University of Florence

Based on a penguin’s shoulder-and-wing system Back in 1991, Nature published a picture from the IMAX movie Antarctica, along with the caption: “Emperor penguins may be waddling jokes on land, but underwater they can turn into regular rockets…accelerating from 0 to 7 m/s in less than a second.” That’s all it took to inspire Flavio Noca, who

I believe this could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime   A US study which has treated damage caused by heart attacks using the patient’s own stem cells has achieved “striking” breakthroughs, according to the scientists involved. In the trial, cardiac stem cells were used to repair severe damage to the

A twist on thin-film technology may provide a way to optically detect and analyze multiple substances simultaneously, leading to quicker diagnostics in such industries as health care and homeland security, according to Penn State researchers. One current optical-sensing technology can launch and guide a single light wave, called a surface-plasmon-polariton wave — SPP wave —

A University of Maryland-led team of researchers has created a heat-to-electricity device that runs on ions and which could someday harness the body’s heat to provide energy. Led by UMD researchers Liangbing Hu, Robert Briber and Tian Li of the department of materials science, and Siddhartha Das of mechanical engineering, the team transformed a piece

Researchers have designed a “fire alarm wallpaper” made of environmentally friendly, nonflammable materials—including some of the materials found in bone, teeth, and hormones—that can detect a fire, prevent the fire from spreading, and give off an alarm when a fire occurs. When exposed to heat, the wallpaper is transformed from an electrically insulating state into

Advance in has potential to connect paper to the internet. Researchers in Sweden and the UK have created a printed diode capable of operating above one gigahertz, marking a breakthrough in printed e-label technology and adding to current means of interconnecting objects in an internet-like environment. Heralded as the starting point of having paper connected to the internet, the authors

Tiny particles of waste plastic that are ingested by shoreline “eco-engineer” worms may be negatively affecting biodiversity, a study says. So-called microplastics may be able to transfer toxic pollutants and chemicals into the guts of lugworms, reducing the animals’ functions. An estimated 150 million tonnes vanishes from the global waste-stream each year. The findings have

A simple fermentation treatment can convert a by-product of biofuel production into a valuable chemical feedstock for a wide range of biomedical products Powered by sunlight, microalgae are tiny biofuel generators that soak up carbon dioxide to produce energy-rich lipids, which are showing promise as a potential source of clean energy. Maximizing lipid production is the focus

The world’s first mass-market light-field camera   The product is still in its infancy and it will soon receive a cool upgrade that will allow Lytro users to extrapolate 3D scenes from standard Lytro pictures. The device is already replacing a room full of cameras and electronics, said Wampler, and now the mini Lytro can