When Michigan State University’s Wolfgang Bauer travels past unused farmland in Michigan, he sees untapped energy resources and opportunities for tremendous economic development.
Bauer studies the ways in which renewable energy from animal waste, energy crops like corn or switch grass, and even food waste can be transformed into biogas. He also has researched the effectiveness of biogas power plants and found they can be instrumental in creating clean energy for homes, businesses and transportation. (more…)
Talk about a precious stone — the largest piece of the only known meteorite from the planet Mercury has found its way to Yale, where it is now on display at the Peabody Museum of Natural History.
Known as NWA 7325, the fist-size, greenish space rock is a rarity among rarities: there just aren’t many verified planetary meteorites. Scientists know of about 70 from Mars and, until now, none from any of the other planets in Earth’s solar system. There are about 180 known meteorites from the moon. NWA 7325 is the first believed to be from Mercury. (more…)
Astronomers have discovered a “weird and freakish object” resembling a rotating lawn sprinkler in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The find, reported online in the Nov. 7 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, has left them scratching their heads and searching for an explanation for the strange asteroid’s out-of-this-world appearance.
Normal asteroids appear simply as tiny points of light. This bizarre asteroid has six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel. (more…)
A mutation as minute as swapping just one amino acid can completely change the target that a virus will bind to on a victim cell — potentially shifting what kind of cell and eventually what kind of organism a virus could infect.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In a new study published online in the journal PLoS Pathogens, an international team of scientists showed that by swapping a single amino acid they could change the sugar to which the human BK polyomavirus will binds on the surface of cells. The BK polyomavirus lost the ability to bind its usual target sugar and instead “preferred” the same sugar as its cousin SV40 polyomavirus, which is active in monkeys. (more…)
Students at Brown, RISD, and the University of Erfurt are tackling a great challenge: Build a house that uses 90 percent less energy than a typical house, make it liveable, flexible, durable, and lightweight enough to be shipped from Providence to France — and design it better than 19 other top teams from around the world. That’s the Solar Decathlon. The Brown-RISD-Erfurt team calls its entry the “Techstyle Haus.”
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — For two weeks next July, the grounds of France’s Palace of Versailles will be transformed into a solar-powered village, showcasing sustainable homes built by college students from around the world. Among them will be a house like no other, with a roof and walls made not of wood or metal, but almost entirely of durable, highly insulated textiles. (more…)
A class of molecules called microRNAs may offer cancer patients two ways to combat their disease.
Researchers at Princeton University have found that microRNAs — small bits of genetic material capable of repressing the expression of certain genes — may serve as both therapeutic targets and predictors of metastasis, or a cancer’s spread from its initial site to other parts of the body. The research was published in the journal Cancer Cell. (more…)
There are hundreds of ‘Zeitarbeitsfirma’ or ‘temporary employment agency’ dominating the current German labour market. These agencies lease workers mostly on short-term basis to different industries, supermarkets and other business enterprises. Leased workers (In German: Lieharbeiter or Zeitarbeiter) are normally low-paid and forced to do the heaviest works at their work places. Often they have to accept or bow down to inhuman demands of the ‘Zeitarbeitsfirma’.
Summarized here are few cases from different sources who experienced the hardship under the so-called ‘Zeitarbeitsfirma’: (more…)
Integration of vCE Provides Be On With Holistic View of Digital Campaign Performance
London, UK, September 17, 2013 – comScore, Inc., a global leader in digital measurement and analytics, today announced that branded entertainment platform Be On, a division of AOL Networks, has selected comScore validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) as its global campaign performance measurement platform. comScore vCE is a holistic ad and audience delivery validation solution that provides valuable campaign insights, such as audience verification, brand safety and ad viewability, whilst also offering in-flight campaign reporting and daily alerting for effective campaign management.
“We are delighted that Be On has selected comScore vCE as its digital campaign analytics platform, and look forward to working together to validate and optimise campaign performance on a global scale,” said Scott Joslin, VP International Advertising Effectiveness at comScore. “Our experience is based on analysing thousands of campaigns globally, and we are committed to providing our clients with the most advanced advertising solutions to deliver the campaign insights needed to maximise the value of their digital investments.” (more…)
