Tuesday 8 July 2014

Vials of Smallpox Found in F.D.A. Storage Room

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Forgotten vials of smallpox were discovered by workers cleaning out an old storage room, but it’s not clear the virus was viable.















via New York Times

The fight over preservatives in personal care products

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Rising public concern over the safety of synthetic preservatives in personal care products, such as sunscreens, is pressuring stores and manufacturers to turn to naturally derived alternatives. But an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society, notes that a recent recall of a naturally preserved product that nonetheless became contaminated with microbes shows the issue of synthetic versus natural is not cut-and-dried. Marc S. Reisch, a C&EN senior correspondent, explains that preservatives, regardless of where they come from, keep potentially harmful microbes from growing in bottled products. Preservatives are low-cost, low-concentration additives that give these products their long shelf life. But research within the past decade suggests that common synthetic preservatives, such as parabens and formaldehyde, carry their own health risks. Defenders of these compounds counter that the concentrations of the preservatives are so low that they pose little, if any, danger. But some environmental health experts and consumers aren’t buying that argument. In response, some manufacturers are turning to alternatives, including naturally derived compounds. However, last year, a maker of natural personal care products found that some tubes of its children’s sunscreen lotion were contaminated with potentially troublesome microbes, despite containing a plant-based preservative,

The post The fight over preservatives in personal care products has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Carina Nebula (Hubble Telescope) Poster

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


tagged with: nature, outer space, hubble telescope, nasa, hubble space telescope, esa, space, astronomy, cosmology, science, universe, space photograph, cosmos, astronomical, stars, natural, nebula

Hubble telescope photograph of the Carina Nebula

This photo of the Carina Nebula was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is reminiscent of a sci-fi/fantasy illustration, and shows an enormous mountainous pillar of dust and gas in rich orange tones, against a starlit deep blue background.

Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

Note that any distortion in the preview image is caused by compression artefacts, and won't be printed.

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' to see all the options.

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SpaceX plans to launch a six-pack of communication satellites tonight

Science Focus

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SpaceX mostly grabs attention for its resupply flights to the International Space Station and for its plans to carry humans to orbit some day soon. But the reason NASA is interested in the company is because it provides a cheap ride to space. And, for that reason, SpaceX has also attracted the interest of commercial satellite providers.

Today, SpaceX hopes to send to orbit some commercial communication satellites from Orbcomm. The hardware, called OG2, will eventually form a 17-satellite mesh that provides constant global coverage. The hardware is compact and light enough that SpaceX's Falcon 9 will be able to carry six to orbit in a single launch.

Right now, weather conditions suggest there's better than even odds that the launch will have to be scrubbed. Should it go ahead, the scheduled departure time is just after 6pm, US Eastern time. SpaceX is livestreaming the launch for those who would like to tune in.

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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/PBDUMEV7CtY/
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Eavesdroppers begone: New quantum key distribution technique is impervious to noise

Science Focus

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Principle behind the proposed quantum cryptography protocol. The final single bit value is calculated from many bits through a pair of numbers {i,j} announced by the receiver, Bob. The upper panel corresponds to the actual scheme, in which Bob measures the wave-like nature of the received light sent by Alice to learn the final bit value. Notice that the value of {i,j} might be controlled by an eavesdropper (Eve) through the signal (II) fed to Bob’s measurement process M, so looking at this panel alone, the security is ambiguous. If Bob now measures the particle-like nature of the received light, he no longer learns the final bit but can still exactly produce the same pair {i,j} Lower panel: Here it is seen that {i,j} is directly randomized by the random number generator. Therefore, the possibility that Bob could have measured the particle-like nature of the received light ensures that the randomness of {i,j} is not rigged by Eve. Credit: Toshihiko Sasaki Cryptography – the art and science of providing secure communications – typically employs three methods to authenticate users and prevent data theft: secret key (symmetric) cryptography, which uses a single key for both encryption and decryption; public key (asymmetric) cryptography which uses different

The post Eavesdroppers begone: New quantum key distribution technique is impervious to noise has been published on Technology Org.

 
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 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/2_aJ1WBbP_g/
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Magnetic cooling enables efficient, ‘green’ refrigeration

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esearchers and industry representatives in the refrigeration and air conditioning field will converge in Des Moines later this month to discuss and promote the cause of magnetic refrigeration at the 3rd International Conference on Magnetic Refrigeration at Room Temperature – known in the business as Thermag III. The focus of the four-day event will be on an energy efficient form of refrigeration that replaces gas compressors and ozone-depleting refrigerants with a system that uses special alloys and a magnetic field to provide the cooling and environmentally benign coolants to circulate that cooling power through the refrigeration loop. “Modern compression/expansion refrigeration cycle cooling is a high-energy-demand industry that annually consumes as much as 15 percent of the total electrical energy produced,” said conference organizer Karl Gschneidner, a senior metallurgist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory. Gschneidner is an Anson Marston Distinguished Professor at Iowa State University, a pioneer in magnetic refrigeration and a world-renowned expert in the rare-earth metals used in the technology. “Magnetic cooling and refrigeration is 20 to 30 percent more energy efficient than conventional vapor-compression refrigeration,” Gschneidner said, “The magnetic refrigerants are solids, so the hazardous, ozone-depleting and greenhouse chemicals are completely eliminated, making magnetic refrigeration

The post Magnetic cooling enables efficient, ‘green’ refrigeration has been published on Technology Org.

 
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 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/YM81lDSFjRg/
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Iridescent Clouds over Thamserku

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Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Scientists discover radio emissions from fireballs

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(Phys.org) —Streaking across the sky at more than 50 kilometers per second at atmospheric heights of more than a 90 kilometers high, researchers using the first station of University of New Mexico's Long Wavelength Array (LWA) saw something new that had never been seen before; something that could hold a treasure trove of new information in the world of physics.



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New biometric watches use light to non-invasively monitor glucose, dehydration, pulse

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Monitoring a patient’s vital signs and other physiological parameters is a standard part of medical care, but, increasingly, health and fitness-minded individuals are looking for ways to easily keep their own tabs on these measurements. Enter the biometric watch. In a pair of papers published in The Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express, groups of researchers from the Netherlands and Israel describe two new wearable devices that use changing patterns of scattered light to monitor biometrics: one tracks glucose concentration and dehydration levels, and the other monitors pulse. The glucose sensor is the first wearable device that can measure glucose concentration directly but noninvasively, the authors say. And while other wearable devices have been made to monitor pulse, the authors claim their new design would be less sensitive to errors when the wearer is in motion, for example while walking or playing sports Both of the watches described in the two papers make use of the so-called “speckle” effect, the grainy interference patterns that are produced on images when laser light reflects from an uneven surface or scatters from an opaque material. When the material that is scattering the light is moving—say, in the case of blood flowing through the circulatory

The post New biometric watches use light to non-invasively monitor glucose, dehydration, pulse has been published on Technology Org.

 
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A hotspot for powerful cosmic rays: Physicists a step closer to finding mysterious sources

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An observatory run by the University of Utah found a "hotspot" beneath the Big Dipper emitting a disproportionate number of the highest-energy cosmic rays. The discovery moves physics another step toward identifying the mysterious sources of the most energetic particles in the universe.



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Supermassive black hole blows molecular gas out of a galaxy at one million kilometers per hour

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New research has solved a long-standing mystery surrounding the evolution of galaxies, deepening our understanding of the future of the Milky Way. The supermassive black holes in the cores of some galaxies drive massive outflows of molecular hydrogen gas. As a result, most of the cold gas is expelled from the galaxies. Since cold gas is required to form new stars, this directly affects the galaxies' evolution.

via Science Daily

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University students developing robotic gardening technology

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For more than a half-century, NASA has made the stuff of science fiction into reality. Researchers are continuing that tradition by designing robots to work in a deep-space habitat, tending gardens and growing food for astronaut explorers. It sounds like a concept from Star Wars, but a team of graduate students from the University of Colorado Boulder is now developing the innovative technology to make it possible.

via Science Daily

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From antibiotics to yeast: Latest student science heads for space

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Astronauts on future missions may nibble on lettuce and grow their own antibiotics, depending on the results of research that student scientists plan to conduct on the International Space Station. Mission 5 of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is scheduled to launch to the space station on July 11. A total of 1,344 proposals yielded 15 selected investigations for the flight. These investigations represent a diversity of subject matter from bacteria to tadpole shrimp and locations from Massachusetts to Arizona.

via Science Daily

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Small, but plentiful: How the faintest galaxies illuminated the early universe

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Astronomers investigating the behavior of the universe shortly after the Big Bang have made a surprising discovery: the properties of the early universe are determined by the smallest galaxies.

via Science Daily

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Athena Observatory helping solve mysteries of the universe

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The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected the Athena X-ray Observatory as its second 'Large-class' science mission in the 21st Century, which will help answer vital questions about the universe.

via Science Daily

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Earth Night Lights Space Poster

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


tagged with: earth, space, light, stars, astronomy, science, electricity, night, time, club

NASA Image of the lights visible from space

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Monogram - Cigar Galaxy - Messier 82 Round Sticker

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


tagged with: stars, galaxies, outer space, envelope sealers, monogram initials, agmet, galaxies and stars, hubble, chandra, messier 82, cigar galaxy, active galaxies

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

Composite of images of the active galaxy Messier 82 from the three Great Observatories: Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and Spitzer Space Telescope. X-ray data recorded by Chandra appears here in blue, infrared light recorded by Spitzer appears in red. Hubble's observation of hydrogen emission appears in orange. Hubble's bluest observation appears in yellow-green.

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Image code: agmet

Image credit: Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope

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Planets of the Solar System Wall Stickers

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


tagged with: astronomy, bubble nebula, cassiopeia, celestial bodies, computer imaging, earth, imaging, jupiter, mars, mercury, moon, natural sciences, natural world, nebula, neptune, nobody, outer space, physical science, planet, pluto, saturn, sciences, the solar system, uranus, venus

ImageID: CB061976 / Corbis / Planets of the Solar System/ /

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Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) Cover 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: hubble, extreme, deep, field, xdf, hubble extreme deep field, galaxy, space, universe, stars, planets, travel, exploration, science, sun, astronomy, the milky way, telescope images, moons, phenomena, supernovas, cosmos, cosmology, nebula, star cluster, solar system, space shuttle, nasa, space images

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