Knowledge Update

New York, July 29 (IANS) Researchers have developed a potentially game-changing solar cell that essentially does the work of plants -- converting atmospheric carbon dioxide into usable hydrocarbon fuel using only sunlight for energy.

"The new solar cell is not photovoltaic - it's photosynthetic," said senior study author Amin Salehi-Khojin from the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

"Instead of producing energy in an unsustainable one-way route from fossil fuels to greenhouse gas, we can now reverse the process and recycle atmospheric carbon into fuel using sunlight," he added.

While plants produce fuel in the form of sugar, the artificial leaf delivers syngas, or synthesis gas, a mixture of hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide. Syngas can be burned directly, or converted into diesel or other hydrocarbon fuels.

The ability to turn CO2 into fuel at a cost comparable to a gallon of gasoline would render fossil fuels obsolete.

Chemical reactions that convert CO2 into burnable forms of carbon are called reduction reactions, the opposite of oxidation or combustion. 

Engineers have been exploring different catalysts to drive CO2 reduction, but so far such reactions have been inefficient and rely on expensive precious metals such as silver, Salehi-Khojin said.

"What we needed was a new family of chemicals with extraordinary properties," he added in a paper published in the journal Science.

The team focused on a family of nano-structured compounds called transition metal dichalcogenides -- or TMDCs -- as catalysts, pairing them with an unconventional ionic liquid as the electrolyte inside a two-compartment, three-electrode electrochemical cell.

The best of several catalysts they studied turned out to be nanoflake tungsten diselenide.

"The new catalyst is more active; more able to break carbon dioxide's chemical bonds," said study lead author Mohammad Asadi. 

In fact, the new catalyst is 1,000 times faster than noble-metal catalysts and about 20 times cheaper.

The technology should be adaptable not only to large-scale use, like solar farms, but also to small-scale applications, Salehi-Khojin said. 

It may prove useful on Mars, whose atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, if the planet is also found to have water.

New York, July 30 (IANS) Researchers have developed a portable production system that can manufacture a range of bio-pharmaceuticals on demand to help doctors treat patients in remote or developing parts of the world like India, where getting rapid access to drugs can be challenging.

Bio-pharmaceutical drugs are used in a wide range of therapies including vaccines and treatments for diabetes and cancer. But these are typically produced in large, centralised fermentation plants and transporting them to the treatment site can be expensive and time-consuming.

The new system, developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, can be used to produce a single dose of treatment from a compact device containing a small droplet of cells in a liquid. 

It was recently described in the journal Nature Communications.

"Imagine you were on Mars or in a remote desert, without access to a full formulary, you could program the yeast to produce drugs on demand locally," said senior study author Tim Lu.

The system could be carried onto the battlefield and used to produce treatments at the point of care. It may also be used to manufacture a vaccine to prevent a disease outbreak in a remote village.

​New York, July 29 (IANS) Taking a selfie could be fun but due to the camera's proximity, such photos may render your nose larger, ears smaller and forehead more sloping. A new tool developed by researchers at Princeton University can correct these distortions, and has the potential to bring an end to selfie stick.

​Tokyo, July 29 (IANS) The Bank of Japan on Friday announced a modest expansion of its monetary easing programme, blaming Britain's decision to leave the European Union as the biggest uncertainty facing world markets.

​London, July 28 (IANS) Smartphone based exercises that are brief as well as directed can help quickly improve our mood, says an interesting study.

Smartphone based exercises are various established or more modern psychotherapeutic exercise modules known as micro-interventions.

The findings showed that participants in the study felt more alert, calmer and uplifted after using five-minute video tutorials on their smartphones as a guide.

Those who succeeded in immediately improving their mood through the brief exercises also benefited over the longer term as well.

Further, these technology based exercises are concrete and can be used in everyday situations as they are readily-available anytime, anywhere as well as are free of cost, the researchers said.

"The study demonstrates the viability of smartphone-based micro-interventions for improving mood in concrete, everyday situations," said Marion Tegethoff, Associate Professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

Such applications could represent a useful addition to the psychotherapeutic options currently available.

However, these exercises cannot replace treatment by a qualified professional for people suffering from depression or other psychological disorders, the researchers warned.

For the study, the team included 27 healthy young men as part of a larger research programme using the modern communication technology to improve psychological health also referred to as "mobile health”, or “mHealth” for short.

The subjects recorded their mood on their smartphones, answering short questions by marking a six-step scale both before and after the exercise.

Some of the participants, for example, recalled emotional experiences during the exercise, while other test subjects repeated short sentences or number sequences in a contemplative manner, or played with their facial gestures.

The results are reported in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.​

​London, July 28 (IANS) Storing carbon dioxide (CO2) in reservoirs deep underground may be better for the climate than emitting the gas directly into the atmosphere as researchers have found that this process is much safer over long periods of time than previously thought.

The researchers found that natural accumulations of CO2 that have been trapped underground for around 100,000 years have not significantly corroded the rocks above.

These findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrate the viability of a process called carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a solution to reducing carbon emissions from coal and gas-fired power stations, the researchers said.

"With careful evaluation, burying carbon dioxide underground will prove very much safer than emitting CO2 directly to the atmosphere," said lead author Mike Bickle, Professor at University of Cambridge.

Carbon capture and storage involves capturing the carbon dioxide produced at power stations, compressing it, and pumping it into reservoirs in the rock more than a kilometre underground.

The CO2 must remain buried for at least 10,000 years to avoid the impacts on climate.

One concern in this process is that the dilute acid, formed when the stored CO2 dissolves in water present in the reservoir rocks, might corrode the rocks above and let the CO2 escape upwards.

The new research found that CO2 can be securely stored underground for far longer than the 10,000 years needed to avoid climatic impacts.

The study showed that the critical component in geological carbon storage, the relatively impermeable layer of "cap rock" that retains the CO2, can resist corrosion from CO2-saturated water for at least 100,000 years.

To understand these effects, this study examined a natural reservoir in the US state of Utah where large natural pockets of CO2 have been trapped in sedimentary rocks for hundreds of thousands of years. 

The team drilled deep down below the surface into one of these natural CO2 reservoirs to recover samples of the rock layers and the fluids confined in the rock pores.

"A major obstacle to the implementation of CCS is the uncertainty over the long-term fate of the CO2 which impacts regulation, insurance, and who assumes the responsibility for maintaining CO2 storage sites. Our study demonstrates that geological carbon storage can be safe and predictable over many hundreds of thousands of years," Bickle said.

Washington, July 28 (IANS) Medications taken by children to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) offer long-term benefits, revealed a study.

ADHD is a chronic condition characterised by attention difficulty or hyperactivity and impulsiveness where children can do risky activities like dangerous driving, drug use and risky sexual behaviour.

According to the research, the treatment with ADHD medication made children less likely to suffer consequences of risky behaviour such as sexually transmitted diseases or substance abuse during their teen years and injuries.

"ADHD is such a major issue, but no one seemed to be able to give a very definite answer to the long-term effect of the medication. We were able to see everyone who had an ADHD diagnosis and track their health over time to identify any potential benefits of the medication or the lack of thereof," said Anna Chorniy, Researcher at Clemson University, in the study published in the journal Labour Economics.

For the study, the researchers took nearly 1,50,000 children diagnosed with ADHD and compared them with children who did not receive medication.

Those who took medication were (3.6 per cent) less likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease, than those who did not take medication (7.3 per cent).

While previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of medications in treating the core symptoms of ADHD, little has been known about the effects of treatment on health, behavioural and educational outcomes in the long run. ​

​London, July 28 (IANS) Astronomers have discovered a new type of exotic binary star system, in which a rapidly spinning white dwarf star is lashing the companion red dwarf star with high-energy particles, causing the entire system to pulse dramatically every 1.97 minutes with radiation ranging from the ultraviolet to radio.

The binary system was discovered by a group of amateur astronomers from Germany, Belgium and Britain. Its behaviour was unlike anything they had ever encountered before.

The true nature of this previously misidentified system was then observed by researchers at the University of Warwick using a multitude of telescopes on the ground and in space, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The star system AR Scorpii (AR Sco) lies in the constellation of Scorpius, 380 light years from Earth. 

"AR Scorpii was discovered over 40 years ago, but its true nature was not suspected until we started observing it in June 2015. We realised we were seeing something extraordinary the more we progressed with our observations," said lead researcher Tom Marsh from the University of Warwick.

The radiation across a broad range of frequencies is indicative of emission from electrons accelerated in magnetic fields, which can be explained by AR Sco's spinning white dwarf. 

The source of the electrons themselves, however, is a major mystery -- it is not clear whether it is associated with the white dwarf or its cooler companion, said the study published in the journal Nature.

"We've known about pulsing neutron stars for nearly 50 years and some theories predicted white dwarfs could show similar behaviour. It's very exciting that we have discovered such a system, and it has been a fantastic example of amateur astronomers and academics working together," said study co-author Boris Gansicke. 

​Washington, July 29 (IANS) An in-house data analytics tool recently employed at The New York Times office is not only pulling in data from multiple sources and presenting it at one place in a simplified manner, it is also helping editors and reporters develop better story ideas.

Called “Stela” (story and events analytics), the analytics dashboard was introduced to the NYT newsroom in September last year. 

The tool is now expanding to include better video analytics and deliver useful data points to reporters. 

“Think a daily, desk-specific email, reporting analytics information in the body of the email, distributed in the newsroom,” said a report in www.niemanlab.org.

“We were looking for ways to help reporters and editors get feedback on the things they were being asked to do online, such as tweaking headlines, promoting to social,” Steve Mayne, lead Growth Editor at the Times, was quoted as saying. 

Stela has now 1,300 monthly users -- almost the entire Times news operation staff. “We're excited to be hearing that this tool can be used to help develop story ideas,” Mayne added. 

This is how it works.

The tool pulls in data from the Times' desktop and mobile websites as well as all of the Times' mobile apps.

“In addition to elementary metrics like pageviews and referrals, Stela breaks down other data points such as the percentage of readers coming to each story from different countries and how many readers are subscribers, registered users or anonymous traffic,” the report said. 

It also pulls top comments and shows the social posts that are doing best so that editors can see which Facebook or Twitter posts have been shared or retweeted most widely. 

“Social media editors monitor Stela and can reuse language from the posts that have performed best, rather than trying to eyeball various Twitter or Facebook accounts for what appear to be popular posts,” the niemanlab.org report pointed out. 

The Guardian also has an Ophan in-house analytics engine. The Financial Times is reportedly launching a new analytics tool to make metrics more understandable for its newsroom.

The app is also helping make tangible the importance of mobile-friendly writing and design.

“On so many stories, you'll see 60, 70, 80 per cent of readers coming from mobile, particularly for some of the breaking news stuff,” Mayne was quoted as saying.

San Francisco, July 28 (IANS) US cloud and software major Oracle on Thursday announced it was acquiring enterprise cloud services company NetSuite for nearly $9.3 billion in an all-cash deal - a move that will cement Oracle in the growing cloud business globally and expand its customer base.