Public Shifts Fast on Same-Sex Union Support (WSJ)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314710723?client_source=feed&format=rss

rashad evans jon jones chuck colson death meteor showers 2012 ufc 145 jones vs evans marian hossa

Environmentally friendly battery made from wood

June 19, 2013 ? Taking inspiration from trees, scientists have developed a battery made from a sliver of wood coated with tin that shows promise for becoming a tiny, long-lasting, efficient and environmentally friendly energy source. Their report on the device -- 1,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper -- appears in the journal Nano Letters.

Liangbing Hu, Teng Li and colleagues point out that today's batteries often use stiff, non-flexible substrates, which are too rigid to release the stress that occurs as ions flow through the battery. They knew that wood fibers from trees are supple and naturally designed to hold mineral-rich water, similar to the electrolyte in batteries. They decided to explore use of wood as the base of an experimental sodium-ion battery. Using sodium rather than lithium would make the device environmentally friendly.

Lead author Hongli Zhu and other team members describe lab experiments in which the device performed successfully though 400 charge-discharge cycles, putting it among the longest-lasting of all sodium-ion nanobatteries. Batteries using the new technology would be best suited for large-scale energy storage applications, such as wind farms or solar energy installations, the report indicates.

The authors acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation and the University of Maryland NanoCenter.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Hongli Zhu, Zheng Jia, Yuchen Chen, Nicholas Weadock, Jiayu Wan, Oeyvind Vaaland, Xiaogang Han, Teng Li, Liangbing Hu. Tin Anode for Sodium-Ion Batteries Using Natural Wood Fiber as a Mechanical Buffer and Electrolyte Reservoir. Nano Letters, 2013; : 130618094632004 DOI: 10.1021/nl400998t

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/SRMZbis3nxM/130619122205.htm

donnie mcclurkin whitney houston funeral live stream kevin costner whitney houston whitney houston funeral live pat buchanan slither slither

It's the way you tell em': Study discovers how the brain controls accents and impersonations

June 18, 2013 ? A study, led by Royal Holloway University researcher Carolyn McGettigan, has identified the brain regions and interactions involved in impersonations and accents.

Using an fMRI scanner, the team asked participants, all non-professional impressionists, to repeatedly recite the opening lines of a familiar nursery rhyme either with their normal voice, by impersonating individuals, or by impersonating regional and foreign accents of English.

They found that when a voice is deliberately changed, it brings the left anterior insula and inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) of the brain into play. The researchers also discovered that when comparing impersonations against accents, areas in the posterior superior temporal/inferior parietal cortex and in the right middle/anterior superior temporal sulcus showed greater responses.

"The voice is a powerful channel for the expression of our identity -- it conveys information such as gender, age and place of birth, but crucially, it also expresses who we want to be," said lead author Carolyn McGettigan from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway.

"Consider the difference between talking to a friend on the phone, talking to a police officer who's cautioning you for parking violation, or speaking to a young infant. While the words we use might be different across these settings, another dramatic difference is the tone and style with which we deliver the words we say. We wanted to find out more about this process and how the brain controls it."

While past work has found that listening to voices activates regions of the temporal lobe of the brain, no research had explored the brain regions involved in controlling vocal identity before this study.

"Our aim is to find out more about how the brain controls this very flexible communicative tool, which could potentially lead to new treatments for those looking to recover their own vocal identity following brain injury or a stroke, " said Carolyn.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/u1LhKPniwTY/130618113854.htm

New Year Outback Bowl washington redskins Carly Rae Jepsen Rose Bowl 2013 anderson cooper adrian peterson