Undergraduate researcher Safatul Islam is a member of a team in the College of Optical Sciences investigating organic photovoltaics, which can lead to improved electronics
As the summer dwindles down, many people eagerly welcome the decline of long sunny days. But for others, this period of shorter days signals the end of the sun’s longest duration of generously giving energy to this region of the world. (more…)
*Four Quarters, Four Screens: Catch Yahoo! Fantasy Football on TVs, Tablets, Mobile Phones and Computers*
SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)— Yahoo! named Green Bay — home to the reigning Super Bowl champions — the Official 
Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football City of 2011, with one in 29 Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football players per capita during the 2010 season. Yahoo! also announced that its No. 1 ranked fantasy football experience will be available across four screens in time for the first NFL regular season game.
Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football is the No. 1 fantasy football platform in the industry — and not just in Green Bay. During the NFL season, Yahoo! Fantasy Sports alone receives more visitors than all of NYTimes.com, and more time is spent playing Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Football than is spent on sites such as NFL.com, FOX Sports, CBS Sports, NYTimes.com, Amazon.com, Netflix.com, Disney Online, and Wikipedia.* Fans can sign up at https://sports.yahoo.com/fantasy. And in 2011 Yahoo! Sports is ensuring that its games capture the changing trends as to how users access information by providing them with access to their teams regardless of device or location. (more…)
*Berkeley Lab researchers are leaders in an international effort to close in on neutrino mass*
Some of the most intriguing questions in basic physics focus on neutrinos. How much do the different kinds weigh and which is the heaviest? The answers lie in how the three “flavors” of neutrinos – electron, muon, and tau neutrinos – oscillate or mix, changing from one to another as they race virtually without interruption through unbounded reaches of matter and space.
Three mathematical terms known as “mixing angles” described the process, and the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment has just begun taking data to establish the last, least-known mixing angle to unprecedented precision. China and the United States lead the international Daya Bay Collaboration, including participants from Russia, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. U.S. participation is led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A robot in a University of Michigan lab can run like a human—a feat that represents the height of agility and efficiency for a two-legged machine. With a peak pace of 6.8 miles per hour, MABEL is believed to be the world’s fastest bipedal robot with knees. (more…)
*40 Percent of Smartphone Owners Use Handset for Gaming* Hamburg, Germany, August 15, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced that, in June 2011, a total of 25.2 million Germans have visited online gaming sites. The category rose by 8 percent compared to last year, and online gaming now […]
*Research could lead to techniques to improve fertilization in humans*
In new research that could have implications for improving fertilization in humans and other mammals, life scientists studied interactions between individual sperm and eggs in red abalone, an ocean-dwelling snail, and made precise chemical measurements and physical models of these interactions. They are the first scientists to do so.
By simulating the natural habitat of the abalone in the laboratory, the scientists were able to determine the conditions under which sperm–egg encounters and fertilization were most likely to occur. (more…)
Research at Greenland and Antarctic shows decline in methane and ethane levels
Recent data from NSF-funded research in both Greenland and Antarctica demonstrate that fossil-fuel related emissions of both methane and ethane, two of the most abundant hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, declined at the end of the twentieth century, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Nature. (more…)
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Poultry farms that have adopted organic practices and ceased using antibiotics have significantly lower levels of drug-resistant enterococci bacteria that can potentially spread to humans, according to a groundbreaking new study led by a researcher in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health.
The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives (online August 10, 2011), is the first to demonstrate lower levels of drug-resistant bacteria on newly organic farms in the United States and suggests that removing antibiotic use from large-scale U.S. poultry farms can result in immediate and significant reductions in antibiotic resistance for some bacteria. (more…)
