ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Natural 3-D counterpart to graphene discovered: New form of quantum matter
• Understanding collective animal behavior may be in the eye of the computer
• Sudden thickening of complex fluids modeled
• Massive galaxy cluster verifies predictions of cosmological theory: First detection of kinetic SZ effect in an individual galaxy cluster
• Astronomers probe the primitive nature of a distant 'space blob'
• Increased mobility thanks to robotic rehab
• Researchers 'detune' a molecule: Scientists control the bonds between atoms in a buckyball
• Silver nanowire sensors hold promise for prosthetics, robotics
• Human arm sensors make robot smarter
• Smart object recognition algorithm doesn't need humans
• 5,900 natural gas leaks discovered under Washington, D.C.: A dozen locations had concentrations high enough to trigger explosion
• First black hole orbiting a 'spinning' star
• Hubble and Galaxy Zoo find bars and baby galaxies don't mix
• Two-proton bit controlled by a single copper atom
• What makes superalloys super? Hierarchical microstructure of a superalloy

Natural 3-D counterpart to graphene discovered: New form of quantum matter Posted: 16 Jan 2014 12:08 PM PST A natural 3-D counterpart to 2-D graphene with similar or even better electron mobility and velocity has been discovered. This discovery promises exciting new things to come for the high-tech industry, including much faster transistors and far more compact hard drives.

Understanding collective animal behavior may be in the eye of the computer Posted: 16 Jan 2014 10:10 AM PST An international team of researchers is the first to successfully apply machine learning toward understanding collective animal behavior from raw data such as video without tracking each individual. The findings stand to significantly impact the field of ethology -- the objective study of animal behavior -- and may prove as profound as the breakthroughs that allowed robots to learn to recognize obstacles and navigate their environment.

Sudden thickening of complex fluids modeled Posted: 16 Jan 2014 10:08 AM PST A new model may shed new understanding on the phenomenon known as discontinuous shear thickening (DST), in which the resistance to stirring takes a sudden jump. Easily observed in a 'kitchen experiment' by mixing together equal amounts of cornstarch and water, DST occurs because concentrated suspensions of hard particles in a liquid respond differently than normal fluids to shear forces.

Massive galaxy cluster verifies predictions of cosmological theory: First detection of kinetic SZ effect in an individual galaxy cluster Posted: 16 Jan 2014 08:35 AM PST By observing a high-speed component of a massive galaxy cluster, scientists have detected for the first time in an individual object the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, a change in the cosmic microwave background caused by its interaction with massive moving objects.

Astronomers probe the primitive nature of a distant 'space blob' Posted: 16 Jan 2014 08:35 AM PST Himiko, a "space blob" named after a legendary queen from ancient Japan, is a simply enormous galaxy, with a hot glowing gaseous halo extending over 55,000 light-years. Not only is Himiko very large, it is extraordinarily distant, seen at a time approximately 800 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only 6 percent of its present size and stars and galaxies were just beginning to form.

Increased mobility thanks to robotic rehab Posted: 16 Jan 2014 08:35 AM PST After a stroke, patients often struggle with persistent paresis. Researchers examined whether robot-assisted therapy can help stroke patients. This form of therapy proved successful particularly with the most severely affected persons with arm paresis.

Researchers 'detune' a molecule: Scientists control the bonds between atoms in a buckyball Posted: 16 Jan 2014 08:33 AM PST Scientists have found they can control the bonds between atoms in a molecule. The molecule in question is carbon-60, also known as the buckminsterfullerene and the buckyball, discovered in 1985.

Silver nanowire sensors hold promise for prosthetics, robotics Posted: 16 Jan 2014 08:33 AM PST Researchers have used silver nanowires to develop wearable, multifunctional sensors that could be used in biomedical, military or athletic applications, including new prosthetics, robotic systems and flexible touch panels. The sensors can measure strain, pressure, human touch and bioelectronic signals such as electrocardiograms.

Human arm sensors make robot smarter Posted: 16 Jan 2014 08:27 AM PST Using arm sensors that can "read" a person's muscle movements, researchers have created a control system that makes robots more intelligent. The sensors send information to the robot, allowing it to anticipate a human's movements and correct its own. The system is intended to improve time, safety and efficiency in manufacturing plants.

Smart object recognition algorithm doesn't need humans Posted: 16 Jan 2014 06:11 AM PST If we've learned anything from post-apocalyptic movies it's that computers eventually become self-aware and try to eliminate humans. One engineer isn't interested in that development, but he has managed to eliminate the need for humans in the field of object recognition by creating an algorithm that can accurately identify objects in images or video sequences without human calibration.

5,900 natural gas leaks discovered under Washington, D.C.: A dozen locations had concentrations high enough to trigger explosion Posted: 16 Jan 2014 06:11 AM PST More than 5,893 leaks from aging natural gas pipelines have been found under the streets of Washington, D.C. A dozen of the leaks could have posed explosion risks, the researchers said. Some manholes had methane concentrations as high as 500,000 parts per million of natural gas -- about 10 times greater than the threshold at which explosions can occur.

First black hole orbiting a 'spinning' star Posted: 16 Jan 2014 06:11 AM PST Scientists have discovered the first binary system ever known to consist of a black hole and a 'spinning' star – or more accurately, a Be-type star. Although predicted by theory, none had previously been found.

Hubble and Galaxy Zoo find bars and baby galaxies don't mix Posted: 16 Jan 2014 05:51 AM PST Harnessing the power of both the Hubble Space Telescope and the citizen science project Galaxy Zoo, scientists have found that bar-shaped features in spiral galaxies accelerate the galaxy aging process. The astronomers found that the fraction of spiral galaxies with bar features has doubled in the last eight billion years -- the latter half of the history of the universe.

Two-proton bit controlled by a single copper atom Posted: 16 Jan 2014 05:50 AM PST Just a single foreign atom located in the vicinity of a molecule can change spatial arrangement of its atoms. In a spectacular experiment, an international team of researchers was able to change persistently positions of the nuclei of hydrogen atoms in a porphycene molecule by approaching a single copper atom to the molecule.

What makes superalloys super? Hierarchical microstructure of a superalloy Posted: 14 Jan 2014 07:30 AM PST Materials in high-performance turbines have to withstand not only powerful mechanical forces, they also have to maintain their chemical and mechanical properties almost up to their melting points. For this reason, turbine manufacturers have employed special nickel-based high-performance alloys for decades. New work now shows in detail how new phases in a nickel-based alloy form and evolve, providing clues to how high-performance alloys could be improved.

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