Sunday 31 August 2014

Sunblock poses potential hazard to sea life

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The sweet and salty aroma of sunscreen and seawater signals a relaxing trip to the shore. But scientists are now reporting that the idyllic beach vacation comes with an environmental hitch. When certain sunblock ingredients wash off skin and into the sea, they can become toxic to some of the ocean’s tiniest inhabitants, which are the main course for many other marine animals. Their study appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. Antonio Tovar-Sanchez and David Sánchez-Quiles point out that other than staying indoors, slathering on sunscreen is currently the best way to protect skin from the sun’s harmful rays. But when sunbathers splash into the ocean to cool off, some of their lotions and creams get rinsed into the water. The problem is that titanium dioxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles, which are common ingredients in sunblock, can react with ultraviolet light from the sun and form new compounds, such as hydrogen peroxide, that could be toxic. High amounts of hydrogen peroxide can harm phytoplankton, the microscopic algae that feed everything from small fish to shrimp to whales. The scientists wanted to figure out just how serious of an impact beachgoers could be having on life in coastal waters.

The post Sunblock poses potential hazard to sea life has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Intense Exercise during Long Space Flights Helps Astronauts Protect Aerobic Capacity

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Many astronauts experience a dip in aerobic capacity during long space flights, which can impair their ability to perform complex and demanding routine tasks. In a new article, NASA researchers find that regular, intense in-flight exercise helps preserve cardiovascular stamina.

via Science Daily

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In the Shadow of Saturn Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: shadow, saturn, nasa, outer, space, universe, galaxy, astronomy, solar, system, eclipse, sun, cassini, ring, new, rings, earth, color

In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn recently drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn and slightly scattering sunlight, in the above exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the above image. Visible in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus, and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, visible on the image left just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth. Credit: CICLOPS, JPL, ESA, NASA

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Which came last—The supernova or the red giant?

Science Focus

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A red giant star really is quite gigantic compared to our Sun.

Radioactive decay is a powerful tool. The predictable decay of radioactive isotopes can be used for far more than just dating old rocks. Scientists have used radioactive isotopes to determine the age of the Earth and the age of the Solar System itself. Now, a team of scientists has used radioactive dating to study the pre-history of the Solar System more accurately than before, in the process reconciling data that had seemed to be contradictory.

The contradiction came in the form of data from two different isotopes. The radioactive elements iodine-129 and hafnium-182 are found throughout meteoroids in the Solar System. The abundance of those elements, in relation to the abundance of their non-radioactive counterparts, should give estimates of the time when those elements were produced. The problem is that the date calculated from the iodine (~72 million years prior to the Sun’s formation) does not match the date from the hafnium (~15 million years). Since the two elements should have been produced in the same event (typically a supernova), this was quite a problem.

Both these isotopes are produced via a neutron-capture process. Under certain conditions, an atomic nucleus can pick up a loose neutron. While it remains the same element, it ends up being a different isotope with a different atomic weight. There are two known types of neutron-capture processes: the s-process and the r-process.

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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/6BTfLBHGvLs/
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Laser makes microscopes way cooler

Science Focus

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Laser physicists have found a way to make atomic-force microscope probes 20 times more sensitive and capable of detecting forces as small as the weight of an individual virus. The technique, developed by researchers in the Quantum Optics Group of the Research School of Physics and Engineering in Australian National University, hinges on using laser beams to cool a nanowire probe to minus 265 degrees Celsius. “The level of sensitivity achieved after cooling is accurate enough for us to sense the weight of a large virus that is 100 billion times lighter than a mosquito,” said Professor Ping Koy Lam, the leader of the Quantum Optics Group. The development could be used to improve the resolution of atomic-force microscopes, which are the state-of-the-art tool for measuring nanoscopic structures and the tiny forces between molecules. Atomic force microscopes achieve extraordinarily sensitivity measurements of microscopic features by scanning a wire probe over a surface. However, the probes, around 500 times finer than a human hair, are prone to vibration. “At room temperature the probe vibrates, just because it is warm, and this can make your measurements noisy,” said Dr Ben Buchler,  a co-author of the research that is published in Nature Communications. “We

The post Laser makes microscopes way cooler has been published on Technology Org.

 
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 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/H62tj4Rr1M0/
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A sheepdog's 'two rules' for success

Science Focus

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Scientists produce a simple mathematical model that explains how a single sheepdog can herd a large number of sheep. 
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 » see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28936251#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Monogram Trifid Nebula, Messier 16 Stickers

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, star forming nebulae, trfdnbl, star nurseries, galaxies, nebulae, star factory, trifid nebula, initials, initialled, star clusters, factories for stars, heavens, eso, vista, european southern observatory, monogram, monogrammed, monograms

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A fantastic picture from our universe featuring the massive star factory known as the Trifid Nebula.

It was captured in all its glory with the Wide-Field Imager camera attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in northern Chile.
So named for the dark dust bands that trisect its glowing heart, the Trifid Nebula is a rare combination of three nebulae types that reveal the fury of freshly formed stars and point to more star birth in the future. The field of view of the image is approximately 13 x 17 arcminutes.
It's an awe-inspiring, breathtaking image that reveals some of the wonder that is our universe.

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image code: trfdnbl

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
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Space Shuttle and Space Station Photographed Together

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Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Planetary Nebula Wall Decal

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: nebula, black, space, hole, turquoise, blue, green, stars, astronomy, awesome, clouds, gaseous, window, light

Awesome turquoise color gaseous clouds and stars in this nebula wall decal

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Tarantula Nebula Star Forming Gas Cloud Sculpture iPad Mini Cases

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: billowing interstellar gas clouds, awesome hubble images, star forming activity, star nurseries, tarantula nebula, triggering star formation, large magellanic cloud, hrbstslr tnlmcsfr, cosmological, galaxies, young hot stars

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series An awesome mobile phone shell featuring the Tarantula Nebula of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way, our galactic home. This Hubble image shows old stars from the distant past and rich, interstellar gas clouds feeding the formation of new ones. The most massive and hottest stars are intense, high-energy radiation sources and this pushes away what remains of the gas and dust, compressing and sculpting it. As the whorls and eddies clump and stretch it, gravity takes over and the birth of the next generation of new stars is triggered.
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image code: tnlmcsfr

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Chemical vapor detection using insect olfactory receptor complex

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Professor Shoji Takeuchi and former Project Lecturer Koji Sato at the Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo, have developed a bioinspired electrophysiology technique to record the vapor olfactory response of three-dimensional cell spheroids expressing insect olfactory receptor complexes. Hedonic scale of odor is one of the standard indexes used to evaluate Quality of life (QOL). Olfaction also has important biological roles in insect pathogen vectors throughout their life history. Thus, evaluation of odorants in the environment are important aspects of social life and public health. The olfactory receptors (OR) in the noses of dogs and other animals are sophisticated sensor elements for chemical vapors. Considerable effort has been expended to develop OR-based olfactory sensors. However, the detection of chemical vapors by reconstituted OR proteins has not yet been reported. In this study, the research group expressed insect OR complexes in cell spheroids and arranged them in a hydrogel microchamber array. The spheroids showed olfactory responses to their ligand, which diffused from chemical vapors through the thin surface aqueous layer. Using the same technique, the olfactory responsiveness of a malaria vector mosquito OR were examined. The difference between in vivo and in vitro ligand response suggests that certain compounds

The post Chemical vapor detection using insect olfactory receptor complex has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Whirlpool Galaxy M51 Posters

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: nasa, space, astronomy, prints, posters, photographs, hubble, telescope, beautiful, photography, pictures, picture, print, galaxy, galaxies, stars, star, gifts, gift, fantasy, science fiction

Whirlpool Galaxy M51 Poster.The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51 (NGC 5194) appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust.
This sharpest-ever image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, taken in January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, illustrates a spiral galaxy's grand design, from its curving spiral arms, where young stars reside, to its yellowish central core, a home of older stars. The galaxy is nicknamed the Whirlpool because of its swirling structure.
The Whirlpool's most striking feature is its two curving arms, a of so-called grand-design spiral galaxies. Many spiral galaxies possess numerous, loosely shaped arms which make their spiral structure less pronounced. These arms serve an important purpose in spiral galaxies. They are star-formation factories, compressing hydrogen gas and creating clusters of new stars. In the Whirlpool, the assembly line begins with the dark clouds of gas on the inner edge, then moves to bright pink star-forming regions, and ends with the brilliant blue star clusters along the outer edge.
Some astronomers believe that the Whirlpool's arms are so prominent because of the effects of a close encounter with NGC 5195, the small, yellowish galaxy at the outermost tip of one of the Whirlpool's arms. At first glance, the compact galaxy appears to be tugging on the arm. Hubble's clear view, however, shows that NGC 5195 is passing behind the Whirlpool. The small galaxy has been gliding past the Whirlpool for hundreds of millions of years.
As NGC 5195 drifts by, its gravitational muscle pumps up waves within the Whirlpool's pancake-shaped disk. The waves are like ripples in a pond generated when a rock is thrown in the water. When the waves pass through orbiting gas clouds within the disk, they squeeze the gaseous material along each arm's inner edge. The dark dusty material looks like gathering storm clouds. These dense clouds collapse, creating a wake of star birth, as seen in the bright pink star-forming regions. The largest stars eventually sweep away the dusty cocoons with a torrent of radiation, hurricane-like stellar winds, and shock waves from supernova blasts. Bright blue star clusters emerge from the mayhem, illuminating the Whirlpool's arms like city streetlights.
The Whirlpool is one of astronomy's galactic darlings. Located 31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs), the Whirlpool's beautiful face-on view and closeness to Earth allow astronomers to study a classic spiral galaxy's structure and star-forming processes. Courtesy: NASA.

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Monogram Carina Nebula - Breathtaking Universe Stickers

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: stlrnrsry, star clusters, galaxies, stars, starfields, awesome astronomy pictures, constellation puppis, the stern, monogram, monograms, star nurseries, nebulae, european southern observatory, eso, vista, initials, initialled, monogrammed

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

A gorgeous set of oval stickers showing the area surrounding the stellar cluster NGC 2467, located in the southern constellation of Puppis ("The Stern"). With an age of a few million years at most, it is a very active stellar nursery, where new stars are born continuously from large clouds of dust and gas.

The image, looking like a colourful cosmic ghost or a gigantic celestial Mandrill, contains the open clusters Haffner 18 (centre) and Haffner 19 (middle right: it is located inside the smaller pink region - the lower eye of the Mandrill), as well as vast areas of ionised gas.

The bright star at the centre of the largest pink region on the bottom of the image is HD 64315, a massive young star that is helping shaping the structure of the whole nebular region.

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Image code: stlrnrsry

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

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Orion Nebula Wall Decal

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: space, nebula, colors, stars, gas, plume, black, astronomy, hubble, colorful, wall, decal, decor, decorations

Gas plume near the edge of the Orion Nebula as seen through the Hubble telescope

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Desiderata Poem, Constellation Cygnus, The Swan iPad Mini Cases

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: full desiderata, desiderata poem, noise and haste, go placidly, awesome hubble images, star forming activity, constellation cygnus, the swan, hrbstslr cygsb, cosmological, new star s106ir, star nurseries, young hot stars, interstellar gas clouds, star birth, glowing hydrogen, turbulence

Inspirational Guidance series

A gorgeous iPad Mini case featuring the full Desiderata by Max Ehrmann: Go placidly amidst the noise and haste... with an image of a star forming region in Constellation Cygnus (The Swan). This Hubble picture shows a dust-rich, interstellar gas cloud with a new-born star in the centre of the hour-glass shape.

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Image code: cygsb

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Saturday 30 August 2014

Battery with new Na-Fe chemistry can surpass lithium-ion

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Rechargeable batteries are one of the key technologies required to bring about the future energy saving society, powered by a smart grid and employing electric cars. Lithium (Li) ion batteries offer the most advanced rechargeable energy-storage system, but ever-increasing demand has led to calls for much cheaper alternatives using more common elements. One candidate is the sodium (Na) ion battery, which uses naturally abundant sodium in place of rare lithium. Developing compatible electrode materials has been the subject of intensive research. Much research to date, however, has focused on screening compounds already used in lithium ion batteries and replacing lithium with sodium, but the poor performance of these materials means they are of limited practical use. Researchers have also tried to combine sodium with other cheap and plentiful elements such as iron (Fe), but experience has shown that creating practical iron-based compounds is extremely difficult. Professor Atsuo Yamada’s research group at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering has explored Na-Fe based compounds with entirely novel compositions and structures. Now, the group has discovered a new “earth-abundant” cathode material and determined its crystal structure. This new material does not contain any rare metals and can be easily synthesized, enabling

The post Battery with new Na-Fe chemistry can surpass lithium-ion has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Hubble Hits - Best of Hubble Print

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: astronomy, nebula, stars, planets, galaxies, telescope, space, hubble, space images

Infant galaxies, distant quasars, exploding stars, mysterious black holes, colliding galaxies. Since its launch on April 24, 1990, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided a stunning view of our universe by making unique discoveries and capturing spectacular images.

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The next pandemic

Science Focus

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How likely is a pandemic?
Epidemiologists believe we're statistically overdue for a global viral outbreak, which occurs every generation or so. This year's Ebola crisis is probably just a dress rehearsal: Though the virus has killed at least 1,420 people in Africa in the last five months, Ebola is transmitted only through intimate contact with bodily fluids and doesn't have the global reach of a true pandemic, such as Spanish influenza in 1918. Humanity had no prior exposure or immunity to the Spanish flu, which is believed to have incubated in birds and pigs. So it spread like wildfire, infecting...

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 » see original post http://theweek.com/article/index/267190/the-next-pandemic
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VIDEO: Aurora Australis filmed from space

Science Focus

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The European Space Agency releases time-lapse footage of the Aurora Australis, or southern lights, filmed from the International Space Station. 
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 » see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28927311#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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The mystery of Britain's alien big cats

Science Focus

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In 1983, a farmer in South Molton, a small town in the southern English county of Devon, reported a startling loss in livestock: 100 sheep had been killed, apparently violently, over a period of three months. Their throats had been slashed across. For many, the slaughter confirmed the area's vague but persistent legend, sighted since the early 1970s, of a large, possibly phantom cat. Named for the hilly moorland it was said to roam, they called it the "Beast of Exmoor."

The public reacted swiftly. The Daily Express offered the equivalent of a \$1,600 reward for video footage of the Beast. More...

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 » see original post http://theweek.com/article/index/266835/the-mystery-of-britains-alien-big-cats
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Monogram Christmas Tree Cluster - NGC 2264 Oval Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: star clusters, stars, awesome astronomy pictures, xmastrclst, cone nebula, galaxies, nebulae, christmas tree cluster, monogram, monograms, starfields, european southern observatory, eso, vista, initials, initialled, monogrammed

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous outer space photograph featuring a colour image of the region known as NGC 2264 - an area of sky that includes the sparkling blue baubles of the Christmas Tree star cluster and the Cone Nebula.

It was created from data taken through four different filters (B, V, R and H-alpha) with the Wide Field Imager at ESO's La Silla Observatory, 2400 m high in the Atacama Desert of Chile in the foothills of the Andes.

The image shows a region of space about 30 light-years across.

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image code: xmastrclst

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
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The Starry Sky under Hollow Hill

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Look up in New Zealand's Hollow Hill Cave and you might think you see a familiar starry sky. And that's exactly what Arachnocampa luminosa are counting on. Captured in this long exposure, the New Zealand glowworms scattered across the cave ceiling give it the inviting and open appearance of a clear, dark night sky filled with stars. Unsuspecting insects fooled into flying too far upwards get trapped in sticky snares the glowworms create and hang down to catch food. Of course professional astronomers wouldn't be so easily fooled, although that does look a lot like the Coalsack Nebula and Southern Cross at the upper left ...

Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Christmas Tree Star Cluster Wall Decal

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: christmas tree cluster, cone nebula, red nebula, nebula, astronomy, space, star formation, nebulae, nebula photo, red sky, star cluster, nebula photograph, stars, eso, universe, outer space, cosmos, cosmic, astronomical, astrophotography, cosmology, space photograph, space picture, space image, deep space, nature, natural, science, abstract, space photo, milky way, ngc 2264, glowing, soft, cloudy, dust, misty, gas, gas clouds, fuzzy

This deep red image shows NCG 2264, a region of the Milky Way galaxy in which new stars are being formed. Included in this area are the Christmas Tree Star Cluster & the Cone Nebula. This image was taken by Chile's La Silla Observatory in 2008.

Image credit: ESO | Released by ESO.org under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

You can personalise the design further if you'd prefer, such as by adding your name or other text, or adjusting the image - just click 'Customize it' to see all the options. IMPORTANT: If you choose a different sized version of the product, it's important to click Customize and check the image in the Design view to ensure it fills the area to the edge of the product, otherwise white edges may be visible.

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Nebula iPad Mini Case

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: turquoise, stars, nebula, space, clouds, gases, brown, blue, green, astronomy, beauty, nature, astronomer, hubble

Colorful turquoise sky and stars in a nebula as seen through the Hubble telescope

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Programmed to Fold: RNA Origami

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Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark and Caltech have developed a new method for organizing molecules on the nanoscale. Inspired by techniques used for folding DNA origami—first invented by Paul Rothemund, a senior research associate in computation and neural systems in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech—the team, which includes Rothemund, has fabricated complicated shapes from DNA’s close chemical cousin, RNA. Unlike DNA origami, whose components are chemically synthesized and then folded in an artificial heating and cooling process, RNA origami are synthesized enzymatically and fold up as they are being synthesized, which takes place under more natural conditions compatible with living cells. These features of RNA origami may allow designer RNA structures to be grown within living cells, where they might be used to organize cellular enzymes into biochemical factories. “The parts for a DNA origami cannot easily be written into the genome of an organism. An RNA origami, on the other hand, can be represented as a DNA gene, which in cells is transcribed into RNA by a protein machine called RNA polymerase,” explains Rothemund. So far, the researchers have demonstrated their method by designing RNA molecules that fold into rectangles and then further assemble

The post Programmed to Fold: RNA Origami has been published on Technology Org.

 
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DNA Galaxy Print

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tagged with: galaxy, milky way, milky way galaxy, space art, astronomical illustration, lynette cook, astronomy, astronomy magazine, dna, dna galaxy, double helix, chromosomes, life in space

A spiral galaxy metamorphoses into the DNA double helix. Chemical structures and chromosomes are visible, symbolic of life in space. From a mixed media illustration created for Astronomy magazine. The original art is in a private collection.

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Initialled Spiral Galaxy - NGC 253 Stickers

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tagged with: spgxy253, breathtaking astronomy images, galaxies, stars, horsehead nebula, spiral galaxy, initials, initialled, monogrammed, monogram, european southern observatory, eso, vista, monograms

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous image that reveals a little of the wonder that is our universe.

Measuring 70 000 light-years across and laying 13 million light-years away, the nearly edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 253 is revealed here in an image from the Wide Field Imager (WFI) of the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope at the La Silla Observatory.

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ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
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Crab Nebula Room Decals

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tagged with: astronomy, space, space images, nebula, supernova, remnant, crab nebula, hubble telescope, hubble, telescope, exploration, constellation of taurus, constellation, taurus

The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. The nebula was observed by John Bevis in 1731; it corresponds to a bright supernova recorded by Arab, Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1054. The Crab Nebula is one of the most intricately structured and highly dynamical objects ever observed.

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Hubble's Sharpest View of the Orion iPad Mini Case

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: hubble's, sharpest, view, orion, ipad, mini, case

Thousands of stars are forming in the cloud of gas and dust known as the Orion nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

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Friday 29 August 2014

Scientists unveil new technology to better understand small clusters of atoms

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Physicists at the University of York, working with researchers at the University of Birmingham and Genoa, have developed new technology to study atomic vibration in small particles, revealing a more accurate picture of the structure of atomic clusters where surface atoms vibrate more intensively than internal atoms. An illustration of the extent to which the atoms, in a small cluster of atoms, vibrate. The spheres represent the range of motion of the atoms, rather than the atoms themselves – the spheres have been exaggerated in size by 45 times in order to ease visualisation. The atoms on the surface have larger ranges of motion than those in the middle of the cluster. Using new computer technology based on gaming machines, scientists were able to use a combination of molecular dynamics and quantum mechanics calculations to simulate the electron microscopy of gold particles. By modelling the atomic vibration of individual atoms in such clusters realistically, external atoms on the surface of the structure can be ‘seen’ to vibrate more than internal atoms.  The research is published in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters. Currently, electron microscopy only allows scientists to estimate the average position of atoms in a three-dimensional structure.  This

The post Scientists unveil new technology to better understand small clusters of atoms has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Astrophysicists report radioactive cobalt in supernova explosion

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Astrophysicists have detected the formation of radioactive cobalt during a supernova explosion, lending credence to a corresponding theory of supernova explosions.

via Science Daily

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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope witnesses asteroid smashup

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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted an eruption of dust around a young star, possibly the result of a smashup between large asteroids. This type of collision can eventually lead to the formation of planets.

via Science Daily

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Researchers use NASA and other data to look into the heart of a solar storm

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Scientists found that the CME contained a rare piece of dense solar filament material. This filament coupled with an unusually fast speed led to the large amount of solar material observed.

via Science Daily

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Astronomy: Radio telescopes settle controversy over distance to Pleiades

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A worldwide network of radio telescopes measured the distance to the famous star cluster the Pleiades to an accuracy within 1 percent. The result resolved a controversy raised by a satellite's measurement that now is shown to be wrong. The incorrect measurement had challenged standard models of star formation and evolution.

via Science Daily

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Step lightly: All-optical transistor triggered by single photon promises advances in quantum applications

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(Phys.org) —Optical transistors and switches are fundamental in both classical and quantum optical information processing. A key objective in optics research is determining and developing the structural and performance limits of such all-optical devices, in which a single gate photon modifies the transmission or phase accumulation of multiple source photons – a feature necessitating strong interaction between individual photons. While significant progress has been made – especially in cavity QED experiments, which use resonators to enhance interaction between photons, confined in a reflective enclosure, and natural or artificial atoms – the goal is to achieve high optical gain and high efficiency using a free-space – that is, cavity-free – approach. Recently, scientists at Universität Stuttgart, Germany demonstrated a free-space single-photon transistor based on two-color Rydberg interaction, which they say could lead to a high optical gain, high efficiency optical transistor through further improvements. (In a Rydberg atom a single electron is excited to a state with a large principle quantum number, meaning that it has high potential energy.) Moreover, the researchers state that the finding may lead to advances in quantum information processing, condensed matter physics, single step multi-photon entanglement, and other important areas.



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Our Milky Way Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: solar system, milky way, space, universe, astronomy, galaxies

Like early explorers mapping the continents of our globe, astronomers are busy charting the spiral structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Using infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that the Milky Way's elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars. Previously, our galaxy was thought to possess four major arms. <p> The artist's concept also includes a new spiral arm, called the "Far-3 kiloparsec arm," discovered via a radio-telescope survey of gas in the Milky Way. This arm is shorter than the two major arms and lies along the bar of the galaxy.

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Signal of anthropogenic climate change is written in the ice

Science Focus

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The world's glaciers are melting, driven to retreat by a warming trend that has persisted for well over a century. But glaciers are slow-moving bodies in more ways than one, as their huge mass of ice melts slowly, even when the temperatures rise rapidly. Since the onset of the current retreat traces back to the middle of the 19th century and the end of the Little Ice Age, it can be difficult to tell how much of recent ice dynamics is driven by recent warming.

Now, a new study has taken a close look how the world's glaciers have responded to natural and human-driven climate change. The results show that the majority of melting in the last century was still a hangover from the Little Ice Age, but a clear signal of human influence has emerged over the last few decades.

The authors of the new paper, who hail from Austria and Canada, recognize the challenge of discerning climate influences by following the behavior of glaciers. But they also suggest that there's a great opportunity in doing so. "Because glacier extent responds to changes in the glacier mass balance with a lag of decades to centuries," they write, "glaciers provide an opportunity to directly perceive long-term climate change, unobscured by interannual variability." In other words, the erratic behavior of short-term climate trends gets smoothed out by the slow adjustment of the glaciers.

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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/iSFCraMzrPw/
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Turning a $40 Needle Into a $250,000 Live-Specimen Microscope

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A University of Utah team discovered a method for turning a small, \$40 needle into a 3-D microscope capable of taking images up to 70 times smaller than the width of a human hair. This new method not only produces high-quality images comparable to expensive microscopes, but may be implanted into the brains of living mice for imaging at the cellular level. The study appears in the Aug. 18 issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters. Designed by Rajesh Menon, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and graduate student Ganghun Kim, the microscope technique works when an LED light is illuminated and guided through a fiberoptic needle or cannula. Returned pictures are reconstructed into 3-D images using algorithms developed by Menon and Kim.“Unlike miniature microscopes, our approach does not use optics,” Menon says. “It’s primarily computational.” He says this approach will allow researchers not only to take images far smaller than those taken by current miniature microscopes, but do it for a fraction of the cost.“We can get approximately 1-micron-resolution images that only \$250,000 and higher microscopes are capable of generating,” Menon says. “Miniature microscopes are limited to the few tens of microns.”Menon hopes to extend the technology

The post Turning a \$40 Needle Into a \$250,000 Live-Specimen Microscope has been published on Technology Org.

 
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 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/x2vdqU5oRMM/
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Antarctic hides extreme ecosystem

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Scientists pull up thousands of different types of micro-organisms from Lake Whillans, a large body of water buried 800m under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. 
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 » see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28853387#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Monogram Fires of the Flame Nebula - in Orion Oval Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, hfflmnb, star forming, orion constellation, young stars clusters, orion the hunter, flame nebula, awesome space picture, monogram, initialled, heavens, orions belt, european southern observatory, eso, vista, initials, monogrammed, monograms

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous outer space picture featuring the spectacular star-forming region known as the Flame Nebula, or NGC 2024, in the constellation of Orion (the Hunter) and its surroundings.

In views of this evocative object in visible light the core of the nebula is completely hidden behind obscuring dust, but in this VISTA view, taken in infrared light, the cluster of very young stars at the object’s heart is revealed. The wide-field VISTA view also includes the glow of the reflection nebula NGC 2023, just below centre, and the ghostly outline of the Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) towards the lower right.

The bright bluish star towards the right is one of the three bright stars forming the Belt of Orion. The image was created from VISTA images taken through J, H and Ks filters in the near-infrared part of the spectrum.

The image shows about half the area of the full VISTA field and is about 40 x 50 arcminutes in extent. The total exposure time was 14 minutes and was the first to be released publicly from VISTA, the world’s largest survey telescope.

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image code: hfflmnb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

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The Wizard Nebula

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Open star cluster NGC 7380 is still embedded in its natal cloud of interstellar gas and dust popularly known as the Wizard Nebula. Seen with foreground and background stars along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy it lies some 8,000 light-years distant, toward the constellation Cepheus. A full moon would easily fit inside this telescopic view of the 4 million year young cluster and associated nebula, normally much too faint to be seen by eye. Made with telescope and camera firmly planted on Earth, the image reveals multi light-year sized shapes and structures within the Wizard in a color palette made popular in Hubble Space Telescope images. Recorded with narrowband filters, the visible wavelength light from the nebula's hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur atoms is transformed into green, blue, and red colors in the final digital composite. But there is still a trick up the Wizard's sleeve. Sliding your cursor over the image (or following this link) will make the stars disappear, leaving only the cosmic gas and dust of the Wizard Nebula.

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Atoms to product: Aiming to make nanoscale benefits life-sized

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Many common materials exhibit different and potentially useful characteristics when fabricated at extremely small scales—that is, at dimensions near the size of atoms, or a few ten-billionths of a meter. These "atomic scale" or "nanoscale" properties include quantized electrical characteristics, glueless adhesion, rapid temperature changes, and tunable light absorption and scattering that, if available in human-scale products and systems, could offer potentially revolutionary defense and commercial capabilities. Two as-yet insurmountable technical challenges, however, stand in the way: Lack of knowledge of how to retain nanoscale properties in materials at larger scales, and lack of assembly capabilities for items between nanoscale and 100 microns—slightly wider than a human hair.



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Eta Carinae Nebula Wall Skin

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: eta carinae nebula, eta carinae, carinae, nebula, carinae nebula, space, astronomy, stars, outer space, wr 22

This spectacular panoramic view combines a new image of the field around the Wolf–Rayet star WR 22 in the Carina Nebula (right) with an earlier picture of the region around the unique star Eta Carinae in the heart of the nebula (left).

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Crab Nebula – Hubble Telescope Case For The iPad Mini

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


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Hubble photograph of the Crab Nebula

This is a composite photograph produced from 24 individual images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and is the most detailed image of the Crab Nebula that has been produced to date.
Credit: NASA, ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester (Arizona State University). Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

You can personalise the design further if you'd prefer, such as by adding your name or other text, or adjusting the image - just click 'Customize it' to see all the options. IMPORTANT: If you choose a different sized version of the product, it's important to click Customize and check the image in the Design view to ensure it fills the area to the edge of the product, otherwise white edges may be visible.

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Hang out with Rosetta

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Where will Philae land? Join Rosetta mission experts in a Google+ Hangout, Tuesday 2 September, 14:00 GMT (16:00 CEST)

via ESA Space Science

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Highly conductive organic metal looks promising for disposable electronic devices

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(b-d) Images of the organic metal, TATA, are shown with different imaging techniques. (e) X-ray scattering of a thin film of TATA. (f) Side view (i) and top view (ii) of the proposed stacking structure of TATA. Credit: Armao, et al. ©2014 American Chemical Society Although organic materials are often used as semiconductors, such as in organic LEDs and organic transistors, organic materials that have an electrical conductivity as high as that of metals are still very scarce. One problem with developing organic metals is that there is a tradeoff in terms of their crystalline structure: a high crystallinity is required for high conductivity, but is detrimental to the materials’ processability. Now in a new paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers Joseph J. Armao, IV, et al., at the University of Strasbourg in France, have demonstrated a way to overcome this problem by developing a new class of organic materials that are highly conductive yet very soft and flexible. When irradiated with a light pulse, the material reorganizes its molecules to correct structural defects. The new material can therefore be assembled with low crystallinity and then transformed via a light pulse into a material with high electrical conductivity. Read

The post Highly conductive organic metal looks promising for disposable electronic devices has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Breakthrough in light sources for new quantum technology

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One of the most promising technologies for future quantum circuits are photonic circuits, i.e. circuits based on light (photons) instead of electrons (electronic circuits). First, it is necessary to create a stream of single photons and control their direction. Researchers around the world have made all sorts of attempts to achieve this, but now scientists at the Niels Bohr Institute have succeeded in creating a steady stream of photons emitted one at a time and in a particular direction.



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research joke posters

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: science, scientist, astronomy, astronomer, physics, physicist, nasa, chemistry, chemist, research, astronaut, cosmology, cosmologist, engineer, engineering, biology

get this funny science design! more great designsin our gallery!

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Monogram Crab Nebula in Taurus Stickers

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: crbneb, astronomy, messier 1, neutron stars, star ejecta, pulsars, supernovae explosions, galaxies, outer space pictures, monogram initials, heavens, european southern observatory, eso, vista, monograms, initialled, monogrammed

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A great outer space picture featuring a three colour composite of the well-known Crab Nebula (also known as Messier 1), as observed with the FORS2 instrument in imaging mode in the morning of November 10, 1999.

It's the remnant of a supernova explosion at a distance of about 6,000 light-years, observed almost 1,000 years ago, in the year 1054. It contains a neutron star near its center that spins 30 times per second around its axis (see below).

In this picture, the green light is predominantly produced by hydrogen emission from material ejected by the star that exploded. The blue light is predominantly emitted by very high-energy ("relativistic") electrons that spiral in a large-scale magnetic field (so-called synchrotron emission). It's believed that these electrons are continuously accelerated and ejected by the rapidly spinning neutron star at the centre of the nebula and which is the remnant core of the exploded star.

This pulsar has been identified with the lower/right of the two close stars near the geometric center of the nebula, immediately left of the small arc-like feature, best seen in ESO Press Photo eso9948.

Technical information: ESO Press Photo eso9948 is based on a composite of three images taken through three different optical filters: B (429 nm; FWHM 88 nm; 5 min; here rendered as blue), R (657 nm; FWHM 150 nm; 1 min; green) and S II (673 nm; FWHM 6 nm; 5 min; red) during periods of 0.65 arcsec (R, S II) and 0.80 (B) seeing, respectively. The field shown measures 6.8 x 6.8 arcminutes and the images were recorded in frames of 2048 x 2048 pixels, each measuring 0.2 arcseconds. North is up; East is left.

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ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
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