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Hypertension was associated with exposure to some air pollutants commonly associated with the burning/combustion of fossil fuels, dust and dirt, a new study shows. Researchers suggest people – especially those with high blood pressure – limit their time outdoors when pollution levels are high. “In our analysis of 17 previously-published studies we discovered a significant risk of developing high blood pressure due to exposure to air pollution,” said Tao Liu, Ph.D. “People should limit their exposure on days with higher air pollution levels, especially for those with high blood pressure, even very short-term exposure can aggravate their conditions.”

They performed a meta-analysis of available published studies in the world assessing health effects of all air pollution on HT risk...

One modification of Savonius wind turbine is Windside wind turbine. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Vaasa

Finnish invention, a vertical axis Savonius wind turbine can be further improved shows a new study from the Uni of Vaasa. Due to the mechanical modification of the rotor the power coefficient was shown to be increased by around 8% (2% units). The power coefficient is the ratio of power extracted by the rotor: kinetic power in the air flow. According to doctoral thesis of Svetlana Marmutova, University of Vaasa, the variation of the power coefficient under gusty wind conditions depends on the level of gustiness: the higher the gustiness the more stable is power coefficient.

Savonius wind rotor was invented by Finnish marine engineer Sigurd Savonius in early twenties of the last ...

A depiction of the global order of magnetic charge ice. Orange-red areas represent the positive charges; blue areas represent negative charges. Credit: Yong-Lei Wang and Zhili Xiao

A team has created a new material, called “rewritable magnetic charge ice,” that permits an unprecedented degree of control over local magnetic fields and could pave the way for new computing technologies. With potential applications involving data storage, memory and logic devices, magnetic charge ice could someday lead to smaller and more powerful computers or even play a role in quantum computing.

Current magnetic storage and recording devices, such as computer hard disks, contain nanomagnets with 2 polarities, each of which is used to represent either 0 or 1, binary digits...

What is the origin of gold, silver, platinum? Credit: © alexphoto71 / Fotolia

The origin of many of the most precious elements on the periodic table, such as gold, silver and platinum, has perplexed scientists for >6 decades. Now a recent study has an answer, evocatively conveyed in the faint starlight from a distant dwarf galaxy. In a roundtable discussion The Kavli Foundation spoke to 2 of the researchers behind the discovery about why the source of these heavy elements, collectively called “r-process” elements, has been so hard to crack.

“Understanding how heavy, r-process elements are formed is one of hardest problems in nuclear physics,” said Assistant/Prof Anna Frebel, MIT...