Robots at work
In the next 40 years, the world will be transformed by demographics. By 2050, the ratio of working-age people to retirees in Europe, much of Asia, and the United States will be very different from what it is today.
The United States is also about to undergo a massive increase in the population older than 65. This shrinking of the working-age population affects national budgets and there will be fewer workers to provide services. More competition for those services means prices will go up. So productivity per worker will have to go up. To do that, we will need more robots to help people be more productive. This is why industrial robotics has become a focus.
Male scientists cheat more
Fraud that results in the retraction of published research occurs at all points in scientific careers, from trainee to tenured faculty. Overall, males commit 65 per cent of these frauds, according to research by Arturo Casadevall, Yeshiva University professor of medicine. While trainees commit more offenses than faculty members (40 per cent versus 32 per cent), the gender difference is less prominent at this level: 58 per cent of student violators are male, compared with an overwhelming 88 per cent of those at the faculty level. Casadevall’s study did not focus on the reasons for the greater propensity of male scientists to commit fraud, but he speculates that it is a high-risk venture and that males are more likely to take risks than females.
Fog-harvesting cotton
Just as beetles and spiders can quench their thirst with water collected from fog and humidity, humans may have found a way to harvest moisture from the air. A specially treated cotton fabric can absorb water droplets from misty air and then release the collected water as it gets warmer. The material offers a potential solution for providing water for agriculture in desert regions. Developed by researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the fog-harvesting cotton is coated with a polymer, giving it a sponge-like structure.
Totally out-of-the-box
Food grown on walls — both indoors and outdoors… nutritional advice from robots… food waste reclaimed for heat and energy. These are a few of the ideas of students from China’s Dalian Nationalities University, the winning team in the Dream lab 2012 competition. A project of the British Council and Kingston University — in partnership with the Royal College of Art, the Design Museum, and the Science Museum —The Dream lab challenge aims to promote stronger ties between British industry and China’s most promising student designers.
Facts on volcanic eruption
A planet-destroying volcanic eruption may be lying in wait, but the good news is that it won’t happen for another 100 million years at the soonest. Studies led by seismologist Michael Thorne of the University of Utah show that formations the size of continents are colliding about 1,800 miles beneath the Pacific Ocean on the bottom of the Earth’s mantle and above the core. The research is based on high-resolution seismic imaging and computer simulations showing the slow movement of these massive piles of rock at the core – mantle boundary.