Sunday 31 January 2016

Nanosheet growth technique could revolutionize nanomaterial production

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Materials scientists believe the tiny sheets of the semiconductor zinc oxide they're growing could have huge implications for the future of a host of electronic and biomedical devices.
via Science Daily

Phase of the moon affects amount of rainfall

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Satellite data shows that the moon's gravity puts a slight damper on rainfall on Earth.
via Science Daily
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MWC 922: The Red Square Nebula

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Understanding the magnetic sun

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Scientists have turned to a combination of real time observations and computer simulations to best analyze how material courses through the corona.
via Science Daily
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Saturday 30 January 2016

A Five Planet Dawn

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As January closes and in the coming days of February, early morning risers can spot the five naked-eye planets before dawn. Though some might claim to see six planets, in this seaside panoramic view all five celestial wanderers were found above the horizon along with a bright waning gibbous Moon on January 27. Nearly aligned along the plane of the ecliptic, but not along a line with the Sun, the five planets are spread well over 100 degrees across the sky. Just arriving on the predawn scene, fleeting Mercury stands above the southeastern horizon in the golden light of the approaching sunrise.

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Friday 29 January 2016

Graphene and neurons: The best of friends

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In exciting new research, a team of researchers has demonstrated how it is possible to interface graphene with neuron cells whilst maintaining the integrity of these vital cells. This work was an interdisciplinary collaboration between nanotechnologists, chemists, biophysicists and neurobiologists all playing an important role.
via Science Daily

Moon was produced by a head-on collision between Earth and a forming planet

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The moon was formed from a violent, head-on collision between the early Earth and a 'planetary embryo' called Theia approximately 100 million years after the Earth formed, almost 4.5 billion years ago.
via Science Daily
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Hidden Galaxy IC 342

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Similar in size to large, bright spiral galaxies in our neighborhood, IC 342 is a mere 10 million light-years distant in the long-necked, northern constellation Camelopardalis. A sprawling island universe, IC 342 would otherwise be a prominent galaxy in our night sky, but it is hidden from clear view and only glimpsed through the veil of stars, gas and dust clouds along the plane of our own Milky Way galaxy. Even though IC 342's light is dimmed by intervening cosmic clouds, this deep telescopic image traces the galaxy's obscuring dust, blue star clusters, and glowing pink star forming regions along spiral arms that wind far from the galaxy's core. IC 342 may have undergone a recent burst of star formation activity and is close enough to have gravitationally influenced the evolution of the local group of galaxies and the Milky Way.

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NASA Webb Telescope mirrors installed with robotic arm precision

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Inside a massive clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland the James Webb Space Telescope team is steadily installing the largest space telescope mirror ever. Unlike other space telescope mirrors, this one must be pieced together from segments using a high-precision robotic arm.
via Science Daily
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Thursday 28 January 2016

Monstrous cloud boomerangs back to our galaxy

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New Hubble telescope observations suggest that a high-velocity gas cloud was launched from the outer regions of our own galaxy around 70 million years ago. Now, the cloud is on a return collision course and is expected to plow into the Milky Way's disk in about 30 million years. Astronomers believe it will ignite a spectacular burst of star formation then.
via Science Daily
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Putting silicon 'sawdust' in a graphene cage boosts battery performance

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Scientists have been trying for years to make a practical lithium-ion battery anode out of silicon, which could store 10 times more energy per charge than today's commercial anodes and make high-performance batteries a lot smaller and lighter. But two major problems have stood in the way: Silicon particles swell, crack and shatter during battery charging, and they react with the battery electrolyte to form a coating that saps their performance.
via Science Daily

Signs of Modern Astronomy Seen in Ancient Babylon

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Scientists have found a small clay tablet with markings indicating that a sort of precalculus technique was used to track Jupiter’s motion in the night sky.










via New York Times

Bringing time and space together for universal symmetry

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New research is broadening perspectives on time and space. Scientists challenge the long-held presumption that time evolution -- the incessant unfolding of the universe over time -- is an elemental part of Nature.
via Science Daily
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Monstrous Cloud Boomerangs Back to Our Galaxy


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The old adage "what goes up must come down" even applies to an immense cloud of hydrogen gas outside our Milky Way galaxy. First discovered in the 1960s, the comet-shaped cloud is 11,000 light-years long and 2,500 light-years across. If the cloud could be seen in visible light, it would span the sky with an apparent diameter 30 times greater than the size of the full moon. The cloud, which is invisible at optical wavelengths, is plummeting toward our galaxy at nearly 700,000 miles per hour. Hubble was used to measure the chemical composition of the cloud as a means of assessing where it came from. Hubble astronomers were surprised to find that the cloud, which is largely composed of hydrogen, also has heavier elements that could only come from stars. This means the cloud came from the star-rich disk of our galaxy. The Smith Cloud is following a ballistic trajectory and will plow back into the Milky Way's disk in about 30 million years. When it does, astronomers believe it will ignite a spectacular burst of star formation, perhaps providing enough gas to make 2 million suns.

Please join the scientists in a live discussion about the origin and conclusions of this research during the Hubble Hangout at 3pm EST today (Thurs., Jan. 28, 2016): http://hbbl.us/Baq .


via HubbleSite NewsCenter -- Latest News Releases
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/04/

Antarctic fungi survive Martian conditions on the International Space Station

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Scientists have gathered tiny fungi that take shelter in Antarctic rocks and sent them to the International Space Station. After 18 months on board in conditions similar to those on Mars, more than 60 percent of their cells remained intact, with stable DNA. The results provide new information for the search for life on the red planet. Lichens from the Sierra de Gredos (Spain) and the Alps (Austria) also traveled into space for the same experiment.
via Science Daily
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Increasing oil's performance with crumpled graphene balls

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Crumpled graphene balls self-disperse in oil to reduce friction and protect engines better than commercial lubricants.
via Science Daily

Elliptical M60, Spiral NGC 4647

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Giant elliptical galaxy M60 and spiral galaxy NGC 4647 do look like an odd couple in this sharp cosmic portrait from the Hubble Space Telescope. But they are found in a region of space where galaxies tend to gather, on the eastern side of the nearby Virgo Galaxy Cluster. About 54 million light-years distant, bright M60's simpler egg-like shape is created by its randomly swarming older stars, while NGC 4647's young blue stars, gas and dust are organized into winding arms rotating in a flattened disk. Spiral NGC 4647 is estimated to be more distant than M60, some 63 million light-years away. Also known as Arp 116, the pair of galaxies may be on the verge of a significant gravitational encounter, though. M60 (aka NGC 4649) is about 120,000 light-years across. The smaller NGC 4647 spans around 90,000 light-years, about the size of our own Milky Way.

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Martian labyrinth

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This block of martian terrain, etched with an intricate pattern of landslides and wind-blown dunes, is a small segment of a vast labyrinth of valleys, fractures and plateaus.


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Martian_labyrinth

Wednesday 27 January 2016

Stellar parenting: Making new stars by 'adopting' stray cosmic gases

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Astronomers have for the first time found young populations of stars within globular clusters that have apparently developed courtesy of star-forming gas flowing in from outside of the clusters themselves. This method stands in contrast to the conventional idea of the clusters' initial stars shedding gas as they age in order to spark future rounds of star birth.
via Science Daily
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The Milky Way's clean and tidy galactic neighbor

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Many galaxies are chock-full of dust, while others have occasional dark streaks of opaque cosmic soot swirling in amongst their gas and stars. However, the subject of this new image, snapped with the OmegaCAM camera on ESO's VLT Survey Telescope in Chile, is unusual -- the small galaxy, named IC 1613, is a veritable clean freak! IC 1613 contains very little cosmic dust, allowing astronomers to explore its contents with great clarity.
via Science Daily
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An Airglow Fan from Lake to Sky

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Official visits to CERN from Lithuania and Pakistan

How to find and study a black hole

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Black holes sound too strange to be real. But they are actually pretty common in space. There are dozens known and probably millions more in the Milky Way and a billion times that lurking outside. The makings and dynamics of these monstrous warpings of spacetime have been confounding scientists for centuries.
via Science Daily
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Einstein put to the test: Two precision experiments in space with lasers

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According to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, all bodies in a vacuum regardless of their properties are accelerated by the Earth's gravity at the same rate. This principle of equivalence applies to stones, feathers and atoms alike. Under the conditions of microgravity very long and precise measurements can be carried out to determine whether different atoms of different mass actually "fall equally fast".
via Science Daily
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Tuesday 26 January 2016

Scientists create graphene barrier to precisely control molecules for making nanoelectronics

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Gardeners often use sheets of plastic with strategically placed holes to allow their plants to grow but keep weeds from taking root. Scientists have found that the same basic approach is an effective way to place molecules in the specific patterns they need within tiny nanoelectronic devices.
via Science Daily

How to Get Five Planets Into a Single Photograph

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The trickiest aspect of capturing Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in the same image is knowing where to look.










via New York Times

New method proposed to probe the beginning of the universe

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How did the universe begin? And what came before the Big Bang? Cosmologists have asked these questions ever since discovering that our universe is expanding. The answers aren't easy to determine. The beginning of the cosmos is cloaked and hidden from the view of our most powerful telescopes. Yet observations we make today can give clues to the universe's origin. New research suggests a novel way of probing the beginning of space and time to determine which of the competing theories is correct.
via Science Daily
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A Candidate for the Biggest Boom Yet Seen

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Integral X-rays Earth’s aurora

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Normally busy with observing high-energy black holes, supernovas and neutron stars, ESA’s Integral space observatory recently had the chance to look back at our own planet’s aurora.


via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Integral_X-rays_Earth_s_aurora

Graphenea increases capacity, reduces prices

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Graphenea announces reduced prices on products and increased production capacity in 2016. Improving the material quality of staple products remains a key strategy for Graphenea, alongside limited strategic expansion of the product offering.

Improvements in process productivity will lead to reduced graphene prices this year. In particular, the price of CVD graphene film will decrease in all categories by 23% on average this year, as the company intends to provide a very competitive offer on all substrates and sizes to support their customers’ research. The price of the popular 4-pack of Monolayer Graphene on SiO2/Si (10mm x 10mm) already went down to $149 (139€). Notably, prices of graphene on custom substrates will decrease by 27%, making it easier for researchers to work on their own substrate. The price of graphene oxide (GO) for research will decrease by 33% on average. GO suspension will now be available in a 5-liter package, for only 28.55 USD per gram.

The addition of select new products to fulfill the evolving graphene market was part of the strategy in 2015. Most notably, the company introduced suspended monolayer graphene on cavities as a standard catalog product. In 2016, the company plans to introduce monolayer graphene on copper coated with PMMA as a standard product.

Apart from constant improvement of material quality and sustainable expansion of the product offering, Graphenea has been working on increasing production capacity. By the end of the year, the company expects to raise capacity to 1 tn/year of GO for industrial applications. This capacity will allow Graphenea to seek customers that are looking forward to increase their demand and to advance commercialization of graphene higher up the value chain.

By progressive reduction of prices on staple products, new materials and expanded capacity, Graphenea remains a key provider for scientific researchers and industrial partners alike.

Key highlights:

  • Reduced prices
  • Introducing monolayer graphene on copper with PMMA coating as standard
  • Introducing 5-liter package of GO as standard
  • Increasing production capacity to match industrial needs

About Graphenea:

Graphenea, headquartered at the nanotechnology cluster CIC nanoGune in San Sebastian, Spain, was established in 2010, and has since grown to be one of the world's largest providers of graphene. Graphenea employs 12 people and exports graphene materials to more than 370 customers in 53 countries. The company has focused on constant improvement of graphene quality, becoming a supplier customers can rely on. Graphenea employs a team of skilled laboratory staff who have brought graphene film production techniques to a new level, offering the same high quality films on any substrate. Following the demands of the growing industry, Graphenea also produces graphene oxide in volumes up to 5 liters per package. Graphenea partners with large multinationals to develop custom graphene materials for their applications. Its research agility and ability to keep pace with the progress of graphene science and technology has allowed Graphenea to become the largest graphene supplier in the Graphene Flagship, a ten year project of the European Commission worth a billion euros. The company keeps a close relation with the world's leading scientists, regularly publishing scientific articles of the highest level.


via Graphenea

Fishing for answers on bone loss in space

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Crew members reared small freshwater fish aboard International Space Station for 56 days and examined the animals' jawbones and teeth for any potential effects from microgravity. Investigators report that they found increased volume and activity of osteoclasts and significant reduction of bone mineral density in the fish aboard the station.
via Science Daily
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Monday 25 January 2016

A Space Station, With Surveillance Cameras for Hire

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Two cameras owned by the Canadian company UrtheCast are available for surveillance jobs from their low-earth orbit on the International Space Station.










via New York Times