Appliances that need no cables or batteries but operate purely on power generated from their surrounding vibrations could save manufacturers and consumers large sums of money, according to scientists at the University of Southampton.

Professor Neil White and his colleagues at the University’s Department of Electronics and Computer Science realised three years ago that sensors were being used in increasingly diverse application areas where physical connections to the outside world were d

Researchers from St. Petersburg have invented a way to check the viability of grains and seeds of agricultural plants without prior germination. The scientists assume that injuries of the germ and tissues of seeds can be revealed through X-ray photomicrography with the help of computer recognition system. This methodology allows determining the quality of wheat, barley, oats, rye and other crops seed grain.

The yield of agricultural cultures depends on viability and quality of seed grain. Re

Forget sharp metal picks or X-rays-in the future, your dentist may search for cavities using a painless laser-based technique developed at U of T that can detect cracks or defects at an early stage of development. v “Using the technique, we can see all the way to the pulp-more than five millimetres inside a tooth,” says Professor Andreas Mandelis of U of T’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. “It can reveal suspicious regions invisible to the naked eye below the surface of

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Sheffield report in the Feb. 21 issue of Science that they have created tree-like molecules that assemble themselves into precisely structured building blocks of a quarter- million atoms. Such building blocks may be precursors to designing nanostructures for molecular electronics or photonics materials, which “steer” light in the same way computer chips steer electrons.

Virgil Percec, the P. Roy Vagelos Chair and Profes

B cell chromatin study strikes physiological chord

Some cells sing with the chorus, while others unwittingly achieve fame on their own. The immune system’s B cell is a true diva that spends its early days preparing for the ultimate audition. Its repertoire of possible antibodies to invading microbes totals 50 million. For the immune system, this repertoire means the difference between destroying a potentially lethal antigen or not.

Since the late 1970s, the genes for makin

Dr. Kouros Motamed is studying endothelial cells where they live, in the complex environment that provides, not only support and structure, but regulation and direction.

As he studies these cells that line blood vessels, this vascular biologist at the Medical College of Georgia focuses on the proteins and growth factors that regulate their normal processes, including proliferation, differentiation, migration and death.

He wants to better understand how these cells interact with th