Independent tests conducted by engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory on a BMW Hydrogen 7 Mono-Fuel demonstration vehicle have found that the car's hydrogen-powered engine surpasses the super-ultra low-emission vehicle (SULEV) level, the most stringent emissions performance standard to date.

"The BMW Hydrogen 7's emissions were only a fraction of SULEV level, making it one of the lowest emitting combustion engine vehicles that have been manufactured," said Thomas Wallner, a mechanical engineer who leads Argonne's hydrogen vehicle testing activities. "Moreover, the car's engine actively cleans the air. Argonne's testing shows that the Hydrogen 7's 12-cylinder engine actually shows emissions levels that, for certain components, are cleaner than the ambient air that comes into the car's engine."

If identical twins eat and exercise equally, will they have the same body weight? Not really, say NIH investigators Carson Chow and Kevin Hall. They analyzed the fundamental equations of body weight change and found that identical twins with identical lifestyles can have different body weights and different amounts of body fat.

The study uses a branch of mathematics called dynamical systems theory to demonstrate that a class of model equations has an infinite number of body weight solutions, even if the food intake and energy expenditure rates are identical. However, the work also shows that another class of models directly refutes this, predicting that food intake and energy expenditure rates uniquely determine body weight.

Existing data are insufficient to tell which is closer to reality, since both models can make the same predictions for a given alteration of food intake or energy expenditure.

A baby is twice as likely to be born bottom first if either or both the parents were themselves breech deliveries, according to a study published ahead of print on bmj.com. The results suggest genes are a contributing factor.

The vast majority of babies are delivered head first. Fewer than one in twenty are delivered the other way round – what is known as a breech delivery. Such deliveries carry significantly greater risks for the baby: they are more likely to die or suffer from health problems.

As much as people love wireless technology, current systems such as WLAN or Bluetooth have their limits: They transmit the data with clock rates in the gigahertz range at most, a billion vibrations per second.

In order to increase the quantity of transmitted data, especially for things like high-definition wireless video, clock rates need to become much higher.

Terahertz waves (1000 billion vibrations per second) look like the successor to Bluetooth; for short distances, like within rooms. Transmitting power has been an obtsacle to go beyond that.

Scientists have developed a new form of stretchable silicon integrated circuit that can wrap around complex shapes such as spheres, body parts and aircraft wings, and can operate during stretching, compressing, folding and other types of extreme mechanical deformations, without a reduction in electrical performance.

“The notion that silicon cannot be used in such applications because it is intrinsically brittle and rigid has been tossed out the window,” said John Rogers, a Founder Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois.

“Through carefully optimized mechanical layouts and structural configurations, we can use silicon in integrated circuits that are fully foldable and stretchable,” said Rogers.

Garments that can measure a wearer's body temperature or trace their heart activity are on the market but the European project BIOTEX has taken it a step further - they have developed miniaturised biosensors in a textile patch that can analyze body fluids, even a tiny drop of sweat, and provide a much better assessment of health.

A cluster of EU research projects (SFIT Group) is supporting this burgeoning field of smart fabrics, interactive textiles and flexible wearable systems. Jean Luprano, a researcher at the Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), coordinates the BIOTEX project.