Manufacturers and materials scientists are atwitter over graphene, a form of carbon one atom thick (or “two dimensional”) and arrayed in lattice-like sheets.  Graphene is more than 200 times stronger than steel by weight, an exceptional electrical conductor, is virtually transparent, and, if a sheet has no holes, impervious to other materials. No wonder electronics makers, outdoor-gear manufacturers and others are smitten.   In...

US wind energy prices averaged less than 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour in 2014, according to a study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This record low price is two-thirds below than in 2009 and now supports about 73,500 jobs, more than triple the number just two years ago.   Partly as a result, several electric utilities in the central US...

Cancer can be caused by malfunctions in the molecules that switch cell growth on and off. When a switch sticks in the “on” position, tumors and other malignancies get a green light. Now, researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston have glimpsed a way to control those switches with electrical signals.   The research team found that electrical pulses...

People overeat for an array of reasons, from being nervous to lovelorn. Now, researchers say, another reason might be specific hormones in specific places in the brain.  The discovery might lead to new ways to reverse the US obesity epidemic faster and more quickly — with fewer side effects.   An investigation at the Rutgers University’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School found that mice...

Forget thermometers and blood-pressure cuffs. Now there’s MouthLab.   Engineers at Johns Hopkins University have unveiled a handheld device that runs on batteries and measures heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, breathing rate and blood oxygen just by touching a person’s lip or fingertip. It also performs an electrocardiogram. In tests, prototypes returned results as reliable as those from conventional monitors that live on rolling...

Using 150 genes from human muscle, brain and skin, researchers at Kings College London have developed a benchmark score that can predict healthy aging years — or perhaps even decades. The genes analyzed were taken from 70-year-olds, born about the same month and year, whose health then was tracked for up to 20 years. Typically, the subjects who had a greater number...

Leonie Muller, a German college student, quit living in an apartment and bought a pass that allows her to take any train, any time. She sleeps, washes her hair and works every day on the train, according to a recent Washington Post article.   There’s a growing worldwide fascination with train travel, especially as European markets begin launching high-speed service...

NBCUniversal recently invested $200 million in BuzzFeed and plunked another $200 million into Vox Media. These moves are part of a major effort by parent company Comcast to expand its reach among millennials, in hopes that the cable giant can hop on the media-distribution curve.   That curve is paced by digital-streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, which have been stealing the coveted generation of mostly...

During his wide-ranging speech at the Occupy Peace rally September 20, Ralph Nader invoked the name of a hero of his, someone whose name he suspected the crowd might not recognize.  “Does anybody remember the name of the great reformer Eugene V. Debs?” he asked. A thin cheer went up in response. Nader explained his interest in talking about Debs,...

For months, global forecaster Gerald Celente has promised that his Occupy Peace rally would be the start of something big and unprecedented. On Sunday, September 20, he made good on that promise. Celente, founder of the Trends Research Institute, stood at the historic intersection of John and Crown streets in Kingston NY and made a further promise: “This is going...