ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Europeans to build world’s biggest eye on the sky: Largest optical/infrared telescope
• Black hole growth found to be out of sync
• Highest-energy light from a solar flare ever detected
• New evidence supports theory of extraterrestrial impact
• Workings behind promising inexpensive catalyst revealed
• Neighbor galaxies may have brushed closely, astronomers find
• Helices of light: Dark helices with a bright future
• New spin on antifreeze: Researchers create ultra slippery anti-ice and anti-frost surfaces
• More than 635,000 Martian craters catalogued
• Nanoparticles in polluted air, smoke & nanotechnology products have serious impact on health
• Theorem unifies superfluids and other weird materials
• Physicists discover mechanisms of wrinkle and crumple formation
• Big step taken to develop nuclear fusion power

Europeans to build world’s biggest eye on the sky: Largest optical/infrared telescope Posted: 11 Jun 2012 05:18 PM PDT The European Southern Observatory is to build the largest optical/infrared telescope in the world. At its meeting in Garching June 11, the ESO Council approved the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) Programme, pending confirmation of four so-called ad referendum votes. The E-ELT will start operations early in the next decade.

Black hole growth found to be out of sync Posted: 11 Jun 2012 04:46 PM PDT New evidence from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory challenges prevailing ideas about how black holes grow in the centers of galaxies. Astronomers long have thought that a supermassive black hole and the bulge of stars at the center of its host galaxy grow at the same rate -- the bigger the bulge, the bigger the black hole. However, a new study of Chandra data has revealed two nearby galaxies with supermassive black holes that are growing faster than the galaxies themselves.

Highest-energy light from a solar flare ever detected Posted: 11 Jun 2012 04:37 PM PDT During a powerful solar blast on March 7, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected the highest-energy light ever associated with an eruption on the sun. The discovery heralds Fermi's new role as a solar observatory, a powerful new tool for understanding solar outbursts during the sun's maximum period of activity.

New evidence supports theory of extraterrestrial impact Posted: 11 Jun 2012 04:36 PM PDT Scientists have discovered melt-glass material in a thin layer of sedimentary rock in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Syria. According to the researchers, the material -- which dates back nearly 13,000 years -- was formed at temperatures of 1,700 to 2,200 degrees Celsius (3,100 to 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit), and is the result of a cosmic body impacting Earth.

Workings behind promising inexpensive catalyst revealed Posted: 11 Jun 2012 04:36 PM PDT A newly developed carbon nanotube material could help lower the cost of fuel cells, catalytic converters and similar energy-related technologies by delivering a substitute for expensive platinum catalysts.

Neighbor galaxies may have brushed closely, astronomers find Posted: 11 Jun 2012 04:36 PM PDT New observations confirm a tenuous "bridge" of hydrogen gas streaming between two prominent members of our Local Group of galaxies -- the Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy. This indicates the two may have had a close encounter in the distant past.

Helices of light: Dark helices with a bright future Posted: 11 Jun 2012 04:34 PM PDT Laser beams can be made to form dark as well as bright intensity helices, or corkscrews of light.  Scientists have now shown that forming dark helices can have considerable advantages over employing their commonly considered bright cousins.

New spin on antifreeze: Researchers create ultra slippery anti-ice and anti-frost surfaces Posted: 11 Jun 2012 10:43 AM PDT Researchers have invented a way to keep any metal surface free of ice and frost. The treated surfaces quickly shed even tiny, incipient condensation droplets or frost simply through gravity. The technology prevents ice sheets from developing on surfaces -- and any ice that does form, slides off effortlessly.

More than 635,000 Martian craters catalogued Posted: 11 Jun 2012 10:43 AM PDT How beat up is Mars from cosmic buckshot over the millenia? According to new research, there are a staggering 635,000 impact craters on Mars that are roughly a kilometer or more in diameter.

Nanoparticles in polluted air, smoke & nanotechnology products have serious impact on health Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:53 AM PDT New groundbreaking research has found that exposure to nanoparticles can have a serious impact on health, linking it to rheumatoid arthritis and the development of other serious autoimmune diseases. The findings have health and safety implications for the manufacture, use and ultimate disposal of nanotechnology products and materials. They also identified new cellular targets for the development of potential drug therapies in combating the development of autoimmune diseases.

Theorem unifies superfluids and other weird materials Posted: 11 Jun 2012 06:23 AM PDT Despite physicists' fascination with the weird behavior of materials at extremely low temperatures -- 11 Nobel Prizes have been awarded in the area -- a unified explanation of materials like superfluids and Bose-Einstein condensates remained elusive. Now, physicists have demonstrated that counting the number of Nambu-Goldstone bosons in a material reveals the material's behavior at low temperatures, allowing the prediction of behavior and design of new materials with spooky properties.

Physicists discover mechanisms of wrinkle and crumple formation Posted: 08 Jun 2012 10:57 AM PDT How a featureless sheet develops a complex shape has long remained elusive, but now physicists have identified a fundamental mechanism by which such complex patterns emerge spontaneously.

Big step taken to develop nuclear fusion power Posted: 08 Jun 2012 08:46 AM PDT A key technology is being heralded as a major step in developing an experimental fusion reactor. Researchers involved in the ITER project completed a critical step by successfully testing technology that will insulate and stabilize the central solenoid -- the reactor's backbone. ITER is building a fusion reactor that aims to produce 10 times the amount of energy that it uses. The facility is now under construction near Cadarache, France, and will begin operations in 2020.

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