Knowing the limits of such factorizations is essential to developing secure codes and ciphers. In addition, such machines could lower the cost of MRI scans, because each patient would spend less time in a machine, Bourland says. About 10 percent of the study respondents favored ending their lives if faced with a health condition that resulted in a low-quality of life.
Researchers note that attitudes toward euthanasia and assisted suicide are changing.
A Purdue engineer is investigating how and why bacteria in the soil eat certain toxic chemicals, and he is developing procedures for using the hungry bugs in environmental cleanup efforts. One of environmental engineer Loring Nies' projects involves studying microbes that eat pentachlorophenol, a chemical used as a wood preservative. The paper also will be published in the premier issue of Bioremediation Journal, to be available at the end of April. Nies says the knowledge gained from his studies may help in understanding how and why microbes eat other types of toxic chemicals in the soil, and how they might be used in bioremediation efforts. Purdue researchers prod plants to clean up pollution Plants have been quietly cleaning up behind us, recycling waste carbon dioxide into life-giving oxygen for as long as humans have been breathing.