Friday 27 June 2014

Turning mining wastewater into rainwater

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A new cost-effective technology to treat mining wastewater and reduce sludge by up to 90 per cent has been used for the first time at a commercial mine. The technology, called Virtual Curtain, was used to remove metal contaminants from wastewater at a Queensland mine and the equivalent of around 20 Olympic swimming pools of rainwater-quality water was safely discharged. Sludge is a semi-solid by-product of wastewater treatment and reducing the amount produced has huge environmental and economic benefits. “Our treatment produced only a fraction of the sludge that a conventional lime-based method would have and allowed the mine water to be treated in a more environmentally sound way,” CSIRO scientist Dr Grant Douglas said. “Reducing the amount of sludge is beneficial because the costly and timely steps involved to move and dispose it can be reduced.” Given the Australian mining industry is estimated to generate hundreds of millions of tonnes of wastewater each year, the technology opens a significant opportunity for companies to improve water management practices and be more sustainable. “The technology can produce a material high in metal value, which can be reprocessed to increase a miner’s overall recovery rate and partially offset treatment costs,” Dr Douglas

The post Turning mining wastewater into rainwater has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Turbulent Star-Birth Region Selection Print

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


tagged with: hubble, nasa, stars, star, galaxy, galaxies, space, astronomy, telescope, beautiful, postcard, postcards, photos, photograph, gift, gifts, nebula, nature, landscapes

In commemoration of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope completing its 100,000th orbit in its 18th year of exploration and discovery, scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., have aimed Hubble to take a snapshot of a dazzling region of celestial birth and renewal. Hubble peered into a small portion of the nebula near the star cluster NGC 2074 (upper, left). The region is a firestorm of raw stellar creation, perhaps triggered by a nearby supernova explosion. It lies about 170,000 light-years away near the Tarantula nebula, one of the most active star-forming regions in our Local Group of galaxies. The three-dimensional-looking image reveals dramatic ridges and valleys of dust, serpent-head "pillars of creation," and gaseous filaments glowing fiercely under torrential ultraviolet radiation. The region is on the edge of a dark molecular cloud that is an incubator for the birth of new stars. The high-energy radiation blazing out from clusters of hot young stars already born in NGC 2074 is sculpting the wall of the nebula by slowly eroding it away. Another young cluster may be hidden beneath a circle of brilliant blue gas at center, bottom. In this approximately 100-light-year-wide fantasy-like landscape, dark towers of dust rise above a glowing wall of gases on the surface of the molecular cloud. The seahorse-shaped pillar at lower, right is approximately 20 light-years long, roughly four times the distance between our Sun and the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. The region is in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy. It is a fascinating laboratory for observing star-formation regions and their evolution. Dwarf galaxies like the LMC are considered to be the primitive building blocks of larger galaxies. This representative color image was taken on August 10, 2008, with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Red shows emission from sulfur atoms, green from glowing hydrogen, and blue from glowing oxygen. Source: NASA

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Why some flowers smell like death

Science Focus

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It's great to stop and smell the roses, but there are certain flowers you definitely don't want to get a whiff of. While many plants use sweet smells and nectar to attract insects and other animal pollinators, some employ a different tactic: They exude the putrid odors of feces and rotting animal carcasses.

The revolting smells lure in flies, dung beetles, and other bugs that feast on and lay their eggs in nasty things. To them, the smells are like just baked cookies or fresh laundry — too enticing to pass up. But when the disappointed insects figure out the flowers aren't what they're looking...

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 » see original post http://theweek.com/article/index/263240/why-some-flowers-smell-like-death
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Around-the-world solar aircraft takes maiden voyage

Science Focus

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Solar Impulse

Earlier this week, while the world was distracted by the buildup to the events in Cupertino, the Swiss team behind the first aircraft to fly around the clock on solar power took that craft's successor on its maiden flight.

Solar Impulse 2, a larger and upgraded version of the first craft, is designed to stay aloft for several days straight in order to allow its pilots to take it across the Pacific. To manage that feat, its designers have built a giant glider with a wingspan greater than a 747's but weighing only as much as about a dozen of the jet's wheels. Every horizontal surface on the aircraft is covered with solar panels, and over a quarter of its weight is accounted for by batteries that will keep its propellers turning overnight.

The updated design involves a number of new materials, so this is the first of a series of tests flights that will be necessary to determine if the craft holds up to the wear and tear of extended use. The pilots will also test whether the performance of the aircraft matches up to the predictions made using aerodynamic models—so far, everything looks good in that regard.

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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/x3X2780niqg/
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Quantum computation: Fragile yet error-free

Science Focus

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Physicists have experimentally encoded one quantum bit (qubit) in entangled states distributed over several particles and for the first time carried out simple computations on it. The 7-qubit quantum register could be used as the main building block for a quantum computer that corrects any type of error. The researchers’ results have now been published in Science. IQOQI/Harald Ritsch  Even computers are error-prone. The slightest disturbances may alter saved information and falsify the results of calculations. To overcome these problems, computers use specific routines to continuously detect and correct errors. This also holds true for a future quantum computer, which will require procedures for error correction as well: “Quantum phenomena are extremely fragile and error-prone. Errors can spread rapidly and severely disturb the computer,” says Thomas Monz, member of Rainer Blatt’s research group at the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck. Together with Markus Müller and Miguel Angel Martin-Delgado from the Department for Theoretical Physics at the Complutense University in Madrid, the physicists in Innsbruck developed a new quantum error-correcting method and tested it experimentally. “A quantum bit is extremely complex and cannot be simply copied. Moreover, errors in the microscopic quantum world are more manifold and

The post Quantum computation: Fragile yet error-free has been published on Technology Org.

 
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 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/oV9MiA1FHBs/
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Monogram - Eagle Nebula, Pillars of Creation Stickers

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


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, eglneb, young stars clusters, star forming nebulae, messier 16 ngc 6611, pillars of creation, inspirational, eagle nebula, monograms, initialled, heavens, eso, european southern observatory, vista, initials, monogrammed, monogram

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A breathtaking outer space picture showing a spectacular three-colour composite mosaic image of the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16, or NGC 6611). It's based on images obtained with the Wide-Field Imager camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory.

At the centre, the so-called “Pillars of Creation” can be seen and this wide-field image shows not only the central pillars, but also several others in the same star-forming region, as well as a huge number of stars in front of, in, or behind the Eagle Nebula.

The cluster of bright stars to the upper right is NGC 6611, home to the massive and hot stars that illuminate the pillars. The “Spire” - another large pillar - is in the middle left of the image.

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image code: eglneb

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

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Martian Anniversary Selfie

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June 24th marked the first full Martian year of the Curiosity Rover's exploration of the surface of the Red Planet. That's 687 Earth days or 669 sols since its landing on August 5, 2012. To celebrate, consider this self-portrait of the car-sized robot posing next to a rocky outcrop dubbed Windjana, its recent drilling and sampling site. The mosaicked selfie was constructed with frames taken this April and May using the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), intended for close-up work and mounted at the end of the rover's robotic arm. The MAHLI frames used exclude sections that show the arm itself and so MAHLI and the robotic arm are not seen. Famous for panoramic views, the rover's Mastcam is visible though, on top of the tall mast staring toward the left and down at the drill hole.

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Are ultra-luminous galaxies colliding?

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(Phys.org) —ltra-luminous infrared galaxies ((ULIRGs) are galaxies whose luminosity exceeds that of a trillion suns, By way of comparison, our Milky Way galaxy has a typical modest luminosity of only about ten billion suns. ULIRGs were discovered by an all-sky infrared survey satellite in the 1980's, and since then the origin(s) of their powerful emission has been widely debated. Extreme infrared activity is known to be associated with interacting galaxies, and optical imaging shows that many ULIRGs are indeed in collision. The two primary known sources of global energy production in galaxies are star formation and accretion activity around a massive black hole in the nucleus (a so-called active galactic nucleus). Both of them produce radiation that heats up the dust. Mergers might result in intense infrared emission.because they help to drive this kind of active star formation.



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Gorgeous Space Photo of the Crab Nebula iPad Mini Cover

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: crab nebula, space, deep space, hubble, hubble telescope, hubble telescope photos, images from hubble telescope, photos from hubble telescope, hubble nebulae, nasa photos, space photos, astronomy photos, astronomy, images of space, photos of space, pictures of space

This is a gorgeous photo of the Crab Nebula. Beautiful vivid colors in this restored NASA photo of deep space. If you love astronomy or science, or anything about space, you’ll really enjoy this.

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Athena to study the hot and energetic Universe

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ESA has selected the Athena advanced telescope for high-energy astrophysics as its second ‘Large-class’ science mission.




via ESA Space Science

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Athena_to_study_the_hot_and_energetic_Universe

Smarter sensing: low-cost sensors to monitor the environment and save money

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Joseph Azzarelli, a third-year MIT graduate student in chemistry, works on developing inexpensive, low-power chemical sensors — but the spark that set him on his scientific path has an unlikely source: a presentation on fly-fishing in a bookstore near Kankakee, Ill. The speaker let Azzarelli, 9 years old at the time, practice casting a model fly rod in the store, and he was sold: “I was immediately captivated by the whole process,” Azzarelli says. He began saving money to buy a starter rod and learned to cast, fishing for largemouth bass and sunfish in the creeks and ponds around Kankakee. By the time Azzarelli and his family moved from Illinois to Evergreen, Colo. — a fly-fishing mecca — when he was in the eighth grade, his interest had snowballed into full-blown obsession. He learned to tie flies, studied entomology, and combed through the vast literature on fly-fishing for trout. As a high-school freshman, he got a job at a fly shop in Evergreen called the Blue Quill Angler — “kind of like the MIT of fly-fishing shops,” Azzarelli says. For Azzarelli, the sport shaped his approach to science. “Fly-fishing led me into this awareness of human impact on the environment,

The post Smarter sensing: low-cost sensors to monitor the environment and save money has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Constellations Poster

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


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Space is never-ending source of inspiration for me! I wanted to draw a map of constellations in Photoshop, so I found suitable projection in Internet and used it as a reference.

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Monogram Omega Nebula - Our Amazing Universe Oval Sticker

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


tagged with: awesome astronomy images, omgneb, star forming regions, ngc 6618, omega nebula, inspirational, heavens, uplifting, initials, monogrammed, messier 17, european southern observatory, eso, vista, initialled, monogram, monograms

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A great outer space picture featuring a three-colour composite image of the Omega Nebula (Messier 17, or NGC 6618), based on images obtained with the EMMI instrument on the ESO 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory. North is down and East is to the right in the image. It spans an angle equal to about one third the diameter of the Full Moon, corresponding to about 15 light-years at the distance of the Omega Nebula. The three filters used are B (blue), V ("visual", or green) and R (red).

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image code: omgneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
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Space-tested robot inspires medicine and manufacturing uses

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Humans doing difficult, repetitive tasks or those who need assistance with movement may soon get a helping hand -- literally -- thanks to robotic technology developed to serve astronauts in space. Robonaut, a human-like robot designed by NASA and General Motors (GM), has been on the International Space Station since February 2011. Researchers have been testing the robot's ability to perform certain tasks to free up human crew time and energy.

via Science Daily

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NOAA GOES-R satellite black wing ready for flight

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The solar array that will provide power to NOAA's GOES-R satellite has been tested, approved and shipped to a facility where it will be incorporated on the spacecraft. The five sections of the solar array come together as one to resemble a giant black wing.

via Science Daily

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Star Cluster Pismis 24, core of NGC 6357 Wall Decal

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


tagged with: stars, galaxies, astronomy, hotair balloons, wall stickers, star cluster, pismis 24, sculpting ultaviolet ionisation, super massive stars, sclustpsms, nebula ngc 6357

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series The star cluster Pismis 24 lies in the core of the large emission nebula NGC 6357 that extends one degree on the sky in the direction of the Scorpius constellation. Part of the nebula is ionised by the youngest (bluest) heavy stars in Pismis 24. The intense ultraviolet radiation from the blazing stars heats the gas surrounding the cluster and creates a bubble in NGC 6357. The presence of these surrounding gas clouds makes probing into the region even harder. One of the top candidates for the title of "Milky Way stellar heavyweight champion" was, until now, Pismis 24-1, a bright young star that lies in the core of the small open star cluster Pismis 24 (the bright stars in the Hubble image) about 8,000 light-years away from Earth. Pismis 24-1 was thought to have an incredibly large mass of 200 to 300 solar masses. New NASA/ESA Hubble measurements of the star, have, however, resolved Pismis 24-1 into two separate stars, and, in doing so, have "halved" its mass to around 100 solar masses.

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image code: sclustpsms

Image credit: NASA/ESA Hubble

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Barred Spiral Galaxy Cases For iPad

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: cosmological, space, cosmos, hubble, telescope, spitzer, galaxy, galaxies, spiral, spiral galaxy, stars, colorful, barred galaxy

A dreamlike swirl of galactic splendor. NGC 1300 as taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

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