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Hits Parade — AlphaGalileo Top 5
Our hit parade compiles the press releases with bigger number of visits in May 2013.
1.A storage power plant on the seabed — SINTEF — 15/05/2013
Norwegian research scientists will contribute to realizing the concept of storing electricity at the bottom of the sea. The energy will be stored with the help of high water pressure. The idea of an underwater pumped hydroelectric power plant may sound like Jules Verne fiction, but then it was hatched by a German engineer who has spent much of his professional life working in aerospace technology.
To use the water pressure at the sea bed in practice, the mechanical energy is converted by a reversible pump turbine, as in a normal pumped storage hydroelectric plant. Illustration: Knut Gangåssæter/Doghouse
2.Study finds ‘owning’ a darker skin can positively impact racial bias — Royal Holloway University — 13/05/2013
Scientists from Royal Holloway University have found that when white Caucasians are under the illusion that they have a dark skin, their racial bias changes in a positive way. In the study published in Cognition, the team used the tried and tested Rubber Hand Illusion, where participants are asked to look at a fake hand being touched, while at the same time, the experimenter touches the participants’ own hand which is hidden out of view.
3.Scientists identify molecular trigger for Alzheimer’s disease — University of Cambridge — 20/05/2013
Researchers have pinpointed a catalytic trigger for the onset of Alzheimer’s disease – when the fundamental structure of a protein molecule changes to cause a chain reaction that leads to the death of neurons in the brain. For the first time, scientists at Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry have been able to map in detail the pathway that generates “aberrant” forms of proteins which are at the root of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s.
Image, magnified a million times, of amyloid fibril, the type of protein structures that are formed in Alzheimer’s. Credit: Dr Tuomas Knowles
4.New World Record in Wireless Data Transmission — Karlsruhe Institute for Technology — 16/05/13
Researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology have achieved the wireless transmission of 40 Gbit/s at 240 GHz over a distance of one kilometer. Their most recent demonstration sets a new world record and ties in seamlessly with the capacity of optical fiber transmission. In the future, such radio links will be able to close gaps in providing broadband internet by supplementing the network in rural areas and places which are difficult to access.
The high frequency chip only measures 4 x 1.5 mm², as the size of electronic devices scales with frequency / wavelength. Photo: Sandra Iselin / Fraunhofer IA
5.Brain diseases affecting more people and starting earlier than ever before — Bournemouth University — 10/05/13
Professor Colin Pritchard’s latest research published in Public Health Journal has found that the sharp rise of dementia and other neurological deaths in people under 74 cannot be put down to the fact that we are living longer – the rise is because a higher proportion of old people are being affected by such conditions, and what is really alarming, it is starting earlier and affecting people under 55 years.
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