Channel 42
Science is the answer to everything.

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered and demonstrated a new method for overcoming two major hurdles facing solar energy. By developing a new antireflective coating that boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire solar spectrum from nearly any angle, the research team has moved academia and industry closer to realizing high-efficiency, cost-effective solar power.

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Emergency medicine physicians and simulation experts from Rhode Island Hospital discuss the benefits of advanced medical simulation in five manuscripts appearing in the November 2008 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine. The articles describe how simulation centers, along with new portable simulation technology, offer unique training opportunities for dynamic, complex and unanticipated medical situations in acute care fields.

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Fuels of the future may come from “the ice that burns,” ordinary water, “designer hydrocarbons,” and other new sources, according to two special podcasts on “New Fuels” from the American Chemical Society’s acclaimed podcast series, “Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions.”

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Researchers at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute believe they may be one step closer to understanding how certain forms of colon cancer develop. Research results are published in the Nov. 1, 2008 issue of Cancer Research.

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In a five-year project that progressed from benchtop to pilot to full-scale tests, engineers from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and Tongji University in Shanghai showed that the biological treatment of industrial wastewater can be dramatically enhanced by pretreating the waste with non-oxidized iron. The group’s full-scale test at a treatment facility in Shanghai’s Taopu Industrial District was the largest in history to use iron in an environmental application.

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Being nervous, socially isolated, anxious or neurotic during childhood protects young men from becoming criminal offenders until they enter adulthood, but the protective effect seems to wear off after the age of 21. Researchers explored whether or not certain childhood factors delay the onset of criminal behavior until adulthood. The results have just been published online in Springer’s Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

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University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers and physicists have developed a method of measuring how strain affects thin films of silicon that could lay the foundation for faster flexible electronics.

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Pre-treatment MRI can eliminate unnecessary diagnostic or surgical procedures for children with suspected musculoskeletal infections (septic arthritis and osteomyelitis) according to a study performed at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville, Tenn.

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New research gives more reasons to kick smoking and smokeless tobacco products, according to the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation. Among the new research presented at the organization’s annual meeting in September 2008 are studies that link cigarette smoking and upper airway symptoms (”smoker’s nose”), the loss of smokers’ ability to smell common odors, and most alarming, the role second-hand smoke plays in the rise of cases of “environmental laryngitis.”

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Hip resurfacing is often seen as a modern alternative to the more conventional total hip replacement, but new data from a study led by Rush University Medical Center suggest that a patient’s age and gender are key to the operation’s success.

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