Thursday 25 June 2015

Chemists find efficient, scalable way to synthesize potential brain-protecting compound

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Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have invented the first practical, scalable method for synthesizing jiadifenolide, a

The post Chemists find efficient, scalable way to synthesize potential brain-protecting compound has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Researchers stretch a thin crystal to get better solar cells

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An interdisciplinary team has made a semiconductor crystal with a variable band gap. Among other potential uses, this variable semiconductor could lead to solar cells that absorb more energy from the sun by being sensitive to a broader spectrum of light.
via Science Daily

Breakthrough graphene production could trigger revolution in artificial skin development

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A pioneering new technique to produce high-quality, low cost graphene could pave the way for the development of the first truly flexible 'electronic skin,' that could be used in robots.
via Science Daily

Vintage Astronomy, Map of Christian Constellations Poster

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


tagged with: antique, constellations, retro, vintage, americana, nostalgic, zodiac, celestial map, star chart, universe, antique celestial

Vintage illustration Renaissance era astronomy and celestial image featuring an antique star chart of the sky, Map of the Christian Constellations of the northern skies as depicted by Julius Schiller (c. 1580-1627), from The Celestial Atlas, or The Harmony of the Universe by Andreas Cellarius. Andreas Cellarius (c.1596-1665) was a Dutch-German cartographer, best known for his Harmonia Macrocosmica of 1660, a major star atlas, published by Johannes Janssonius in Amsterdam.

Julius Schiller was a lawyer from Augsburg, Germany, who like his fellow citizen and colleague Johann Bayer published a star atlas in celestial cartography.

In the year of his death, Schiller, with Bayer's assistance, published the star atlas Coelum Stellatum Christianum which replaced pagan constellations with biblical and early Christian figures. Specifically, Schiller replaced the zodiacal constellations with the twelve apostles, the northern constellations by figures from the New Testament and the southern constellations by figures from the Old Testament.

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Dumbbell Nebula in Taurus Oval Sticker

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


tagged with: awesome astronomy images, inspirational, dmbblneb, vulpecula constellation, intense ultraviolet radiation, messier 27 ngc 6853, heavens, stars, dumbbell nebula, the fox constellation, european southern observatory, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A great photo from deep space featuring the Dumbbell Nebula - also known as Messier 27 or NGC 6853. It's a typical planetary nebula and is located in the constellation Vulpecula (The Fox).

The distance is rather uncertain, but is believed to be around 1,200 light-years. It was first described by the French astronomer and comet hunter Charles Messier who found it in 1764 and included it as no. 27 in his famous list of extended sky objects.

Despite its class, the Dumbbell Nebula has nothing to do with planets. It consists of very rarefied gas that has been ejected from the hot central star (well visible on this photo), now in one of the last evolutionary stages. The gas atoms in the nebula are excited (heated) by the intense ultraviolet radiation from this star and emit strongly at specific wavelengths.

This image is the beautiful by-product of a technical test of some FORS1 narrow-band optical interference filters. They only allow light in a small wavelength range to pass and are used to isolate emissions from particular atoms and ions.

In this three-colour composite, a short exposure was first made through a wide-band filter registering blue light from the nebula. It was then combined with exposures through two interference filters in the light of double-ionized oxygen atoms and atomic hydrogen. They were colour-coded as “blue”, “green” and “red”, respectively, and then combined to produce this picture that shows the structure of the nebula in “approximately true” colours.



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Image code: dmbblneb

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

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Star Trails above Table Mountain

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Stars trail above and urban lights sprawl below in this moonlit nightscape from Cape Town, South Africa, planet Earth. The looming form of Table Mountain almost seems to hold terrestrial lights at bay while the stars circle the planet's South Celestial Pole. This modern perspective on the natural night sky was captured in June 2014, the scene composed of over nine hundred, stacked 30 second exposures. The stunning result was chosen as the winner in the Against the Lights category, a selection from over 800 entries in The World at Night's 2015 International Earth and Sky Photo Contest.

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Monster black hole wakes up after 26 years

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Over the past week, ESA's Integral satellite has been observing an exceptional outburst of high-energy light produced by a black hole that is devouring material from its stellar companion.


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Integral/Monster_black_hole_wakes_up_after_26_years

Giant galaxy is still growing

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The giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 has swallowed an entire medium-sized galaxy over the last billion years. For the first time a team of astronomers has been able to track the motions of 300 glowing planetary nebulae to find clear evidence of this event and also found evidence of excess light coming from the remains of the totally disrupted victim.
via Science Daily
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Researchers successfully control optical response of atomically thin materials on short timescale

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(Phys.org)—A team of researchers with member affiliations to Columbia and Stanford Universities has found a way to control the optical response of atomically thin materials on extremely short timescales. In their paper published in the journal Nature Photonics, the team describes their approach and why they believe it could help in the development of photonic devices.

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3D plasmonic antenna capable of focusing light into few nanometers

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Professors Myung-Ki Kim and Yong-Hee Lee of the Physics Department at KAIST and their research teams developed a 3D gap-plasmon antenna which can focus light into a few nanometers wide space. Their research findings were published in the June 10th issue of Nano Letters.

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Stellar Nursery R136 in the Tarantula Nebula iPad 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: astronomy, stellar nursery, massive stars, star cluster, tarantula nebula, hubble, galaxy stars, cosmological, 30 doradus nebula, hrbstslr dorneblmc, large magellanic cloud, r136, amazing hubble images, nebulae

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series Hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds in appear in this the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus (or Tarantula) Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.
There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus. Many of the diamond-like icy blue stars are among the most massive stars known. Several of them are over 100 times more massive than our Sun. These hefty stars are destined to pop off, like a string of firecrackers, as supernovas in a few million years. The image, taken in ultraviolet, visible, and red light by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, spans about 100 light-years.
The movement of the LMC around the Milky Way may have triggered the massive cluster's formation in several ways. The gravitational tug of the Milky Way and the companion Small Magellanic Cloud may have compressed gas in the LMC. Also, the pressure resulting from the LMC plowing through the Milky Way's halo may have compressed gas in the satellite. The cluster is a rare, nearby example of the many super star clusters that formed in the distant, early universe, when star birth and galaxy interactions were more frequent.
The LMC is located 170,000 light-years away and is a member of the Local Group of Galaxies, which also includes the Milky Way. The Hubble observations were taken Oct. 20-27, 2009. The blue color is light from the hottest, most massive stars; the green from the glow of oxygen; and the red from fluorescing hydrogen.
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image code: dorneblmc

Image credit: Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3

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Giant galaxy is still growing

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New observations with ESO's Very Large Telescope have revealed thatthe giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 has swallowed an entire medium-sized galaxy over the last billion years. For the first time a team of astronomers has been able to track the motions of 300 glowing planetary nebulae to find clear evidence of this event and also found evidence of excess light coming from the remains of the totally disrupted victim.

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Researchers Create Transparent, Stretchable Conductors Using Nano-Accordion Structure

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Researchers from North Carolina State University have created stretchable, transparent conductors that work because of the structures’ “nano-accordion”

The post Researchers Create Transparent, Stretchable Conductors Using Nano-Accordion Structure has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Used batteries from Nissan Leaf will get a second-life application

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Japanese car manufacturer Nissan signed partnership with Green Charge Networks to deploy second-life lithium-ion vehicle batteries for stationary

The post Used batteries from Nissan Leaf will get a second-life application has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Chasing clouds in the LHC

Simulation of the electron flux produced when the beam passes through the vacuum chamber. The lines show the electron flux, the colours the density of electrons. The higher the density, the brighter the colours.

It’s time for a big summer clean in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), but you won't see operators armed with feather dusters sprucing up the 27-km machine. The pipes in which the beams circulate are already ultra-clean and ultra-high vacuum: the pressure in the beam pipes is just 10-10 or even 10-11 millibars – similar to on the Moon.

However, despite the ultra-high vacuum, residual gas molecules remain trapped on the surface of the walls of the beam pipes, which also contain electrons. When the beams circulate, these electrons are emitted from the walls and accelerated by the beam’s electrical field. The accelerated electrons then hit the walls with enough energy to release the trapped molecules, thereby compromising the vacuum. At the same time, they set off an avalanche of even more electrons, forming electron clouds that can be dense enough to destabilise the beam. The electron-cloud phenomenon is amplified the higher the number of proton bunches in the beam and the more closely spaced they are.

The operators therefore need to dissipate the electron clouds before the LHC can run with more proton bunches. To do that, they've developed a beam scrubbing technique that involves circulating enough protons to release as many trapped gas molecules as possible from the metal and to reduce the rate of production of electrons on the walls of the pipe.

The operators will thus circulate intense beams (containing many bunches) but at low energies in order to improve the beam pipe surface. After a few days, the LHC will be ready to be ramped up to higher-intensity beams for physics and to restart with 50-nanosecond bunch-spacing. The number of bunches will be gradually increased to 1000 bunches per beam. Another scrubbing run will be performed in the summer to prepare the LHC for operation with more bunches spaced even more closely together later in the year.

 


via CERN: Updates for the general public
http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2015/06/chasing-clouds-lhc

Vintage Astronomy, Hydra Snake Constellation Stars Poster

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


tagged with: sky, serpent, constellations, retro, antique, americana, vintage, celestial map, star chart, astronomy, antique celestial

Vintage illustration astronomy and antique celestial constellation Hydra the snake. Hydra is the largest of the 88 modern constellations, measuring 1303 square degrees. It has a long history, having been included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. It is commonly represented as a water snake.

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Carina Nebula - Breathtaking Universe Rectangular Sticker

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


tagged with: stlrnrsry, star clusters, galaxies, starfields, awesome astronomy pictures, constellation puppis, the stern, star nurseries, exploring outer space, universe pictures, european southern observatory, nebulae, eso, vista

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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The Active Cigar Galaxy - Messier 82 Cover 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!


tagged with: agmet, hubble, cigar galaxy, active galaxies, hubble space photography, outer space, stars, cosmological, messier 82, astronomy pictures, chandra

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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