ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Monster galaxies lose their appetite with age
• New water splitting technique efficiently produces hydrogen fuel
• 'Soft' approach leads to revolutionary energy storage: Graphene-based supercapacitors
• Long-sought method to efficiently make complex anticancer compound developed
• Light that moves and molds gels
• Scientists discover mineral-making secrets potentially useful for new materials
• When galaxies switch off: Hubble's COSMOS survey solves 'quenched' galaxy mystery
• Under leaden skies: Where heavy metal clouds the stars
• NASA technologist makes traveling to hard-to-reach destinations easier
• New Explorer mission chooses the 'just-right' orbit
• Smart materials: Fused liquid marbles show their strength
• Turning unused TV frequencies into wireless broadband

Monster galaxies lose their appetite with age Posted: 01 Aug 2013 04:57 PM PDT Our universe is filled with gobs of galaxies, bound together by gravity into larger families called clusters. Lying at the heart of most clusters is a monster galaxy thought to grow in size by merging with neighboring galaxies, a process astronomers call galactic cannibalism. New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is showing that, contrary to previous theories, these gargantuan galaxies appear to slow their growth over time, feeding less and less off neighboring galaxies.

New water splitting technique efficiently produces hydrogen fuel Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:23 AM PDT Radically new technique uses the power of sunlight to efficiently split water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen, paving the way for the broad use of hydrogen as a clean, green fuel.

'Soft' approach leads to revolutionary energy storage: Graphene-based supercapacitors Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:23 AM PDT Researchers have brought next generation energy storage closer with an engineering first -- a graphene-based device that is compact, yet lasts as long as a conventional battery.

Long-sought method to efficiently make complex anticancer compound developed Posted: 01 Aug 2013 11:22 AM PDT Scientists have achieved the first efficient chemical synthesis of ingenol, a highly complex, plant-derived compound that has long been of interest to drug developers for its anticancer potential. The achievement will enable scientists to synthesize a wide variety of ingenol derivatives and investigate their therapeutic properties. The achievement also sets the stage for the efficient commercial production of ingenol mebutate, a treatment for actinic keratosis (a common precursor to non-melanoma skin cancer), that at present must be extracted and refined inefficiently from plants.

Light that moves and molds gels Posted: 01 Aug 2013 09:57 AM PDT Researchers have demonstrated a biomimetic response using hydrogels -- a material that constitutes most contact lenses and microfluidic or fluid-controlled technologies. Their study is the first to show that these gels can be both reconfigured and controlled by light, undergoing self-sustained motion -- a uniquely biomimetic behavior.

Scientists discover mineral-making secrets potentially useful for new materials Posted: 01 Aug 2013 08:31 AM PDT Proteins have gotten most of the attention in studies of how organic materials control the initial step of making the first tiny crystals that organisms use to build structures that help them move and protect themselves. Researchers have discovered that certain types of sugars, known as polysaccharides, may also control the timing and placement of minerals that animals use to produce hard structures.

When galaxies switch off: Hubble's COSMOS survey solves 'quenched' galaxy mystery Posted: 01 Aug 2013 06:54 AM PDT Some galaxies hit a point in their lives when their star formation is snuffed out, and they become "quenched". Quenched galaxies in the distant past appear to be much smaller than the quenched galaxies in the Universe today. This has always puzzled astronomers -- how can these galaxies grow if they are no longer forming stars? A team of astronomers has now used a huge set of Hubble observations to give a surprisingly simple answer to this long-standing cosmic riddle.

Under leaden skies: Where heavy metal clouds the stars Posted: 01 Aug 2013 06:52 AM PDT Astronomers have discovered two unusual stars with extremely high concentrations of lead in their atmospheres.

NASA technologist makes traveling to hard-to-reach destinations easier Posted: 31 Jul 2013 08:02 PM PDT Traveling to remote locations sometimes involves navigating through stop-and-go traffic, traversing long stretches of highway and maneuvering sharp turns and steep hills. The same can be said for guiding spacecraft to far-flung destinations in space. It isn't always a straight shot.

New Explorer mission chooses the 'just-right' orbit Posted: 31 Jul 2013 08:02 PM PDT Principal investigator George Ricker likes to call it the "Goldilocks orbit" -- it's not too close to Earth and her Moon, and it's not too far. In fact, it's just right. And as a result of this never-before-used orbit — advanced and fine-tuned by NASA engineers and other members of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) team — the Explorer mission led by Ricker will be perfectly positioned to map the locations of more than 500 transiting exoplanets, extrasolar planets that periodically eclipse each one's host star.

Smart materials: Fused liquid marbles show their strength Posted: 31 Jul 2013 12:20 PM PDT A superglue polymerisation strategy that fortifies encapsulated 'liquid marble' water droplets also strengthens their market potential.

Turning unused TV frequencies into wireless broadband Posted: 31 Jul 2013 12:20 PM PDT Every day in Singapore, millions of mobile devices connect to the web wirelessly. The rapid growth of data traffic is putting a strain on current network infrastructure, prompting a need for innovative use of spectrum to increase wireless broadband capacity. In recent years, the method of providing wireless internet access through unlicensed TV broadcasting frequencies — also known as TV white spaces (TVWS) — is gaining traction.

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