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Thursday, July 18, 2013

ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

Milestone in quest to advance emerging super-black nanotechnology

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 03:39 PM PDT

A NASA engineer has achieved yet another milestone in his quest to advance an emerging super-black nanotechnology that promises to make spacecraft instruments more sensitive without enlarging their size.

In the zone: How scientists search for habitable planets

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 02:54 PM PDT

There is only one planet we know of, so far, that is drenched with life. That planet is Earth, and it has all the right conditions for critters to thrive on its surface. Do other planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, also host life forms? Astronomers still don't know the answer, but they search for potentially habitable planets using a handful of criteria. Ideally, they want to find planets just like Earth, since we know without a doubt that life took root here. The hunt is on for planets about the size of Earth that orbit at just the right distance from their star -- in a region termed the habitable zone.

Curiosity Mars rover passes kilometer of driving

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 02:53 PM PDT

The latest drive by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover brought the total distance that the rover has driven on Mars to more than 1 kilometer. One kilometer is about 0.62 mile.

'Impossible' material made with record-breaking surface area and water adsorption abilities

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 02:29 PM PDT

A novel material with world record-breaking surface area and water adsorption abilities has been synthesized by researchers in Sweden. The magnesium carbonate material that has been given the name Upsalite is foreseen to reduce the amount of energy needed to control environmental moisture in the electronics and drug formulation industry as well as in hockey rinks and ware houses. It can also be used for collection of toxic waste, chemicals or oil spill and in drug delivery systems, for odor control and sanitation after fire.

Ironing out the origins of wrinkles, creases and folds

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 01:44 PM PDT

Engineers have mapped out the amounts of compression required to cause wrinkles, creases, and folds to form in rubbery materials. The findings could help engineers control the formation of these structures, which can be useful in designing nanostructured materials for flexible electronic devices or surfaces that require variable adhesion.

'Intelligent knife' tells surgeon which tissue is cancerous

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 11:17 AM PDT

Scientists have developed an "intelligent knife" that can tell surgeons immediately whether the tissue they are cutting is cancerous or not. In the first study to test the invention in the operating theatre, the "iKnife" diagnosed tissue samples from 91 patients with 100 per cent accuracy, instantly providing information that normally takes up to half an hour to reveal using laboratory tests.

Earth's gold came from colliding dead stars

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 10:49 AM PDT

We value gold for many reasons: Its beauty, its usefulness as jewelry, and its rarity. Gold is rare on Earth in part because it's also rare in the universe. Unlike elements like carbon or iron, it cannot be created within a star. Instead, it must be born in a more cataclysmic event -- like one that occurred last month -- known as a short gamma-ray burst.

Ghost particles: New limits on extremely rare decay

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 08:44 AM PDT

Neutrinos are the most elusive particles having extremely weak interactions with all other particles. They have rather unusual properties and are even expected to be identical with their own antiparticles. So far this property is, however, not experimentally verified even though many studies of neutrinos over the last 60 years have already boosted our understanding of elementary particle physics. Now scientists have obtained new strong limits for the so-called neutrino-less double beta decay, which tests if neutrinos are their own antiparticles.

Deciphering butterflies' designer colors: Findings could inspire new hue-changing materials

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 07:59 AM PDT

Scientists have uncovered how subtle differences in the tiny crystals of butterfly wings create stunningly varied patterns of color even among closely related species. The discovery could lead to new coatings for manufactured materials that could change color by design, if researchers can figure out how to replicate the wings' light-manipulating properties.

The key to ion beams' polarizability

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 06:53 AM PDT

Polarizability determines the force with which an inhomogeneous external electric field acts on the ions of an ion beam. However, it can be quite tricky to obtain accurate values for this force. Now chemists have devised formulas providing the polarizability of atomic ions as a function of their total charge number.

Ripped apart by a black hole: Gas cloud makes closest approach to monster at center of Milky Way

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 06:53 AM PDT

New observations show for the first time a gas cloud being ripped apart by the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. The cloud is now so stretched that its front part has passed the closest point and is traveling away from the black hole at more than 10 million km/h, whilst the tail is still falling towards it.

Newly discovered flux in Earth may solve missing-mantle mystery

Posted: 17 Jul 2013 02:18 AM PDT

Researchers have identified a "hidden flux" of material in Earth's mantle that would make the planet's overall composition much more similar to that of meteorites.
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