An article in the latest edition of the journal Science describes an innovative form of heat engine that operates using only one single atom. The engine is the result of experiments undertaken by the QUANTUM work group at the Institute of Physics of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in collaboration with theoretical physicists of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU).

Heat engines have played an important role in shaping society ever since the Industrial Revolution. As in the case of motor vehicle engines, they transform thermal energy into mechanical force, and our modern lifestyle would be impossible without them. At the same time, progress in miniaturization is resulting in the creation of ever smaller devices.

After a stroke, there is inflammation in the damaged part of the brain. Until now, the inflammation has been seen as a negative consequence that needs to be abolished as soon as possible. But, as it turns out, there are also some positive sides to the inflammation, and it can actually help the brain to self-repair.

"This is in total contrast to our previous beliefs", says Professor Zaal Kokaia from Lund University in Sweden.

Working women who want to minimize career income losses related to motherhood should wait until they are about 30 years old to have their first children, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

The findings, published in PLOS ONE, hold true regardless of whether a woman has earned a college degree.

For college graduates and those without a college degree, the researchers found lower lifetime incomes for women who gave birth for the first time at age 30 or younger. The hit was particularly stark for women without college degrees who had their first children before age 25.

ITHACA, N.Y. - Using the latest computer game technology, a Cornell-led team of physicists has come up with a "suitably beautiful" explanation to a puzzle that has baffled researchers in the materials and theoretical physics communities for a century.

Physics professor James Sethna has co-authored a paper on the unusual microstructure of smectics - liquid crystals whose molecules are arranged in layers and form ellipses and hyperbolas - and their similarity to martensites, a crystalline structure of steel.

In fact, Sethna and his cohorts have termed smectic liquids "the world's weirdest martensite."

Women are closing the education gap with men, but a global study of gender equality shows these advances are failing to bring equal access to quality jobs and government representation.

The study, which explored decades of data from more than 150 countries, finds that women have reached 91 percent of the education that men have - but only 70 percent of their rate of employment, and just 25 percent of political representation.

The findings challenge the assumption that education--a hallmark of international development efforts--translates into equal access to high-paying jobs, and suggest greater policy interventions are required to close political and workplace gender gaps.

High-volume lung transplant centers have lower transplantation costs and their patients are less likely to be readmitted within 30 days of leaving the hospital following surgery, according to a new study of more than 3,000 Medicare patients who received lung transplants.

"The Effect of Transplant Center Volume on Cost and Readmission in Medicare Lung Transplant Recipients" was published online ahead of print in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

Previous research established that patient survival is higher at high-volume lung transplant centers. It is unknown, however, whether these better outcomes require more resources or result from better care delivery that might require fewer resources.