Trilobites: Stealing a Clear Look at an Elusive Star

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Astronomers released a new image of rare O-type stars visible only using telescopes sensitive to certain wavelengths.










via New York Times

Researchers stack the odds for novel optoelectronic 2-D materials

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Stacking layers of nanometer-thin semiconducting materials at different angles is a new approach to designing the next generation of energy-efficient transistors and solar cells. Recently a team led by researchers used the vibrations between two layers to decipher their stacking patterns. Their study provides a platform for engineering two-dimensional materials with optical and electronic properties that strongly depend on stacking configurations.
via Science Daily

Mysterious cosmic radio bursts found to repeat

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Astronomers for the first time have detected repeating short bursts of radio waves from an enigmatic source that is likely located well beyond the edge of our Milky Way galaxy. The findings indicate that these 'fast radio bursts' come from an extremely powerful object which occasionally produces multiple bursts in under a minute. Prior to this discovery all previously detected fast radio bursts have appeared to be one-off events.
via Science Daily
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Great tilt gave Mars a new face

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The surface of the planet Mars tilted by 20 to 25 degrees 3 to 3.5 billion years ago. This was caused by a massive volcanic structure, the Tharsis volcanic dome, which is the largest in the Solar System. Because of its extraordinary mass, it caused the outer layers of Mars (its crust and mantle) to rotate around its core. The discovery of this huge shift changes our vision of Mars during the first billion years of its history, at a time when life may have emerged. It also provides a solution to three puzzles: we now know why rivers formed where they are observed today; why underground reservoirs of water ice, until now considered anomalous, are located far from the poles of Mars; and why the Tharsis dome is today situated on the equator.
via Science Daily
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Molecular architectures see the light

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Organic photovoltaics bear great potential for large-scale, cost-effective solar power generation. One challenge to be surmounted is the poor ordering of the thin layers on top of the electrodes. Utilizing self-assembly on atomically flat, transparent substrates, a team of scientists has engineered ordered monolayers of molecular networks with photovoltaic responses. The findings open up intriguing possibilities for the bottom-up fabrication of optoelectronic devices with molecular precision.
via Science Daily

Spinning better electronic devices

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A team of researchers have demonstrated for the first time the transmission of electrical signals through insulators in a sandwich-like structure, a development that could help create more energy efficient electronic devices.
via Science Daily

Converting atmospheric carbon dioxide into batteries

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Scientists have worked out a way to make electric vehicles not just carbon neutral, but carbon negative by demonstrating how the graphite electrodes used in the lithium-ion batteries can be replaced with carbon recovered from the atmosphere.
via Science Daily

Trilobites: It’s Very Unlikely That Asteroid 2013 TX68 Will Hit Earth

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The asteroid, estimated to be 100 feet in diameter, is expected to zip past Earth sometime next week. But not close enough to panic.










via New York Times

In Theory: why bother with theoretical physics?

Congratulations to SuperKEKB for “first turns"

View of the SuperKEKB collision point in autumn 2015. The accelerator beam line is now covered with a concrete shield. The Belle II detector can be seen in the background. (Image: KEK)

Congratulations to the SuperKEKB electron-positron collider in Tsukuba, Japan. On 10 February, the collider succeeded in circulating and storing a positron beam moving close to the speed of light through more than a thousand magnets in a narrow tube around the 3-kilometre circumference of its main ring. Then, on 26 February, it succeeded in circulating and storing an electron beam around its ring of magnets in the opposite direction.

The achievement of "first turns", which means storing the beam in the ring through many revolutions, is a major milestone for any particle accelerator.

SuperKEKB, along with the Belle II detector, is a facility designed to search for New Physics beyond the Standard Model by measuring rare decays of elementary particles such as beauty quarks, charm quarks and tau leptons.

Unlike the LHC at CERN, which is the world's highest energy machine, SuperKEKB/Belle II is designed to have the world's highest luminosity – a factor of 40 higher than the earlier KEKB machine that holds many records for accelerator performance. Thus, SuperKEKB will be the leading accelerator on the "luminosity frontier".

The Belle II detector at SuperKEKB was designed and built by an international collaboration of more than 600 physicists from 23 countries. This collaboration is working closely with SuperKEKB accelerator experts to optimize the machine performance and backgrounds.

At the same time as first turns were achieved, the BEAST in its cave at Tsukuba Hall awakened from its slumber. The BEAST II detector is a system of detectors designed to measure beam backgrounds of the SuperKEKB accelerator. The parasitic radiation produced by electromagnetic showers when the beam collides with the walls of the vacuum pipe, not only obscure the signals that we wish to observe, but can also damage the detector. Therefore, when operating the new accelerator, these beam backgrounds must be well understood.

The BEAST II detector will collect data in the unique environment produced by SuperKEKB’s first beams, thus paving the way to allow Belle II to safely roll into the beam in 2017.

via CERN: Updates for the general public
http://home.cern/about/updates/2016/03/congratulations-superkekb-first-turns

Unusual Clouds over Hong Kong

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Graphene shines at the Mobile World Congress

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The Graphene Flagship had a pavilion at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) for the first time this year. The Graphene Pavilion was set up to show to the global technology leaders what graphene can do now and in the future.

The Flagship made sure to showcase graphene applications in all stages of development, from state of the art research results, to working prototypes, to finished products. Prototypes on display included a graphene piano, a low light sensor, a heart rate monitor, RFID tags, flexible Hall sensors and WiFi receivers, brain-machine interfaces...

Graphene-based sensors for biomedical applications and brain-machine interfaces were among the most interesting exhibits. Still in the research stage, these sensors have been attached to the brains of mice. Detecting small electrical signals from firing neurons at each sensor position allows local sensing of brain activity. Research is currently being conducted on slow wave sleep and epilepsy in animals, with the hope that epileptic seizures could be detected at their onset, and the patient and doctors alerted that a seizure is coming. Graphene poises an excellent platform for bio-sensors, due to its flexibility, electrical conductivity, and biocompatibility.

Image: Detail of a poster from ICN, CNM, and IDIBAPS about graphene bio-sensors.

Graphene and other 2D materials in general were indicated as an enabling technology for various types of flexible and transparent sensors, such as optical sensors, RFID, bio-sensors, gas sensors, etc. The high transparency of graphene was hailed as key in integrating sensors on transparent touch-screens. This application was demonstrated by a transparent graphene ECG attached to the screen of a smartphone. Visitors could measure their heart rates and add them to the database of MWC. Nearly invisible “health patches” like these could discreetly measure one’s health and communicate the results in real time to the patient or medical staff. The two dimensional nature of graphene enables optimal coupling to skin for reliable operation. Blood oxygenation is another parameter that should be possible to measure with a graphene patch.

A host of advanced graphene photodetectors was on display at the congress. Graphene has broadband light absorption, enabling detector operation throughout the UV, visible, infrared and THz parts of the spectrum, which is unmatched by other materials. The photodetectors can be flexible and highly transparent, if desired, or integrated on a wafer substrate for standard CMOS processing. Graphene photodetectors are fast, enabling ultrafast communication in data centers as well as in long distance links. Due to their high light sensitivity, graphene-based photodetectors can also be used for night vision, medical applications, security, food inspection, etc.

Image: Experimental graphene photodetector, made at ICFO.

Graphenea displayed our staple CVD graphene, the most widely used type of graphene for applications in electronics. We showed our graphene transferred on substrates commonly used in the industry (SiO2/Si, PET, Quartz...). In addition, most of the working prototypes were using Graphenea CVD graphene.

To say that the Graphene Pavilion aroused huge interest at the congress would be a gross understatement. On day one EU Commissioner Oettinger toured the pavilion, taking part in working prototype demonstrations. The Commissioner was excited by the achievements of graphene and possibilities of large-scale production demonstrated on site. Industry leaders were fascinated by the working prototypes, especially because this congress was the first opportunity to see so many at once.

Strong interest in the Pavilion on the first day of the congress generated wide press coverage, which in turn seemed to spur even more attendee interest the rest of the week. Business leaders of large multinationals showed a presence, expressing clear interest for collaboration with the Flagship. MWC was attended by leaders of AT&T, Cisco, China Mobile, Ford Motor Company, Facebook, Huawei, Intel, MasterCard, Mercedes Benz, Paypal, and other companies in this league. The Mobile World Congress is hosted by GSMA each year in Barcelona.

Overall MWC2016 was tremendous success for graphene, showing for the first time the fruits of Graphene Flagship labor over the past few years, all in one place and attractively presented to high-tech industry leaders.

Photo: Graphene fitness wearable.

Photo: Heart rate monitor.

Photo: Graphene Pavilion.

Photo: Camera sensor and health patch.

Photo: Graphene strain sensor on robotic arm.

Photo: Nobel prize winner Prof. Kostya Novoselov (left) with Prof. Frank Koppens (center left), John Hoffman, Director of the MWC (center), and Barcelona FC defender Gerard Piqué (right).

via Graphenea

The origins of the universe

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An in-depth look at the origins of matter and the environmental conditions that helped shape the universe today.
via Science Daily
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