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carbon fiber to make tiny video displays
For decades, scientists have been trying to make video displays using tiny mirrors mounted on silicon oscillators. But silicon won't oscillate fast enough and bend far enough.
"You need something incredibly stiff to oscillate at a resonant frequency of 60,000 times a second (the line-scanning rate of most video displays), but it also needs to bend a lot for adequate image size," explained Shahyaan Desai, a Cornell graduate student who has been working for more than three years to create a practical MEMS video display device.
So Desai and his Cornell colleagues have turned to carbon fiber, the same material used to reinforce auto and aircraft body parts, bicycle frames and fishing rods.
"Carbon fiber is twice as stiff as silicon but 10 times more flexible," said Desai.
He is first author of a paper with Michael Thompson, Cornell associate professor of materials science and engineering, and Anil Netravali, Cornell professor of fiber science, on using carbon fibers in MEMS, reported in the recent issue of the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.........
Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source
Challenging Privately Funded Breast Cancer Research
"Breast cancer has been transformed into a market-driven industry," says Kinesiology and Health Studies researcher Samantha King. "It has become more about making money for corporate sponsors than funding innovative ways to treat breast cancer".
Dr. King's research, just published by University of Minnesota Press in a controversial new book, Pink Ribbons Inc., traces breast cancer's transformation from a stigmatized disease and individual tragedy to what she describes as "a market-driven industry that feeds off breast cancer survivors".
According to her research, only 64% of the money raised from one high-profile corporation's walk for breast cancer actually went to breast cancer organizations.
Dr. King documents how the event and its logo have become products brought and sold by North American corporate sponsors and "the extent to which fundraising for breast cancer has become a highly valued commodity in itself".
"Fundraising for breast cancer has developed into a highly competitive market in which large foundations and corporations compete with one another to attract the loyalty of consumers - in this case, well-intentioned members of the public wanting to do their part in the fight against the disease," she says.........
Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source
Push For Breast Cancer Cure
We're still out here! And we're really covering some ground. Shattering records left right and centre! We actually covered 125k each day three days running. WILD. Never imagined we'd be doing these distances. Really, we're skating so much - the Prairies have been crazy that way. Yesterday we did over 120k again with 15+ hours of skating. Unbelieveable. We're also starting to see some rolling terrain - saw the first hill in ages last night - pretty measley but still a welcome site. The Prairies have really been a treat - their tremendous sunsets are undescribable and they seem to last forever. I forgot how beautiful they could be.
Regina was our home on the weekend and the city really treated us well. We spent two nights there, did some fundraising and had great media coverage - print, radio and TV. So much so that we were recognized everywhere as we continued on our journey West. We were also fortunate to have CBC stop us on the highway yesterday to do a quick story.
Currently, we're on the road to Swift Current and spent last night in the town of Mortlach. Lovely place - a one stop sign kind of town. The Cooks family took us in last night and were gracious enough to let us park in their drive way and plug in for the night. They also treated us to a great breakfast this morning and stocked us with some steaks and produce from their garden - were looking forward to a delicious dinner tonight! Really a sweet family, cool folks, we're ever grateful!........
Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source
Close-up on Cuvier crater ridge
Click for high resolution image
AMIE obtained this sequence on 18 March 2006 from a distance of 591 kilometres from the surface, with a ground resolution of 53 metres per pixel. The imaged area is centred at a latitude of 50.1º South and a longitude of 11.2º East, with a field of view of 27 km. The North is on the right of the image.
"This image shows the resolving power of the SMART-1 camera to measure the morphology of rims and craters in order to diagnose impact processes", says SMART-1 Project scientist Bernard Foing, "or to establish the statistics of small craters for lunar chronology studies".
Cuvier C, a crater about 10 kilometres across, is visible in the lower right part of the image. Cuvier C is located at the edge of the larger old crater Cuvier, a crater 77 kilometres in diameter. The upper left quadrant of the image contains the smooth floor of Cuvier, only one fourth of which is visible in this image.
Crater Cuvier was named after the creator of the comparative anatomy, Georges Cuvier, a 19th century French naturalist (1769 - 1832).........
Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source
Time For A Fresh Look
Princeton University psychologist Alex Todorov has found that people respond intuitively to faces so rapidly that our reasoning minds may not have time to influence the reaction -- and that our intuitions about attraction and trust are among those we form the fastest.
"The link between facial features and character may be tenuous at best, but that doesn't stop our minds from sizing other people up at a glance," said Todorov, an assistant professor of psychology. "We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them. It appears that we are hard-wired to draw these inferences in a fast, unreflective way".
Todorov and co-author Janine Willis, a student researcher who graduated from Princeton in 2005, used timed experiments and found that snap judgments on character are often formed with insufficient time for rational thought. They published their research in the recent issue of the journal Psychological Science.........
Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source
Path To Long Lasting Happiness
"Depression is a devastating illness, which affects around 10% of people at some point in their life," says Dr. Guy Debonnel an MUHC psychiatry expert, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University, and principal author of the new research. "Current medications for clinical depression are ineffective for a third of patients, which is why the development of alternate therapys is so important".
Mice without the TREK-1 gene ('knock-out' mice) were created and bred in association with Dr. Michel Lazdunski, co-author of the research, in his laboratory at the University of Nice, France. "These 'knock-out' mice were then tested using separate behavioral, electrophysiological and biochemical measures known to gauge 'depression' in animals," says Dr. Debonnel. "The results really surprised us; our 'knock-out' mice acted as if they had been treated with antidepressants for at least three weeks".........
Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source
"Frozen" Natural Gas Discovered Below Seafloor
Contrary to established expectations of how gas hydrate deposits form, IODP expedition co-chief Michael Riedel, of McGill University, Montreal, confirms, "We found anomalous occurrences of high concentrations of gas hydrate at relatively shallow depths, 50-120 meters below the seafloor".
The science party used the drilling facility and laboratories of the U.S. research vessel, JOIDES Resolution, on a 43-day expedition in Fall 2005 during which they retrieved core samples from a geological area known as the (northern) Cascadia Margin. Gas hydrate deposits are typically found below the seafloor in offshore locations where water depths exceed 500 meters, and in Arctic permafrost regions. Gas hydrate remains stable only under low temperature and relatively high pressure.........
Posted by: Beverly Permalink Source
Nicotine Withdrawal Begins Quickly
The team brought 50 pack-a-day smokers into the laboratory for four hours of testing. Half the smokers were randomly selected to continue smoking as usual, while the other half were asked to abstain from smoking for the four hours. Every half-hour these participants received a series of tests. Differences between the two groups were considered evidence of nicotine withdrawal.
Within 30 minutes, the abstaining smokers reported greater cravings for cigarettes. By one hour, they reported greater anger. Increases in anxiety, sadness, and difficulty concentrating all appeared within the first three hours. Results also show that in the first half-hour the abstaining smokers already performed more poorly on a task requiring sustained attention, and that their heart rate slowed within the first hour, another withdrawal symptom.........
Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source
Many Teens Injured On The Job
"The findings from this study clearly indicate that work-related injuries among youth are a significant health problem," report Kristina M. Zierold, Ph.D., assistant professor of family and community medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Henry A. Anderson, M.D., chief medical officer of the Wisconsin Division of Public Health.
Writing in the American Journal of Health Behavior, the authors report that 150 of the teens were injured severely enough that activities at home, work, or school were affected for more than three days, and 97 filed for workers' compensation.
The study, funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, was conducted in Wisconsin while Zierold was an epidemic intelligence service officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Developing programs and strategies to reduce injury must be made a priority," Zierold said.
But training on the job where safety could be stressed often is given by another employee. "This type of training commonly consists of explaining how to do the work and how to work the equipment, without emphasis on safety issues," Zierold said. "In other instances, no training is given at all".........
Posted by: Ethen Permalink Source
Anxiety before surgery complicates recovery in children
The study is important, said lead author, Zeev Kain, M.D., professor in the Departments of Anesthesiology, Pediatrics, and the Yale Child Study Center, because more than five million children in the United States undergo surgery every year and up to 45 percent experience significant stress and anxiety prior to surgery.
In his five-year study supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Kain and his team recruited 241 children aged five- to 12-years-old who were scheduled to undergo elective tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy. The personality characteristics of the children and their parents were assessed before the surgery. All of the children were admitted to a research unit at Yale following the surgery and postoperative pain and analgesic consumption were recorded every hour. After 24 hours in the hospital, the children were discharged and followed up at home for the next 14 days.
The researchers found that anxious children experienced more problems emerging from anesthesia and significantly more pain both during the hospital stay and over the first three days at home. During home recovery anxious children also consumed significantly more codeine and acetaminophen and had a higher incidence of postoperative anxiety and sleep problems.........
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