ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

---

• Gravitational waves help us understand black-hole weight gain
• Why lithium-ion-batteries fail
• Incoming comet ISON appears intact to NASA's Hubble
• Astronomer helps research team see misaligned planets in distant system
• Scientists show Heisenberg's intuition correct
• A grand unified theory of exotic superconductivity?
• Most distant gravitational lens helps weigh galaxies
• Images and video move by touch from one smartphone to another tablet
• The cost of racial bias in economic decisions
• Uncovering liquid foam's bubbly acoustics
• Sun and photocatalysts will clean polluted water, cheaply and quickly
• Fat black holes grown up in 'cities': Observational result using virtual observatory
• Restoring surgeons' sense of touch during minimally invasive surgeries

Gravitational waves help us understand black-hole weight gain Posted: 17 Oct 2013 02:40 PM PDT Supermassive black holes: every large galaxy's got one. But here's a real conundrum: how did they grow so big? A new article pits the front-running ideas about the growth of supermassive black holes against observational data -- a limit on the strength of gravitational waves, obtained with CSIRO's Parkes radio telescope in eastern Australia.

Why lithium-ion-batteries fail Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:46 AM PDT Materials in lithium ion battery electrodes expand and contract during charge and discharge. These volume changes drive particle fracture, which shortens battery lifetime. Scientists have quantified this effect for the first time using high-resolution 3-D movies recorded using x-ray tomography at the Swiss Light Source.

Incoming comet ISON appears intact to NASA's Hubble Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:44 AM PDT A new image of the sunward plunging Comet ISON taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope on October 9, 2013, suggests that the comet is intact despite some predictions that the fragile icy nucleus might disintegrate as the Sun warms it. The comet will pass closest to the Sun on November 28.

Astronomer helps research team see misaligned planets in distant system Posted: 17 Oct 2013 11:44 AM PDT NASA's Kepler space telescope has helped astronomers see a distant planetary system featuring multiple planets orbiting their host star at a severe tilt.

Scientists show Heisenberg's intuition correct Posted: 17 Oct 2013 08:43 AM PDT An international team of scientists has provided proof of a key feature of quantum physics -- Heisenberg's error-disturbance relation -- more than 80 years after it was first suggested.

A grand unified theory of exotic superconductivity? Posted: 17 Oct 2013 08:42 AM PDT Scientists introduce a general theoretical approach that describes all known forms of high-temperature superconductivity and their "intertwined" phases.

Most distant gravitational lens helps weigh galaxies Posted: 17 Oct 2013 08:14 AM PDT Astronomers have found the most distant gravitational lens yet -- a galaxy that, as predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, deflects and intensifies the light of an even more distant object. The discovery provides a rare opportunity to directly measure the mass of a distant galaxy. But it also poses a mystery: lenses of this kind should be exceedingly rare.

Images and video move by touch from one smartphone to another tablet Posted: 17 Oct 2013 07:06 AM PDT Scientists have developed technology whereby a ring, structure nail or wristband acts as a user interface allowing files to be transferred directly from one screen to another by touch. The new technical solution is the first step towards the interactivity of various objects and jewellery through a cloud service.

The cost of racial bias in economic decisions Posted: 17 Oct 2013 06:35 AM PDT When financial gain depends on cooperation, we might expect that people would put aside their differences and focus on the bottom line. But new research suggests that people's racial biases make them more likely to leave money on the table when a windfall is not split evenly between groups.

Uncovering liquid foam's bubbly acoustics Posted: 17 Oct 2013 05:03 AM PDT Liquid foams fascinate toddlers singing in a bubble bath. Physicists, too, have an interest in their acoustical properties. Borrowing from both porous material and foam science, scientists studied liquid foams. They used an impedance tube to measure the velocity and attenuation of acoustic waves in liquid foams in a broad frequency range.

Sun and photocatalysts will clean polluted water, cheaply and quickly Posted: 17 Oct 2013 05:01 AM PDT A little amount of appropriately prepared powder is poured in water polluted with phenol and cellulose. A bit of the sun and after fifteen minutes harmful compounds disappear, and the powder can be filtered off and reused. Sounds like a fairy tale? Perhaps, but it is not magic, only a masterly use of chemistry and physics.

Fat black holes grown up in 'cities': Observational result using virtual observatory Posted: 17 Oct 2013 05:01 AM PDT Massive black holes of more than one million solar masses exist at the center of most galaxies.  Some of the massive black holes are observed as active galactic nuclei (AGN) which attract surrounding gas  and release huge amounts of energy.

Restoring surgeons' sense of touch during minimally invasive surgeries Posted: 15 Oct 2013 04:10 PM PDT A team of engineers and doctors has developed a new wireless capsule that can give surgeons back their sense of touch when performing minimally invasive surgery.

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Top Technology News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610