While current-generation solar cell technologies are too expensive and inefficient for wide-scale commercial applications, the demands of United States energy needs are spurring new advancements in improving solar cell efficiency.

A team of Northwestern University researchers has developed a new anode coating strategy that significantly enhances the efficiency of solar energy power conversion. Their paper about the work focuses on “engineering” organic material-electrode interfaces in bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells.

Introduction: Bioterrorism is the utilization of microorganisms or toxins in order to produce a disease and/or death in human beings, animals or plants. Different from conventional weaponry, relatively economic means are used that allow the elimination of living beings without destroying the surrounding atmosphere.

The most probably method for spread of bioweapons is aerial transmission, continuing into water supplies and food. The CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta) has subdivided into three categories the aggressiveness of "Bioweapons".

Category A comprises:

The raging eruption of dust and water from the south pole of Enceladus, Saturn's sixth-largest moon, has intrigued scientists ever since the Cassini spacecraft provided dramatic images of the phenomenon.

Physicist Nikolai Brilliantov from the University of Leicester and colleagues in Germany, have revealed why the dust particles in the plume emerge more slowly than the water vapour escaping from the moon's icy crust.

Enceladus orbits in Saturn's outermost "E" ring. It is one of only three outer solar system bodies that produce active eruptions of dust and water vapour.

GREENWICH, Connecticut, HOUSTON, LONDON and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, February 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- With Photo

- Partnership to Help Strengthen CHC's Growth Mission as Largest Helicopter Services Company

CHC Helicopter Corporation ("CHC") (NYSE: FLI; TSX: FLY.A and FLY.B), the world's largest provider of helicopter services to the global offshore oil and gas industry, and First Reserve Corporation, the leading private equity firm that specializes in the energy industry, today announced that a fund managed by First Reserve has entered into an agreement to acquire CHC.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080222/NYF026 )

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, February 22 /PRNewswire/ --

Concentric Medical, Inc., the global leader in devices for clot removal in ischemic stroke patients, today announced that results from the use of its Merci Retrieval System(TM) were featured and discussed in seventeen separate presentations at the International Stroke Conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana, February 20-22, 2008. Positive clinical and economic results from the use of the Merci Retrieval System in patients suffering from acute ischemic stroke were discussed during five main podium presentations and more than 12 poster sessions over the three-day conference, which had more than 3,500 people in attendance.

Kava has been used in ceremonies and for recreational and social purposes in the South Pacific since ancient times, much like alcohol, tea or coffee is in other societies today.

In the 1980s other medicinal uses for kava began to emerge and it was marketed in herbal form as a natural way to treat conditions such as anxiety, insomnia, tension and restlessness, particularly in Europe and North America.

More recently, evidence began to emerge about the adverse affect kava could have on the liver and serious concerns about the dangers of kava and the effects on the liver have resulted in regulatory agencies, such as the US Food and Drug Administration and Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration, banning or restricting the sale of kava and kava products.

A discovery in molecular chemistry may help remove a barrier to widespread use of diesel and other fuel-efficient "lean burn" vehicle engines. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have recorded the first observations of how certain catalyst materials used in emission control devices are constructed.

The PNNL team observed how barium oxide attaches itself to the surface of gamma-alumina. Barium oxide is a compound that absorbs toxic nitrogen oxide, commonly referred to as NOx, from tail-pipe emissions. Gamma alumina is a form of aluminum oxide that is used as a support for catalyst materials, such as barium oxide, that are the active ingredients in exhaust systems.

I am a biomedical engineering laboratory, I am specializing in molecular and cellular biology. Now I'm determinated to open this blog during my Experimental thesis to compare with the scientific community. Not leass important aim is to have suggestions on the design and discussion of experiments on the entire replication of the Human Cytomegalovirus This blog will be a laboratory notebook open to the scientific community. It will be active soon.

It has always been impossible to clearly photograph electrons since their extremely high velocities have produced blurry pictures. In order to capture these rapid events, extremely short flashes of light are necessary, but such flashes were not previously available.

With the use of a newly developed technology for generating short pulses from intense laser light, so-called attosecond pulses, scientists at the Lund University Faculty of Engineering in Sweden have managed to capture the electron motion for the first time.

The movie shows how an electron rides on a light wave after just having been pulled away from an atom.

“Antarctica is the ultimate destination for anyone interested in natural history but it also challenges those people who visit to think broadly about our responsibilities to all life on Earth.”

That’s the view of Dr Robert Lambert, a lecturer on Tourism and the Environment at The University of Nottingham, who has just returned from the Antarctic in his role as an Observer for the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO).

Dr Lambert, who is a member of the Business School’s Christel DeHaan Tourism and Travel Research Institute, says the relationship between nature and people is complex and constantly changing and great positives can come from tourism in Antarctica. He believes those lucky enough to experience it could become ambassadors for the region to help develop a ‘constituency’ of support for Antarctica.