Curated News: Scientific Meetings

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Utah Valley University physicists are literally applying rocket science to the field of medical diagnostics. With a few key changes, the researchers used a noninvasive ultrasonic technique originally developed to detect microscopic flaws in solid fuel rockets to successfully detect cell stiffness changes associated with certain cancers and other diseases. Brian Patchett will describe the group’s method, which uses sound waves to manipulate and probe cells, during ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting.

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New evidence gathered from the Karoo Basin in South Africa sheds light on a catastrophic extinction event that occurred more than 250 million years ago and wiped out more than 90 percent of life in Earth’s oceans and about 70 percent of animal species on land.

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Researchers have examined the relationship between the sound structures of a worldwide sample of human languages and climatic and ecological factors including temperature, precipitation, vegetation and geomorphology. The results, to be presented at ASA’s 2015 Fall Meeting, Nov. 2-6, show a correlation between ecological factors and the ratio of sonorant segments to obstruent segments in the examined languages. This supports the hypothesis that acoustic adaptation to the environment plays a role in the evolution of human languages.

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The Asian Citrus Psyllid is loathed by orange farmers because they spread an even more pernicious foe: the bacteria Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, which cause a disease called citrus greening that turns the trees' leaves a sickly yellow and makes the fruit bitter and stunted. There is no cure, and the infected trees usually die within a few years. To halt the spread of the disease, researchers are developing vibration traps that hijack psyllid mating calls to locally bring their populations under control.

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We all love belting our lungs out at sporting event, hurling insults and encouragements in turn, but does it actually have an effect on either team’s performance? A study conducted by a student at the University of Nebraska seeks to answer this question. The study was performed by Brenna Boyd, an undergraduate research assistant at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s. Boyd will present her findings at ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting.

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Researchers investigating the effects of Arctic ice melt on seasonal whale migrations, probing cancerous cells with acoustic levitation and hijacking mating signals of the Asian Citrus Psyllid to prevent citrus greening will describe their latest findings during a webcast press event on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015. The event will be streamed live at 10:00 a.m. from the 170th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), which takes place November 2-6 in Jacksonville, Fla.

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Eavesdropping on Arctic whales, cheering in college hockey games, levitating cells to detect disease-signaling stiffness, gender equality in chickadee songs, and detecting hive health through honeybee vibrations are among the highlights of the many being made at ASA’s Fall 2015 Meeting. Press releases for these sessions are currently available under embargo. Additionally, a gallery featuring lay-language versions of presented papers is available; highlights include the evolution of pianos, identifying dementia with automated speech recognition.

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Researchers have discovered a new welding technique that welds alloys once thought un-weldable—alloys that automakers would like to use in the next generation of cars. Compared to a typical welding technique of today, the new technique uses 80 percent less energy, and creates bonds that are 50 percent stronger.

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The animal brain is so complex, it would take a supercomputer and vast amounts of data to create a detailed 3-D model of the billions of neurons that power it.But computer scientists and a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Utah have developed software that maps out a monkey’s brain and more easily creates a 3-D model, providing a more complete picture of how the brain is wired. Their process was announced this week at Neuroscience 2015, the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago.

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Food scientists and farmers alike are keenly interested in boosting crop yields and shortening harvest times, without affecting food safety. A team of researchers led by plasma engineer Kazunori Koga, an associate professor at Kyushu University in Japan, has now developed a new technique to safely achieve both goals using a non-thermal plasma -- a type of partially ionized, low-temperature gas currently used in a wide variety of applications including decontaminating ready-to-eat foods and their packaging, sterilizing medical instruments, reducing pollutants in exhaust gas, and even for wound healing and cancer therapy.

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High-speed video breaks down the incredible leaping ability of basement-dwelling spider crickets and points the way toward development of robotic long jumpers.

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Advances in software, materials, and equipment have made it possible to cheaply "print" custom designs -- including such diverse products as airplane engines and action figures. Researchers from the Naval Research Laboratory are doing their part to boost the burgeoning field, popularly known as 3-D printing, but more generally named additive manufacturing. The group has demonstrated that a combination of two technologies -- one to create a thin film and the second to "cut" designs out of the film -- could be a potentially powerful tool to create custom electronic components. They will discuss their findings at the AVS 62nd International Symposium and Exhibition, held Oct. 18-23 in San Jose, Calif.

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A shed skin of the California King Snake, examined in molecular detail by a team of researchers in Oregon and Germany, may have just yielded one of the reptile's slippery secrets. Using a combination of techniques that allowed the team to explore how molecules are arranged on the surface of the scaly skin, the team discovered a never-before-seen evolutionary adaptation that allows the animal to reduce friction on its underbelly and slither smoothly over surfaces.

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The International Space Station (ISS) is in some ways like most homes -- over time, it occasionally requires repairs. When the ammonia cooling system on the exterior of the ISS springs a leak, however, tracking down its location is by no means an easy task. So researchers and engineers from SRS, a manufacturer of test instruments, and NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Goddard Space Flight Center teamed up to create an “Ammonia Leak Locator.” Researchers will describe the new tool and its capabilities at the AVS 62nd International Symposium & Exhibition.

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In research presented at IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics, researchers, from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory suggest an algorithm can predict human intuition better than us humans.

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A group of scientists in Sweden has taken an important step towards the goal of peering inside a working cell. They are among researchers around the globe who are seeking a method that enables the observation of proteins, lipids and DNA inside individual cells, as well as gaining a better understanding of how this intricate and interconnected system changes with time. Gijs van der Schot, a Ph.D. student at Uppsala University, will describe the researchers' new approach to imaging during the AVS 62nd International Symposium & Exhibition.

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It's estimated that the U.S. fails to use more than half of the energy it generates -- mostly because it escapes as waste heat. Scientists from the University of Colorado are developing a new type of system to efficiently capture some of that lost heat. They have designed a surface that enhances low frequency thermal radiation, which is easier than higher frequencies to "harvest" directly out of the air and turn into usable DC electricity. The researchers will describe the surface at the AVS 62nd International Symposium and Exhibition, held Oct. 18-23 in San Jose, Calif.

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Whereas human and many animals use teeth to crush or grind food as an initial part of the digestive process, some species such as birds that lack teeth grind food inside the gizzard -- a structure between the mouth and the stomach -- with the help of stones. Another interesting adaptation of this approach to digestion has evolved in most of the Cephalaspidean gastropods, a common type of marine mollusks, who use hardened plates that line the gizzard for crushing or grinding. Recently, a team in Israel studied the properties of gizzard plates of the cephalaspid Philine quadripartite, and they will discuss their work at the AVS 62nd International Symposium and Exhibition.

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In March 2011 at Fukushima, the fuel’s cladding, a zirconium alloy used to contain the fuel and radioactive fission products, reacted with boiling coolant water to form hydrogen gas, which then exploded, resulting in the biggest nuclear power-related disaster since Chernobyl. Challenged by this event, two research teams have made progress in developing fuel claddings that are capable of withstanding the high temperatures resulting from a Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA), like that at Fukushima. Both teams will present their results at the AVS 62nd International Symposium and Exhibition, held Oct. 18-23 in San Jose, Calif.

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Peering into a grocery store bin, it's hard to tell if a peach or tomato or avocado is starting to go bad underneath its skin. A new affordable hyperspectral camera technology developed by UW and Microsoft Research uses both visible and invisible near-infrared light to "see" beneath surfaces and capture hidden details.

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Researchers at the Center for Nanomedicine at the Wilmer Eye Institute has been studying mucus in the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients, and their primary goal was to design inhalable therapeutic nanoparticles that cross the cystic fibrosis mucus barrier in the lung. But the work recently led the researchers to the unexpected discovery that mucus appears to change as the disease progresses; the mobility of these nanoparticles could vary widely in mucus from different patients. They will describe their findings this week during the Society of Rheology’s 87th Annual Meeting, being held Oct. 11-15, 2015.

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A group of researchers from the University of Akron and Virginia Polytechnic Institute has explored the properties underlying spider glue's humidity-responsive adhesion. They will describe their work and how it might lead to much-sought-after "smart adhesives," with the ability to function even in high-humidity conditions, during The Society of Rheology's 87th Annual Meeting, being held Oct. 11-15, 2015, in Baltimore, Md.

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Three Virginia Tech computer scientists are unveiling a novel approach to discovering stealth attacks on computers at the annual ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security.

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For all our love of the simple slice of bread, we don’t have a solid understanding of much of the science behind squishy dough, like the interplay between a dough's microstructure and its rheology -- the way in which it deforms and flows. Understanding this science would help bakers improve bread recipes intended for ovens both big and small. Next month, during The Society of Rheology's 87th Annual Meeting, a team of researchers from Belgium and the Netherlands will describe how gluten and starch affect the overall dough behavior, as well as the optimal amount of glucose oxidase enzyme to use to enhance bread-making performance.

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More than 99% of the time, two words are enough for people with normal hearing to distinguish the voice of a close friend or relative amongst other voices, says the University of Montreal's Julien Plante-Hébert.

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The “Upper Midwest Organic Agriculture Tour” planned at the Synergy in Science ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, will highlight the Twin Cities’ thriving local and organic food system.

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Using microfluidic passages cut directly into the backsides of production field-programmable gate array (FPGA) devices, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are putting liquid cooling right where it’s needed the most – a few hundred microns away from where the transistors are operating.

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Scientists intent on unraveling the mystery of the force that binds the building blocks of visible matter are gathered in Kobe, Japan, this week to present and discuss the latest results from "ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions." Known more colloquially as Quark Matter 2015, the conference convenes scientists studying smashups of nuclei traveling close to the speed of light at the world's premier particle colliders-the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC, https://www.bnl.gov/rhic/) at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN).

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NASA will detail a major science finding from the agency’s ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28 at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

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UAB researchers have found automated and human verification for voice-based user authentication vulnerable, and explore how an attacker in possession of voice audio samples could compromise a victim’s security, safety and privacy.

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The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) and University of Washington researchers have created an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can solve SAT geometry questions as well as the average American 11th-grade student, a breakthrough in AI research.

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With an ever increasing number of everyday objects from our homes, workplaces and even from our wardrobes, getting connected to the Internet, known as the ‘Internet of Things (IoT), researchers from the University of Southampton have identified easy-to-use techniques to configure IoT objects, to make them more secure and hence help protect them from online attacks.

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A new wearable technology developed at the University of Washington called MagnifiSense can sense what devices and vehicles the user interacts with throughout the day, which can help track that individual’s carbon footprint, enable smart home applications or even assist with elder care.

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Water, and the critical lack thereof, is a growing worldwide problem. According to NASA, more than half of the world’s largest aquifers are being depleted faster than can be replaced. In developed countries such as the United States, the long-term concern has focused on sustaining agriculture and energy production. But in developing countries, access to clean water – a daily worry – is often the difference between life and death.

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Endothelin (ET) plays a role in many functions throughout the body, including blood vessel constriction and blood pressure regulation, and insights gained through the study of ET have great therapeutic potential for health and disease. As ET experts convene for the 14th International Conference on Endothelin: Physiology, Pathophysiology and Therapeutics, the translational aspect of ET research will take center stage during the “Endothelin Therapeutics—Where Are We?” symposium.

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Aug. 16-20, 2015
 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

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Software may appear to operate without bias because it strictly uses computer code to reach conclusions. But a team of computer scientists from the University of Utah and elsewhere discovered a way to find out if an algorithm used for hiring decisions, loan approvals and comparably weighty tasks could be biased like a human being.

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UW machine learning researchers have developed a new approach to optimization - a key step in predicting everything from election results to how proteins will fold - that recently won a top paper prize at the world's largest artificial intelligence conference.

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Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing developed a new cyber security analysis method that discovered 11 previously unknown Internet browser security flaws.

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Native North Americans have long adorned themselves and their homes with fragrant sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata), a native plant used in traditional medicine, to repel biting insects, and mosquitoes in particular. Now, researchers report that they have identified the compounds in sweetgrass that keep these bugs at bay. The team will describe their approach at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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A blood clot can potentially trigger heart attacks, strokes and other medical emergencies. Treatment requires finding its exact location, but current techniques can only look at one part of the body at once. Now, researchers are reporting a method, tested in rats, that may someday allow physicians to quickly scan the entire body for a blood clot. The team will describe their approach at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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The use of solar energy in the U.S. is growing, but panels on rooftops are still a rare sight. They cost thousands of dollars, and homeowners don’t recoup costs for years. But scientists may have a solution. At the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, they report the development of a unique, “green” antenna that could potentially double efficiencies of certain solar cells and make them more affordable.

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Highly efficient, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) could slash the world’s electricity consumption. They are already sold in stores, but are expensive, and many of them give off “harsh” light. But researchers will report today that they have developed a less expensive, more sustainable white LED with a warm glow. The scientists will discuss their research at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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Finding a technology to shift carbon dioxide (CO2), the most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas, from a climate change problem to a valuable commodity has long been a dream. Now, a team of chemists says they have developed a technology to economically convert atmospheric CO2 directly into highly valued carbon nanofibers for industrial and consumer products. They will present the research at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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Alcoholism inflicts a heavy physical, emotional and financial toll on individuals and society. Now new discoveries and promising animal studies are offering a glimmer of hope that a new class of drugs could treat the disease without many of the unwanted side effects caused by current therapies. The scientists are presenting their work today at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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The start of the school year means new classes, new friends, homework and sports. It also brings the threat of head lice. Scientists report today that lice populations in at least 25 states have developed resistance to over-the-counter treatments still widely recommended by doctors and schools. The researchers are presenting their work today at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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Sunlight can be brutal. It wears down even the strongest structures, including rooftops and naval ships, and it heats up metal slides and bleachers until they’re too hot to use. To fend off damage and heat, scientists have developed an environmentally friendly paint out of glass that bounces sunlight off metal surfaces — keeping them cool and durable. The researchers present their work at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have determined that natural sunlight triggers the release of smog-forming nitrogen oxide compounds from the grime that typically coats buildings, statues and other outdoor surfaces in urban areas. The finding confirms previous laboratory work using simulated sunlight and upends the long-held notion that nitrates in urban grime are “locked” in place. The scientists will present their findings at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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A bomb blast or a rough tackle can inflict serious brain damage. Yet at the time of impact, these injuries are often invisible. To detect head trauma immediately, a team of researchers has developed a polymer-based material that changes colors depending on how hard it is hit. The goal is to someday incorporate this material into protective headgear. They will describe their approach at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.