Strange But True
Scientists moving 15-ton magnet from N.Y. to Chicago
June 17, 2013 6:20 pm | by Frank Eltman, Associated Press | News | Comments
Scientists on Long Island are preparing to move a 50-foot-wide electromagnet 3,200 miles over land and sea to its new home at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. The trip, starting at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is expected to take more than a month.
Airborne laser reveals hidden city in Cambodia
June 19, 2013 1:08 am | by Kristen Gelineau, Associated Press | News | Comments
Laser technology has uncovered a network of roadways and canals, illustrating a...
Scientists moving 15-ton magnet from N.Y. to Chicago
June 17, 2013 6:20 pm | by Frank Eltman, Associated Press | News | Comments
Scientists on Long Island are preparing to move a 50-foot-wide electromagnet 3,200...
Google begins launching Internet-beaming balloons
June 17, 2013 2:54 pm | by Martha Mendoza and Nick Perry, Associated Press | News | Comments
Eighteen months in the works, the top-secret project was announced Saturday in New...
A new light shines on dense hydrogen
June 4, 2013 7:35 am | News | CommentsNew work from Carnegie Institution scientists has studied how hydrogen, as a solid in one of three phases, behaves under extreme conditions. The team examined the structure, bonding, and electronic properties of highly compressed hydrogen using intense infrared radiation. Their experiments revealed that hydrogen takes a form under these conditions that differs remarkably from its other known structures.
Water-rock reaction may provide enough hydrogen to sustain life on Mars
May 30, 2013 1:27 pm | News | CommentsAccording to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder, a chemical reaction between iron-containing minerals and water may produce enough hydrogen "food" to sustain microbial communities living in pores and cracks within the enormous volume of rock below the ocean floor and parts of the continents.
Cockroaches quickly lose sweet tooth to survive
May 23, 2013 11:04 pm | by Malcolm Ritter, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsFor decades, people have been getting rid of cockroaches by setting out bait mixed with poison. But in the late 1980s, in an apartment test kitchen in Florida, something went very wrong. A killer product stopped working. Cockroach populations there kept rising. Mystified researchers tested and discarded theory after theory until they finally hit on the explanation.
Physicists discover a new kind of friction
May 15, 2013 11:26 am | News | CommentsIn a quest to develop low-friction components for ever smaller mechanical systems, a team of physicists in Germany has recently discovered a previously unknown type of friction that they call “desorption stick.” The researchers examined how and why single polymer molecules in various solvents slide over or stick to certain surfaces. They found that an unexpected factor was responsible for the friction they observed.
Grammar errors? The brain detects them even when you are unaware
May 14, 2013 10:40 am | News | CommentsYour brain often works on autopilot when it comes to grammar. That theory has been around for years, but University of Oregon neuroscientists have captured elusive hard evidence that people indeed detect and process grammatical errors with no awareness of doing so.
The mechanism that puts the curl in the curling stone revealed
May 13, 2013 3:10 pm | News | CommentsIn the curling sport, the players shoot their stones along the ice so that they slowly slide towards the target area, almost 30 m away. The game has its name from the slightly curved "curled" path taken by the stone, when released with a slow rotation. Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden can now reveal the mechanism behind this curving path.
Building protocells from inorganic nanoparticles
May 10, 2013 1:05 pm | News | CommentsResearchers at the University of Bristol in the U.K. have led a new enquiry into how extremely small particles of silica (sand) can be used to design and construct artificial protocells in the laboratory. By attaching a thin polymer layer to the external surface of an artificial inorganic protocell built from silica nanoparticles, the scientists have potentially the problem of controlling membrane permeability.
Quantum optics demonstrated with microwaves
May 8, 2013 12:21 pm | News | CommentsPhysicists in Switzerland have demonstrated one of the quintessential effects of quantum optics—known as the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect—with microwaves, which have a frequency that 100,000 times lower than that of visible light. The experiment takes quantum optics into a new frequency regime and could eventually lead to new technological applications.
An electronic nose can tell pears and apples apart
May 8, 2013 12:13 pm | News | CommentsSwedish and Spanish engineers have created a system of sensors that detects fruit odors more effectively than the human sense of smell. For now, the device, which has 32 sensors and can process scent data in real time, can distinguish between the odorous compounds emitted by pears and apples, but the system can be tailored to other applications.
Scientists make world’s smallest stop-motion film
May 2, 2013 9:22 am | News | CommentsEven without certification by Guinness World Records, it would be easy to believe a short, 250-frame film recently created by an IBM Research team is the world’s smallest. Named “A Boy and His Atom,” the movie was created by precisely placing thousands of atoms using a scanning tunneling microscope. This type of atomic-level control is the result of years of efforts by IBM to determine the lower limits for storing data.
Study: People may welcome talking tissue boxes
May 1, 2013 9:55 am | News | CommentsAccording to researchers from Penn State University, who presented their findings at the 2013 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Paris today, people who have embraced computers and smart phones are likely to give their blessing other smart objects, like talking tissue boxes or tweeting refrigerators. Their tests involved the use of actual talking, interacting objects.
Research find quantum phenomena can have effect on molecular level
April 29, 2013 10:42 am | News | CommentsUsing uniquely sensitive experimental techniques, scientists have found that laws of quantum physics—believed primarily to influence at only sub-atomic levels—can actually impact on a molecular level. The study shows that movement of the ring-like molecule pyrrole over a metal surface runs counter to the classical physics that govern our everyday world.
Researchers create shape-shifting mobile devices
April 29, 2013 8:19 am | News | CommentsAt a conference this week in Europe on human-machine interfaces, a research team from the U.K. will introduce the concept of “shape resolution”, which it has used to compare the resolution of six prototypes built using new technologies in shape-changing material, such as shape memory alloy and electro active polymer. One example is the Morphees, a self-actuated flexible mobile device that can change shape on-demand.
Light bursts out of a flying mirror
April 24, 2013 10:31 am | by Thorsten Naeser, MPQO | News | CommentsAn international team of physicists have successfully staged “thought experiment” formulated in 1905 by Albert Einstein stating that the reflection from a mirror moving close to the speed of light could, in principle, result in bright light pulses in the short wavelength range.
Rare galaxy found furiously burning fuel for stars
April 24, 2013 9:02 am | News | CommentsAstronomers have found a galaxy turning gas into stars with almost 100% efficiency, a rare phase of galaxy evolution that is the most extreme yet observed. The findings come from the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer in the French Alps, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
Superstorm Sandy literally shook the United States
April 19, 2013 12:57 pm | News | CommentsWhen superstorm Sandy turned and took aim at New York City and Long Island last October, ocean waves hitting each other and the shore rattled the seafloor and much of the United States—shaking detected by seismometers across the country, University of Utah researchers have recently found. These “microseisms” generated by Sandy were detected by Earthscope, a network of 500 portable seismometers.
Scientists decode DNA of “living fossil” fish
April 17, 2013 9:04 pm | by Malcolm Ritter, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsThe lungfish is the closest living fish relative of animals with four limbs, called tetrapods. But the lungfish genome is too big to decode with current technology. Scientists have decoded the genome of the next best thing: the coelacanth. Thought to have gone extinct some 70 million years ago, the fish was surprisingly discovered alive in 1938 and could provide insights into the evolution of land animals.
Device launches plasma, holds it together through the air
April 16, 2013 10:12 pm | News | CommentsA University of Missouri engineer has built a system that is able to launch a ring of plasma as far as two feet. Plasma is commonly created in the laboratory using powerful electromagnets, but previous efforts to hold the super-hot material through air have been unsuccessful. The new device does this by changing how the magnetic field around the plasma is arranged.
Bad decisions arise from faulty information, not faulty brain circuits
April 16, 2013 8:11 am | News | CommentsMaking choices involves the evaluation of an accumulation of facts. If a wrong choice is made, Princeton University researchers have recently found, the problem may lie in the facts, or information, rather than the brain's decision-making process. The researchers report that erroneous decisions tend to arise from errors, or "noise," in the information coming into the brain.
Overcoming barriers to medical use of microrockets and micromotors
April 11, 2013 2:13 am | News | CommentsAn advance in micromotor technology akin to the invention of cars that fuel themselves from the pavement or air, rather than gasoline or batteries, is opening the door to broad new medical and industrial uses for these tiny devices, scientists said here today. Their update on development of the motors—so small that thousands would fit inside this "o"—was part of the American Chemical Society national meeting.
GUMBOS technology promises new drugs, electronic devices
April 10, 2013 1:06 pm | News | CommentsMention a breakthrough involving "gumbo" technology in this city, and people think of a new twist on The Local Dish, the stew that's the quintessence of southern Louisiana cooking. But scientific presentations at a meeting of the world's largest scientific society this week are focusing on what may be an advance in developing GUMBOS-based materials with far-reaching medical, electronic and other uses.
Researchers engineer “protein switch” to dissect role of cancer's key players
April 10, 2013 12:45 pm | News | CommentsScientists at the Uniersity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have "rationally rewired" some of the cell's smallest components to create proteins that can be switched on or off by command. These "protein switches" can be used to interrogate the inner workings of each cell, helping scientists uncover the molecular mechanisms of human health and disease.
Recruiting engineered cells to work for warfighters
April 10, 2013 12:22 pm | News | CommentsThe Office of Naval Research (ONR) this week launched a collaborative initiative with university researchers focused on synthetic, or engineered, cells—part of a larger effort to use the smallest units of life to help Sailors and Marines execute their missions. ONR currently has multiple ongoing projects in the field of synthetic biology.
“Artificial leaf” gains ability to self-heal damage, produce energy from dirty water
April 9, 2013 5:47 am | News | CommentsAnother innovative feature has been added to the world’s first practical “artificial leaf,” making the device even more suitable for providing people in developing countries and remote areas with electricity, scientists reported at the American Chemical Society’s National Meeting & Exposition this week. It gives the leaf the ability to self-heal damage that occurs during production of energy.
Newly discovered blood protein solves 60-year-old riddle
April 9, 2013 5:21 am | News | CommentsResearchers at Lund University in Sweden have discovered a new protein that controls the presence of the Vel blood group antigen on our red blood cells. The discovery makes it possible to use simple DNA testing to find blood donors for patients who lack the Vel antigen and need a blood transfusion. This is significant because there is a global shortage of Vel-negative blood
