ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Most accurate robotic legs mimic human walking gait
• Dust today, gone tomorrow: Astronomers discover Houdini-like vanishing act in space
• Life's molecules could lie within reach of Mars Curiosity rover
• Solar flare: Another M-class flare from Sunspot 1515
• Sharing data links in networks of cars
• First direct evidence that elemental fluorine occurs in nature
• New instrument sifts through starlight to reveal new worlds
• Robot vision: Muscle-like action allows camera to mimic eye movement
• 'Impossible’ binary stars discovered

Most accurate robotic legs mimic human walking gait Posted: 05 Jul 2012 10:37 PM PDT A group of researchers has produced a robotic set of legs which they believe is the first to fully model walking in a biologically accurate manner.

Dust today, gone tomorrow: Astronomers discover Houdini-like vanishing act in space Posted: 05 Jul 2012 05:13 PM PDT Astronomers report a baffling discovery never seen before: An extraordinary amount of dust around a nearby star has mysteriously disappeared. "It's as if the rings around Saturn had disappeared," said an astronomer.

Life's molecules could lie within reach of Mars Curiosity rover Posted: 05 Jul 2012 04:41 PM PDT Stick a shovel in the ground and scoop. That's about how deep scientists need to go in order to find evidence for ancient life on Mars, if there is any to be found, a new study suggests. The new findings, which suggest optimal depths and locations to probe for organic molecules like those that compose living organisms as we know them, could help the newest Mars rover scout for evidence of life beneath the surface and within rocks.

Solar flare: Another M-class flare from Sunspot 1515 Posted: 05 Jul 2012 02:21 PM PDT Active Region 1515 has now spit out 12 M-class flares since July 3. Early in the morning of July 5, 2012, there was an M6.1 flare. It peaked at 7:44 AM EDT. This caused a moderate -- classified as R2 on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space weather scale -- radio blackout that has since subsided.

Sharing data links in networks of cars Posted: 05 Jul 2012 02:20 PM PDT A new algorithm lets networks of Wi-Fi-connected cars, whose layout is constantly changing, share a few expensive links to the Internet.

First direct evidence that elemental fluorine occurs in nature Posted: 05 Jul 2012 02:20 PM PDT Fluorine is the most reactive chemical element. Until now the accepted scientific doctrine was, that therefore it cannot exist in nature in its elemental form. A team of chemists has now, for the first time, successfully identified natural elemental fluorine in a special fluorite, the "fetid fluorite" or "antozonite."

New instrument sifts through starlight to reveal new worlds Posted: 05 Jul 2012 01:12 PM PDT An advanced telescope imaging system that started taking data last month is the first of its kind capable of spotting planets orbiting suns outside of our solar system. The collaborative set of high-tech instrumentation and software, called Project 1640, is now operating on the Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California after more than six years of development.

Robot vision: Muscle-like action allows camera to mimic eye movement Posted: 05 Jul 2012 11:44 AM PDT Using piezoelectric materials, researchers have replicated the muscle motion of the human eye to control camera systems in a way designed to improve the operation of robots. This new muscle-like action could help make robotic tools safer and more effective for MRI-guided surgery and robotic rehabilitation.

'Impossible’ binary stars discovered Posted: 05 Jul 2012 10:37 AM PDT Astronomers have discovered four pairs of stars that orbit each other, in less than 4 hours. Until now it was thought that such close-in binary stars could not exist.

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