Peer Reviewed

Controlling the physical properties of the surfaces of materials, such as metals, is critical for industrial applications ranging non-stick frying pans to the fuselage of aircraft.

Silicon-based semiconductor devices dominate the microelectronics industry and are used for the fabrication of high density integrated circuits comprising of memory and processing devices. However, silicon has an indirect band gap, which severely limits its use for fabricating photonic devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers.

Microactuators are critical components for industrial applications such as MEMS, micro-medical devices, and microrobotics. However, the fabrication of increasingly sophisticated, millimeter sized microactuators is complicated and proving to be a challenge.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a family of so-called 209 biphenyl congeners are major pollutants and pose a threat to human health and the environment.

This week, Toyohashi University of Technology publishes the March issue of ‘Toyohashi Tech e-Newsletter’, which includes highlights of some of the top papers from researchers at the university. The on-line e-Newsletter includes further news and views from one of Japan’s most dynamic science and technology based universities.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Comment: Journey to the mantle of the Earth; Evolutionary biology: Questioning eusocial arguments; Quantum physics: A new resource for precision measurement; Neuroscience: Serotonergic sexual discrimination; Genomics: Multiple myeloma genome sequenced; And finally… The smell of pain

Can global food production keep up with the growing human numbers and rising human aspirations? Or is the world slowly descending to a Malthusian catastrophe with food shortages, food riots and famines? As extreme weather and disaster events increase worldwide, these questions worry scientists, policy makers and national planners everywhere.

Riding on Singapore’s strong 10.5% annual growth by the manufacturing sector in 2010, the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology aims to help the Precision Engineering industry soar to greater heights by equipping the industry with innovative and advanced technological capabilities.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Climate change hits home; Overstretching attribution

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Medicine: Predicting diabetes development; Methods: Rapid, high-resolution, label-free imaging; Immunology: X-linked defects in B cell production; Geoscience: Fjord dynamics could affect Greenland glacier stability

In the year 2050, it is projected that 9 billion people will inhabit our planet and the food we get from the sea will have dwindled to almost nothing. But less fish in our oceans doesn’t necessarily mean less fish on our tables.

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change will identify what policy changes and actions are needed to help the world achieve sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change.

KUCHING: To further equip the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts to a higher level, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and Aizo Digitalworks at the university.

Providing clean water for everyone is a global concern. But nowhere is this more challenging than in developing countries where one in five people has no access to safe drinking water.

Africa is on the move. Populations are growing, economies are improving – and conflict is declining. Can all this be connected?

Last August, 18 families from the community of San Lucas, located northwest of El Salvador’s capital, celebrated their first harvest of indigo under fair and sustainable conditions.

Science Without Borders was the theme of this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Held in Washington, the meeting provided an opportunity for IDRC to showcase some of the research it supports and to engage with renowned leaders in scientific research.

A recent visit to Malawi and Rwanda by IDRC President David Malone provided an opportunity to further strengthen ties between IDRC and East African institutions and to see some of the region’s IDRC-supported research in action.

IDRC’s Federico Burone testified before Canada’s Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade in early February about the essential role of research in Brazil’s economic and political development.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Climate science: Carbon cycle changes during global warming; Physics: Towards a silicon quantum memory; Physics: Stripes and the hour-glass magnetic spectrum in high-Tc superconductors; Earth science: Quartz control in continental deformation; And finally… Should I stay or should I go and forage?

Leading international experts on healthcare communication are meeting in Hong Kong to examine ways of improving communication between doctors and patients, particularly in hospitals.

It is hoped that the Hamzah Sendut Library (PHS) Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) will be a unique repository and centre for dissemination of knowledge, second to none in Malaysia.

Professor Tadashi Otsuka charts the nascent field of environmental law in Japan.

Now, a few days after the Great Tohoku Earthquake that occurred off the North East Coast of Honshu Island, Japan, the damage estimates are emerging. The effectiveness of the warning systems in place and the lessons to learn from the disaster can begin to be seen.

Singapore, 16 March 2011 – The China Wireless Personal Area Network (CWPAN) standards meeting, that has traditionally been held within China for the past five years, will be held in Singapore for the first time.

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are highly regarded for their ability to give rise to the full range of cellular lineages found in the adult body, but left to their own devices ESCs tend to differentiate into neural lineages. Researchers from RIKEN have revealed how the nuclear protein Zfp521 is key to the default neural fate.

Computational search algorithms take the guesswork out of understanding complex, multi-molecule transformations

A common industrial magnet exhibits rare and potentially useful qualities when its composition is slightly altered

Two genes that affect Caucasians and a variant of the inflammatory gene interleukin-6 affect the abundance of a marker of systemic inflammation in the Japanese

Summaries of newsworthy papers: Drought worsens dilemma for African maize