Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

What’s the best way to stop slavery?   If you’re MTV, the answer is with $10,000 and a country of digitally minded students looking to make a difference. MTV and mtvU, its activism-minded sibling, are announcing the next step of the “Against Our Will” campaign to raise awareness about modern day slavery. The program, called

From the smallest cell to humans, most organisms can sense their local population density and change behavior in crowded environments. For bacteria and social insects, this behavior is referred to as “quorum sensing.” Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering have utilized computational modeling to mimic such quorum sensing behavior in synthetic

New design could dramatically cut energy waste in electric vehicles, data centers, and the power grid. Power electronics, which do things like modify voltages or convert between direct and alternating current, are everywhere. They’re in the power bricks we use to charge our portable devices; they’re in the battery packs of electric cars; and they’re

Groundbreaking discoveries regarding the onset of cholera are paving the way for a future, fast-acting antidote for cholera epidemics, according to research published in the journals PLOS Pathogens and ACS Infectious Disease. “This is not about a vaccine but rather a drinkable protection that can be distributed during an ongoing cholera epidemic to reduce its

A simple recording of a mosquito’s buzz on a cellphone could contribute to a global-scale mosquito tracking map of unprecedented detail. See video here. It’s a sound that can keep even the weariest among us from falling asleep: the high-pitched whine of a mosquito. This irritating buzz already makes us run, slap and slather on repellant.

Airfields, farms and towns could become test facilities under plans to increase income from robots free of human operators Factories, farms, lakes and towns will become proving grounds forrobots, drones and driverless cars under plans handed to the government on Tuesday that would transform Britain into a leading test centre for the machines. Decommissioned nuclear plants at

Yi Cui, an Assistant Professor of Material Science and Engineering at Stanford University, has invented quite the water filter. It’s inexpensive, is very resistant to clogging, and uses much less electricity than systems that require the water to be pumped through them. It also kills bacteria, as opposed to just trapping them, which is all that

Optical devices could bring natural light into dark, highly populated areas In dense, urban centers around the world, many people live and work in dim and narrow streets surrounded by tall buildings that block sunlight. And as the global population continues to rise and buildings are jammed closer together, the darkness will only spread. To