, waveguides

UD prof leads photonics revolution to help researchers access high-tech foundry services

Michael Hochberg joined the University of Delaware in the spring of 2012 as an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering.

An industry leader in silicon photonics and large-scale photonic-electronic integration, Hochberg is renowned for establishing Optoelectronic Systems Integration in Silicon (OpSIS), a high-tech foundry service for silicon photonics in which the community shares the cost of fabricating complex chip-scale systems across many projects. (more…)

Non-native Plants Show a Greater Response Than Native Wildflowers to Climate Change

By Guest PostOctober 20, 2012Environment, Natureblooming pattern, changing climate, citizen scientist, climate change, columbus, data, flowering patterns, herbarium, invasive, kellen calinger, key driver, landscape, life cycle, native wildflower, Nature, non native, ohio, ohio wildflowers, peter curtis, plant species, state, state university, trumbull county, warming temperature, wildflower species

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Warming temperatures in Ohio are a key driver behind changes in the state’s landscape, and non-native plant species appear to be responding more strongly than native wildflowers to the changing climate, new research suggests.

This adaptive nature demonstrated by introduced species could serve them well as the climate continues to warm. At the same time, the non-natives’ potential ability to become even more invasive could threaten the survival of native species already under pressure from land-use changes, researchers say. (more…)

Taking Race Out of the Equation in Measuring Women’s Risk of Osteoporosis and Fractures

By Guest PostOctober 20, 2012Healthafrican american, age, arun karlamangla, background, bone fracture, bone health, bone size, carolyn crandall, caucasian, chinese heritage, data, ethnic, ethnicity, ethnicity information, gail greendale, hip fracture, jane cauley, japanese, mei hua huang, michelle danielson, mixed, national database, new method, osteoporosis, pittsburgh, race, racial, racial line, racial mixture, risk, shinya ishii, ucla, university, women

For women of mixed racial or ethnic backgrounds, a new method for measuring bone health may improve the odds of correctly diagnosing their risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures, according to a UCLA-led study.

Currently, assessing osteoporosis and the risk of fractures from small accidents like falls requires a bone density scan. But because these scans don’t provide other relevant fracture-related information, such as bone size and the amount of force a bone is subjected to during a fall, each patient’s bone density is examined against a national database of people with the same age and race or ethnicity. (more…)

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