A SEAS researcher helped develop technology that could become the most efficient solar cell in the world.
articles
Study: Calcium Levels Could Be Key to Contracting — and Stopping — C. Diff
It lurks in hospitals and nursing homes, surviving cleaning crews’ attempts to kill it by holing up in a tiny, hard shell. It preys upon patients already weak from disease or advanced age.
Climate change could mean more weight restrictions and higher costs for airlines
As air temperatures rise at constant pressure, the density of air declines and this makes it harder for an airplane to take off. Increased air temperatures due to climate change could therefore present a new challenge for the aviation industry. This is according to Ethan Coffel of Columbia University in the US, lead author of a study in Climatic Change Letters which is a section in Springer’s journal Climatic Change.
Global warming could result in losses for the European wine industry
Slight increases in temperature in Mediterranean regions from global warming could potentially result in labour, productivity and economic losses for the European wine industry, an article in the journal Temperature suggests.
Study suggests route to improving rechargeable lithium batteries
Most of today’s lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from cars to phones, use a liquid as the electrolyte between two electrodes. Using a solid electrolyte instead could offer major advantages for both safety and energy storage capacity, but attempts to do this have faced unexpected challenges.
Getting to the roots of Sahara mustard invasion in the American Southwest
In 2015, a rural community in southeastern California approached Daniel Winkler and his doctoral advisor, Travis Huxman, for help with an invader that was hurting their local economy. An Old World annual plant called Sahara mustard (Brassica tournefortii) was spreading rapidly through the deserts of the southwestern U.S., carpeting the local Anza-Borrego Desert in spring, and smothering the native wildflowers that draw tourists to the region. Loss of native plants put the animals that depend on them for food and shelter at risk. The mustard was disrupting the entire desert ecosystem.