ScienceDaily Technology Headlines -- for Friday, September 2, 2011

ScienceDaily Technology Headlines

for Friday, September 2, 2011

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Hubble movies reveal solar-system-sized traffic jams: Giant jets spewing from newborn stars revealed in telescope's images (September 2, 2011) -- Using Hubble Space Telescope images, astronomers have created time-lapse movies that offer astronomers their first glimpse of the dynamic behavior of stellar jets, huge torrents of gas and particles that spew from the poles of newborn stars. The movies are forcing astronomers to rethink the late stages of star birth. The researchers are also using lasers to recreate small-scale versions of the jets. ... > full story

Hydrogen powered prototype vessel for inland waterways: Canal boat runs on fuel cell drive (September 2, 2011) -- Researchers have been operating a canal boat with a fuel cell drive for three years now. In the world of shipbuilding, however, different rules apply than those in the automobile manufacturing industries. Weight is of practically no significance, but the propulsion plant must have an operating lifetime as long as that of the boat itself. The hydride storage system -- the hydrogen tank -- must meet this challenging requirement. ... > full story

Physicists demonstrate quantum integrated circuit that implements quantum von Neumann architecture (September 2, 2011) -- A new paradigm in quantum information processing has been demonstrated. Physicists have developed a quantum integrated circuit that implements the quantum von Neumann architecture. In this architecture, a long-lived quantum random access memory can be programmed using a quantum central processing unit, all constructed on a single chip, providing the key components for a quantum version of a classical computer. ... > full story

New salts for chemical 'soups' (September 2, 2011) -- Organozinc reagents are an important class of organometallic compounds with a wide range of applications. Chemists have now developed a novel route for the synthesis of so-called organozinc pivalates in a stable powdered form. They promise to be extremely useful in many industrial contexts. ... > full story

From a flat mirror, designer light: Bizarre optical phenomena defies laws of reflection and refraction (September 1, 2011) -- Exploiting a novel technique called phase discontinuity, researchers have induced light rays to behave in a way that defies the centuries-old laws of reflection and refraction. The discovery has led to a reformulation of the mathematical laws that predict the path of a ray of light bouncing off a surface or traveling from one medium into another -- for example, from air into glass. ... > full story

Insect gut microbe with a molecular iron reservoir: Researchers analyze the structure of an iron storage protein (September 1, 2011) -- Iron plays an important role in almost every life form. Low iron can lead to deficiency symptoms and reduced growth, whereas too much iron may harm biomolecules like DNA. Researchers in Germany have now elucidated the spatial structure of a bacterial enzyme in Microbacterium arborescens which is able to accumulate several hundred iron ions in its center -- depending on the iron supply situation in its environment: for example in the larval gut of the beet armyworm Spodoptera exigua. ... > full story

NASA's Chandra finds nearest pair of supermassive black holes (September 1, 2011) -- Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon. ... > full story

Faster diagnostics through cheap, ultra-portable blood testing (September 1, 2011) -- Current blood testing procedures are expensive and time-consuming, while sophisticated test equipment is bulky and difficult to transport. A team of researchers has addressed all these drawbacks in a new low-cost, portable blood testing technique using surface plasmon resonance. The technique could help in a wide range of medical sensing applications, including diagnosing diseases like cancer and diabetes long before clinical symptoms arise. ... > full story

'Plastic bottle' solution for arsenic-contaminated water threatening 100 million people (September 1, 2011) -- With almost 100 million people in developing countries exposed to dangerously high arsenic levels in their drinking water, and unable to afford purification technology, scientists described a simple, inexpensive method for removing arsenic based on chopped up pieces of plastic beverage bottles coated with a nutrient found in many foods and dietary supplements. ... > full story

A 'nano,' environmentally friendly, and low toxicity flame retardant protects fabric (September 1, 2011) -- The technology in "fire paint" used to protect steel beams in buildings and other structures has found a new life as a first-of-its-kind flame retardant for children's cotton sleepwear, terrycloth bathrobes and other apparel, according to new report. ... > full story

Iron 'veins' are secret of promising new hydrogen storage material (September 1, 2011) -- Scientists have a new approach to the problem of safely storing hydrogen in future fuel-cell powered cars -- molecular scale 'veins' of iron permeating grains of magnesium like a network of capillaries. ... > full story

Communication via electron spin: Scientists propose new kind of information technology (September 1, 2011) -- Is it time for a communications paradigm shift? Scientists calculate that encoding and sending information via electron spin, instead of voltage changes, may mean tiny chips could transmit more information and consume less power. ... > full story

The star that should not exist (September 1, 2011) -- A team of European astronomers has used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to track down a star in the Milky Way that many thought was impossible. They discovered that this star is composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, placing it in the "forbidden zone" of a widely accepted theory of star formation, meaning that it should never have come into existence. ... > full story

Magnetic memories manipulated by voltage, not heat (September 1, 2011) -- Using voltage to encode magnetic data could lead to smaller, faster memory devices -- but not if heat is doing all the work. Fortunately, it is the voltage itself, and not the side effect of heating, that modifies the magnets' properties. ... > full story

Cutting soot emissions: Fastest, most economical way to slow global warming? (September 1, 2011) -- A new study of dust-like particles of soot in the air -- now emerging as the second most important, but previously overlooked, factor in global warming -- provides fresh evidence that reducing soot emissions from diesel engines and other sources could slow melting of sea ice in the Arctic faster and more economically than any other quick fix. ... > full story

Down to the wire: Inexpensive technique for making high quality nanowire solar cells (September 1, 2011) -- Researchers have developed a solution-based technique for fabricating core/shell nanowire solar cells using the semiconductors cadmium sulfide for the core and copper sulfide for the shell. These inexpensive and easy-to-make nanowire solar cells hold great promise for future solar cell technology. ... > full story

New insight into how disordered solids deform (September 1, 2011) -- In solid materials with regular atomic structures, figuring out weak points where the material will break under stress is relatively easy. But for disordered solids, like glass or sand, their disordered nature makes such predictions much more daunting tasks. Now, a collaboration combining a theoretical model with a first-of-its kind experiment has demonstrated a novel method for identifying "soft spots" in such materials. ... > full story

Computer model for testing heart-disease drugs: Simulations solve decades-old mystery of failed anti-arrhythmia therapy (September 1, 2011) -- Researchers have developed an accurate computer model to test the effects of medications for arrhythmia, or abnormal heart rhythm, before they are used in patients. ... > full story

First flaws in the Advanced Encryption Standard used for internet banking identified (September 1, 2011) -- Researchers have found a weakness in the AES algorithm used worldwide to protect internet banking, wireless communications, and data on hard disks. They managed to come up with a clever new attack that can recover the secret key four times easier than anticipated by experts. However the attack has no practical implications on the security of user data due to various complexities. ... > full story

Ion armageddon: Measuring the impact energy of highly charged ions (August 31, 2011) -- Much like a meteor impacting a planet, highly charged ions hit really hard and can do a lot of damage, albeit on a much smaller scale. And much like geologists determine the size and speed of the meteor by looking at the hole it left, physicists can learn a lot about a highly charged ion's energy by looking at the divots it makes in thin films. Researchers have now measured the energy of highly charged ion impacts on a thin film surface for the first time in detail. ... > full story

Tiny oxygen generators boost effectiveness of anticancer treatment (August 31, 2011) -- Researchers have created and tested miniature devices that are implanted in tumors to generate oxygen, boosting the killing power of radiation and chemotherapy. ... > full story

Solar industry responsible for lead emissions in developing countries, research finds (August 31, 2011) -- Solar power heavily reliant on lead batteries has the potential to release more than 2.4 million tons of lead pollution in China and India, according to new research. ... > full story

Hubble movies provide unprecedented view of supersonic jets from young stars (August 31, 2011) -- Astronomers have combined two decades of Hubble observations to make unprecedented movies revealing never-before-seen details of the birth pangs of new stars. This sheds new light on how stars like the Sun form. ... > full story

New tests for dangerous 'legal marijuana,' 'bath salts' and other emerging designer drugs (August 31, 2011) -- Scientists report the development of much needed new tests to help cope with a wave of deaths, emergency room visits and other problems from a new genre of dangerous designer drugs sold legally in stores and online that mimic the effects of cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana. ... > full story

Graphene's shining light could lead to super-fast Internet (August 31, 2011) -- Internet connection speeds could be tens of times faster than they currently are, thanks to new research by scientists using wonder material graphene. By combining graphene with metallic nanostructures, they show a twenty-fold enhancement in harvesting light by graphene, which paves the way for advances in high-speed internet and other communications. ... > full story

Panda poop may be a treasure trove of microbes for making biofuels (August 31, 2011) -- Panda feces contains bacteria with potent effects in breaking down plant material in the way needed to tap biomass as a major new source of "biofuels" produced not from corn and other food sources, but from grass, wood chips and crop wastes, scientists report. ... > full story

New light shed on pulsars (August 31, 2011) -- Astronomers have made an important breakthrough in the understanding of how pulsars work. Using a new inverse mapping or reverse engineering approach, researchers were able to establish for the first time that most of the light from the pulsar comes from close to the star's surface. This is contrary to most pulsar models and points to a new way of analysing observational data from pulsars. ... > full story

Jupiter-bound space probe captures Earth and Moon (August 31, 2011) -- On its way to the biggest planet in the solar system -- Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft took time to capture its home planet and its natural satellite -- the moon. ... > full story

What's really in that luscious chocolate aroma? (August 31, 2011) -- The mouth-watering aroma of roasted cocoa beans -- key ingredient for chocolate -- emerges from substances that individually smell like potato chips, cooked meat, peaches, raw beef fat, human sweat, earth and an improbable palate of other distinctly un-cocoa-like aromas. That's among the discoveries emerging from an effort to identify the essential aroma and taste ingredients in the world's favorite treat. ... > full story

Mobile phone data help track populations during disasters (August 31, 2011) -- Mobile phone positioning data can be used to monitor population movements during disasters and outbreaks, according to a new study. The study finds that reports on the location of populations affected and in need of assistance can be generated within hours of receiving data. ... > full story

Monitoring ground-level ozone from space (August 30, 2011) -- Satellite views of the Midwestern United States show that ozone levels above 50 parts per billion along the ground could reduce soybean yields by at least 10 percent, costing more than billion in lost crop production, according to scientists. ... > full story

Discovery sheds light on the ecosystem of young galaxies (August 30, 2011) -- A team of scientists has discovered a distant galaxy that may help elucidate two fundamental questions of galaxy formation: How galaxies take in matter and how they give off energetic radiation. ... > full story

Breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cells: Chemists develop way to safely store, extract hydrogen (August 30, 2011) -- A team of scientists has developed a robust, efficient method of using hydrogen as a fuel source. ... > full story

Novel alloy could produce hydrogen fuel from sunlight (August 30, 2011) -- Using state-of-the-art theoretical computations, a team of scientists has determined that an alloy formed by a 2 percent substitution of antimony in gallium nitride has the right electrical properties to enable solar light energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The alloy functions as a catalyst in the photoelectrochemical electrolysis of water. ... > full story

Atlas of the Milky Way leads to discovery of two supernova remnants (August 30, 2011) -- It may not be much use to hitchhikers through the galaxy, but it is extremely valuable to astronomers: the new radio atlas of the Milky Way. After almost ten years of work, researchers have completed their investigation into the polarized radio emission in the galactic plane. ... > full story

Microscope on the go: Cheap, portable, dual-mode microscope uses holograms, not lenses (August 30, 2011) -- To serve remote areas of the world, doctors, nurses and field workers need equipment that is portable, versatile, and relatively inexpensive. Now researchers have built a compact, light-weight, dual-mode microscope that uses holograms instead of lenses. It weighs about as much as a banana and fits in the palm of a hand. ... > full story

Epic search for evidence of life on Mars heats up with focus on high-tech instruments (August 30, 2011) -- Scientists are expressing confidence that questions about life on Mars, which have captured human imagination for centuries, finally may be answered, thanks in part to new life-detection tools up to 1,000 times more sensitive than previous instruments. ... > full story

The pancreas as we’ve never seen it before (August 30, 2011) -- Medical researchers are developing optic projection tomography. With the aid of this imaging technology, they have now described aspects of how the pancreas develops during embryonic development and how the so-called islets of Langerhans are distributed in the adult organ. The findings are important for the interpretation of modeling systems for diabetes. ... > full story

Watching viruses 'friend' a network: Researchers develop Facebook application to track the path of infection (August 30, 2011) -- PiggyDemic, an application developed by researchers in Israel, allows Facebook users to "infect" their friends with a simulated virus or become infected themselves. This will allow researchers to gather information on how a virus mutates, spreads through human interaction, and the number of people it infects. ... > full story

Wearable device that vibrates fingertip could improve one's sense of touch (August 30, 2011) -- Researchers have developed a glove with a special fingertip designed to improve the wearer's sense of touch. Applying a small vibration to the side of the fingertip improves tactile sensitivity and motor performance, according to their research results. ... > full story

Discovery turns seaweed into biofuel in half the time (August 30, 2011) -- Scientists have engineered a new strain of yeast that converts seaweed into biofuel in half the time it took just months ago. ... > full story

First nuclear power plants for settlements on the moon and Mars (August 30, 2011) -- The first nuclear power plant being considered for production of electricity for manned or unmanned bases on the Moon, Mars and other planets may really look like it came from outer space, according to a leader of the project in a recent presentation. ... > full story

Computers are oversold and underused, research on educational programs suggests (August 30, 2011) -- According to new research which studies educational programs in Bahrain, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, information and communication technology (ICT) is not effectively utilized in classrooms in the Middle East. ... > full story

Diamond planet: Radio wave observations show transformation of a galaxy into a millisecond pulsar and its companion planet (August 30, 2011) -- A star that changes into a diamond planet? What sounds like science fiction is apparently reality. Researchers found the diamond planet with the help of the 64-meter Parkes radio telescope in Australia. The planet apparently orbits around an unusual, very dense star, a pulsar. ... > full story

Social media valuable tool to recruit study participants for rare diseases (August 30, 2011) -- Researchers have identified a new benefit of social media and online networking: a novel way to study rare diseases. Through patient-run websites dedicated to heart conditions and women's heart health, cardiologists are reaching out to survivors of spontaneous coronary artery dissection, also known as SCAD, a poorly understood heart condition that affects just a few thousand Americans every year. ... > full story

'Smelling' heart failure: Evaluation of an electronic nose (August 29, 2011) -- A German team has developed a completely new non-invasive method to identify heart failure. It consists of an "electronic nose" which could make the "smelling" of heart failure possible. ... > full story

Filling the pantry for the first voyages to the Red Planet (August 29, 2011) -- A green thumb and a little flair as a gourmet chef may be among the key skills for the first men and women who travel to the Red Planet later this century, according to one scientist. ... > full story

Astrophysicists solve 40-year-old Mariner 5 solar wind problem: Turbulence doesn’t go with the flow (August 29, 2011) -- Astrophysicists have resolved a 40-year-old problem with observations of turbulence in the solar wind first made by the probe Mariner 5. The research resolves an issue with what is by far the largest and most interesting natural turbulence lab accessible to researchers today. ... > full story