Thursday 4 September 2014

Eco-friendly ‘pre-fab nanoparticles’ could revolutionize nano manufacturing

original post »

Postdoctoral research associate Monojit Bag (left) and graduate student Tim Gehan (right) synthesize polymer nanoparticles for use in organic-based solar cells being made at the UMass Amherst-based energy center. Deep purple nanoparticles are forming in the small glass container above Gehan’s left hand. A team of materials chemists, polymer scientists, device physicists and others at the University of Massachusetts Amherst today report a breakthrough technique for controlling molecular assembly of nanoparticles over multiple length scales that should allow faster, cheaper, more ecologically friendly manufacture of organic photovoltaics and other electronic devices. Details are in the current issue of Nano Letters. Lead investigator, chemist Dhandapani Venkataraman, points out that the new techniques successfully address two major goals for device manufacture: controlling molecular assembly and avoiding toxic solvents like chlorobenzene. “Now we have a rational way of controlling this assembly in a water-based system,” he says. “It’s a completely new way to look at problems. With this technique we can force it into the exact structure that you want.” Materials chemist Paul Lahti, co-director with Thomas Russell of UMass Amherst’s Energy Frontiers Research Center (EFRC) supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, says, “One of the big implications of this work is that

The post Eco-friendly ‘pre-fab nanoparticles’ could revolutionize nano manufacturing has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

A new model for a cosmological enigma -- dark matter: Solving long-standing and troublesome puzzles

more »

Astrophysicists believe that about 80 percent of the substance of our universe is made up of mysterious "dark matter" that can't be perceived by human senses or scientific instruments.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Atomically thin material opens door for integrated nanophotonic circuits

more »

Researchers have described a new combination of materials that could be a step towards building computer chips capable of transporting digital information at the speed of light.

via Science Daily

Atomically thin material opens door for integrated nanophotonic circuits

more »

A new combination of materials can efficiently guide electricity and light along the same tiny wire, a finding that could be a step towards building computer chips capable of transporting digital information at the speed of light.



Zazzle Space market place

Cosmic Calendar Poster

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


tagged with: cosmic calendar, science, educational, classroom, school, biology, astronomy, history, evolution, cosmos

The 13.8 billion year history of the universe scaled down to a single year. The time scale helps put cosmology, evolution, and written history in context. Perfect for any classroom!

»visit the scienceschool store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Mapping the optimal route between two quantum states: when a straight line is not the shortest distance

Science Focus

original post »

As a quantum state collapses from a quantum superposition to a classical state or a different superposition, it will follow a path known as a quantum trajectory. For each start and end state there is an optimal or “most likely” path, but it is not as easy to predict the path or track it experimentally as a straight-line between two points would be in our everyday, classical world. In a new paper featured on the July 30 cover of Nature, scientists from the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University, the University of Rochester, University of California at Berkeley, and Washington University in St. Louis have shown that it is possible to track these quantum trajectories and compare them to a recently developed theory for predicting the most likely path a system will take between two states. Andrew N. Jordan, professor of physics at the University of Rochester and member of Chapman’s Institute for Quantum Studies, is one of the authors of the paper. His group had developed this new theory in an earlier paper. The results published this week show good agreement between theory and experiment. For their experiment, the Berkeley and Washington University teams devised a superconducting qubit with exceptional coherence

The post Mapping the optimal route between two quantum states: when a straight line is not the shortest distance has been published on Technology Org.

 
#physics 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/727Cv7cNEOg/
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Genetic clues to spread of Ebola

Science Focus

original post »
Scientists have tracked the spread of Ebola in West Africa, revealing genetic clues to the course of the outbreak. 
#science 
 » see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28958495#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

New iBooks Textbook Helps Visually Impaired Visit the Stars Through Touch and Sound



Get larger image formats

Children with visual disabilities can experience striking deep-space images in a free, multi-touch iBooks textbook for the iPad entitled "Reach for the Stars: Touch, Look, Listen, Learn." Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute have teamed up with the SAS Corporation, the National Braille Press, and the National Federation for the Blind to create a book to inspire students of all abilities. Students with visual impairments can access the book using the VoiceOver screen reader that is available on every iPad. The book is available as a free download from Apple's iBooks Store at https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/reach-for-stars-touch-look/id763516126?mt=11.




via HubbleSite NewsCenter -- Latest News Releases

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/40/

Keyhole Nebula and Digitus Impudicus Stickers

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


tagged with: kndigimp, envelope sealers, galaxies and stars, keyhole nebula, carina nebula, massive stars, hubble space telescope, digitus impudicus, complex structure

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series Details of a mysterious, complex structure within the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) are revealed by this image of the 'Keyhole Nebula, ' obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. The picture is a montage assembled from four different April 1999 telescope pointings with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, which used six different colour filters. The picture is dominated by a large, approximately circular feature, which is part of the Keyhole Nebula, named in the 19th century by Sir John Herschel. This region, about 8000 light-years from Earth, is located adjacent to the famous explosive variable star Eta Carinae, which lies just outside the field of view toward the upper right. The Carina Nebula also contains several other stars that are among the hottest and most massive known, each about 10 times as hot, and 100 times as massive, as our Sun.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: kndigimp

Image credit: Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Cloud, Clusters and Comet Siding Spring

more »
On October 19th, a good place to watch Comet Siding Spring will be from Mars. Then, this inbound visitor (C/2013 A1) to the inner solar system, discovered in January 2013 by Robert McNaught at Australia's Siding Spring Observatory, will pass within 132,000 kilometers of the Red Planet. That's a near miss, equivalent to just over 1/3 the Earth-Moon distance. Great views of the comet for denizens of planet Earth's southern hemisphere are possible now, though. This telescopic snapshot from August 29 captured the comet's whitish coma and arcing dust tail sweeping through southern skies. The fabulous field of view includes, the Small Magellanic Cloud and globular star clusters 47 Tucanae (right) and NGC 362 (upper left). Worried about all those spacecraft in Martian orbit? Streaking dust particles from the comet could pose a danger and controllers plan to position Mars orbiters on the opposite side of the planet during the comet's close flyby.

Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Heart and Soul nebulae infrared mosaic NASA Wall Graphics

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


tagged with: the heart and soul nebulae, heart, soul, nebulae, space, astronomy, nasa, infrared, mosaic, galaxy, universe, stars, blue, green, red, white, light, dark, night, sky, awesome, amazing, photo, photography, photograph, art, design, decor, decoration, science, scifi, explore, exploration, vast, spiral, cyan, dust, cluster, ic1848, cool

The Heart and Soul nebulae are seen in this infrared mosaic from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. Also visible near the bottom of this image are two galaxies, Maffei 1 and Maffei 2. Maffei 1 is the bluish elliptical object and Maffei 2 is the spiral galaxy. All four infra-red detectors aboard WISE were used to make this image. Colour is representational: blue and cyan represent infra-red light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is dominated by light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is mostly light from warm dust.

»visit the Best_Gift_Daily store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Electron microscopes take first measurements of nanoscale chemistry in action

more »

(Phys.org) —Scientists' underwater cameras got a boost this summer from the Electron Microscopy Center at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. Along with colleagues at the University of Manchester, researchers captured the world's first real-time images and simultaneous chemical analysis of nanostructures while "underwater," or in solution.



Zazzle Space market place

Hubble Maps the Cosmic Web iPad Folio 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: galaxy, space, universe, travel, exploration, science, sun, astronomy, phenomena, hubble maps the cosmic web, stars, planets, the milky way, telescope images, moons, supernovas, cosmos, cosmology, nebula, star cluster, solar system, space shuttle, nasa, space images, themilkyway, hubble, maps, cosmic, web

.

»visit the themilkyway store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Call for media: Rosetta landing site announcement

more »



Members of the media are invited to ESA Headquarters in Paris, France, on 15 September for the announcement of the primary landing site for Rosetta’s lander Philae, where in November it will attempt the first soft touchdown in history on a comet.




via ESA Space Science

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Call_for_media_Rosetta_landing_site_announcement

New material could enhance fast and accurate DNA sequencing

original post »

Gene-based personalized medicine has many possibilities for diagnosis and targeted therapy, but one big bottleneck: the expensive and time-consuming DNA-sequencing process. A DNA molecule passes through a nanopore in a sheet of molybdenum disulfide, a material that researchers have found to be better than graphene at reading the DNA sequence. | Photo courtesy of Amir Barati Farimani     Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found that nanopores in the material molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) could sequence DNA more accurately, quickly and inexpensively than anything yet available.  “One of the big areas in science is to sequence the human genome for under \$1,000, the ‘genome-at-home,’” said Narayana Aluru, a professor of mechanical science and engineering at the U. of I. who led the study. “There is now a hunt to find the right material. We’ve used MoS2 for other problems, and we thought, why don’t we try it and see how it does for DNA sequencing?” Illinois researchers found that the material molybdenum disulfide could be the most efficient yet found for DNA sequencing, making personalized medicine more accessible. Pictured, from left, are Amir Barati Farimani, Kyoungmin Min and professor Narayana Aluru. Photo by L. Brian Stauffer As it turns out, MoS2

The post New material could enhance fast and accurate DNA sequencing has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

New clues to determining the solar cycle

more »

Approximately every 11 years, the sun undergoes a complete personality change from quiet and calm to violently active. The height of the sun's activity, known as solar maximum, is a time of numerous sunspots, punctuated with profound eruptions that send radiation and solar particles out into the far reaches of space. However, the timing of the solar cycle is far from precise.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

How much gravity is enough?

more »

Keeping upright in a low-gravity environment is not easy, and NASA documents abound with examples of astronauts falling on the lunar surface. Now, a new study suggests that the reason for all these moon mishaps might be because its gravity isn't sufficient to provide astronauts with unambiguous information on which way is 'up'.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Hubble eXtreme Deep Field Poster

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


tagged with: hubble extreme deep field, hubble deep field, extreme deep field, hubble, astronomy, cosmology, galaxies, deep space, xdf, outer space

The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) is an image of a small part of space in the center of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field within the constellation Fornax, showing the deepest optical view in space. Released on September 25, 2012, it took 10 years to compile the images and shows galaxies from 13.2 billion years ago. The exposure time was two million seconds, or approximately 23 days. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see. The red galaxies are the remnants of galaxies after major collisions during their elderly years. Many of the smaller galaxies are very young galaxies that eventually became the major galaxies, like the Milky Way and other galaxies in our galactic neighborhood. The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, adds another 5,500 galaxies to Hubble's 2003 and 2004 view into a tiny patch of the farthest universe.

This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Credit: NASA; ESA; G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch, University of California, Santa Cruz; R. Bouwens, Leiden University; and the HUDF09 Team.

»visit the EnhancedImages store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Keyhole Nebula and Digitus Impudicus Rectangle Sticker

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


tagged with: kndigimp, peel off, galaxies and stars, keyhole nebula, carina nebula, massive stars, hubble space telescope, digitus impudicus, complex structure

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series Details of a mysterious, complex structure within the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) are revealed by this image of the 'Keyhole Nebula, ' obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. The picture is a montage assembled from four different April 1999 telescope pointings with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, which used six different colour filters. The picture is dominated by a large, approximately circular feature, which is part of the Keyhole Nebula, named in the 19th century by Sir John Herschel. This region, about 8000 light-years from Earth, is located adjacent to the famous explosive variable star Eta Carinae, which lies just outside the field of view toward the upper right. The Carina Nebula also contains several other stars that are among the hottest and most massive known, each about 10 times as hot, and 100 times as massive, as our Sun.

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: kndigimp

Image credit: Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Heart and Soul nebulae infrared mosaic NASA Room Decals

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


tagged with: the heart and soul nebulae, heart, soul, nebulae, space, astronomy, nasa, infrared, mosaic, galaxy, universe, stars, blue, green, red, white, light, dark, night, sky, awesome, amazing, photo, photography, photograph, art, design, decor, decoration, science, scifi, explore, exploration, vast, spiral, cyan, dust, cluster, ic1848, cool

The Heart and Soul nebulae are seen in this infrared mosaic from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. Also visible near the bottom of this image are two galaxies, Maffei 1 and Maffei 2. Maffei 1 is the bluish elliptical object and Maffei 2 is the spiral galaxy. All four infra-red detectors aboard WISE were used to make this image. Colour is representational: blue and cyan represent infra-red light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is dominated by light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is mostly light from warm dust.

»visit the Best_Gift_Daily store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Hubble Captures a Ring iPad 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: galaxy, space, universe, stars, travel, exploration, science, sun, the milky way, hubble captures a ring, planets, astronomy, telescope images, moons, phenomena, supernovas, cosmos, cosmology, nebula, star cluster, solar system, space shuttle, nasa, space images, themilkyway, hubble, captures, ring

.

»visit the themilkyway store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!