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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
