ScienceDaily Technology Headlines -- for Monday, November 14, 2011

ScienceDaily Technology Headlines

for Monday, November 14, 2011

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Chemistry: New insight into 100-year-old Haber-Bbosch process of converting nitrogen to ammonia (November 13, 2011) -- New research has resulted in a greater understanding of how the Haber-Bosch process converts nitrogen to ammonia. ... > full story

Using light, researchers convert 2-D patterns into 3-D objects (November 12, 2011) -- Researchers have developed a simple way to convert two-dimensional patterns into three-dimensional objects using only light. ... > full story

Data transmission for the Internet of tomorrow: Scientists develop new concept for ultrafast lasers (November 12, 2011) -- Electrical engineers in Germany have succeeded in developing a new concept for ultrafast semiconductor lasers. The researchers make clever use of the intrinsic angular momentum of electrons, called spin, to successfully break the previous speed barriers. The new spin lasers have the potential to achieve modulation frequencies of well above 100 GHz in future. This is a decisive step towards high-speed data transmission, e.g. for the Internet of tomorrow. ... > full story

2012: Killer solar flares are a physical impossibility, experts say (November 11, 2011) -- Given a legitimate need to protect Earth from the most intense forms of space weather – great bursts of electromagnetic energy and particles that can sometimes stream from the sun – some people worry that a gigantic "killer solar flare" could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth. Citing the accurate fact that solar activity is currently ramping up in its standard 11-year cycle, there are those who believe that 2012 could be coincident with such a flare. But this same solar cycle has occurred over millennia. Anyone over the age of 11 has already lived through such a solar maximum with no harm. In addition, the next solar maximum is predicted to occur in late 2013 or early 2014, not 2012. ... > full story

Americans using more fossil fuels (November 11, 2011) -- American energy use went back up in 2010 compared to 2009, when consumption was at a 12-year low. The United States used more fossil fuels in 2010 than in 2009, while renewable electricity remained approximately constant, with an increase in wind power offset by a modest decline in hydroelectricity. There also was a significant increase in biomass consumption, according to the most recent energy flow charts. ... > full story

Hubble uncovers tiny galaxies bursting with starbirth in early Universe (November 11, 2011) -- Using its infrared vision to peer nine billion years back in time, astronomers have uncovered an extraordinary population of tiny, young galaxies that are brimming with star formation. ... > full story

Aerial robot system can save firefighter lives, study suggests (November 11, 2011) -- A new system built around an unmanned aerial vehicle has faced a real-world test in a West Virginia controlled forest burn, and proved its usefulness. ... > full story

Astronomers find clouds of primordial gas from the early universe, just moments after Big Bang (November 11, 2011) -- For the first time, astronomers have found pristine clouds of the primordial gas that formed in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. The composition of the gas matches theoretical predictions, providing direct evidence in support of the modern cosmological explanation for the origins of elements in the universe. ... > full story

A light wave of innovation to advance solar energy: Researchers adapt classic antennas to harness more power from the sun (November 11, 2011) -- Engineers are developing a solar panel composed of nano-antennas instead of silicon semiconductors. They say that through the use of these antennas, a much higher conversion rate from light into usable energy can be achieved -- and could lead to a more cost-effective way to harvest and utilize "green" energy. ... > full story

Plant with 'eggbeater' texture inspires waterproof coating (November 11, 2011) -- A floating weed that clogs waterways around the world has at least one redeeming feature: It's inspired a high-tech waterproof coating intended for boats and submarines. The Brazilian fern Salvinia molesta has proliferated around the Americas and Australia in part because its surface is dotted with oddly shaped hairs that trap air, reduce friction, and help the plant stay afloat. ... > full story

Flexible rack systems sort molecules (November 11, 2011) -- Researchers have developed a flexible and efficient new process for the separation of enantiomers. Enantiomer separation is indispensable for the production of many pharmaceuticals. In their process, the scientists use porous molecular frameworks that are assembled in layers on solid substrates using a specifically developed method. ... > full story

Chemists reveal the force within you: New method for visualizing mechanical forces on cell surface (November 10, 2011) -- A new method for visualizing mechanical forces on the surface of a cell provides the first detailed view of those forces, as they occur in real-time. Emory chemists were able to measure something that's never been measured before: The force that one molecule applies to another molecule across the entire surface of a living cell, and as this cell moves and goes about its normal processes. ... > full story

Unique bipolar compounds enhance functionality of organic electronics (November 10, 2011) -- Researchers have uncovered compounds that exhibit unique and novel electrochemical properties. ... > full story

Revolutionary ultrasonic nozzle that will change the way water cleans (November 10, 2011) -- A team of scientists from the UK has developed a revolutionary ultrasonic attachment for taps, which massively enhances the ability of water to clean. ... > full story

Rare earth metal shortages could hamper deployment of low-carbon energy technologies (November 10, 2011) -- Scientists report that five metals, essential for manufacturing low-carbon technologies, show a high risk of shortage. Reasons for this lie in Europe's dependency on imports, increasing global demand, supply concentration and geopolitical issues. ... > full story

Nano car has molecular 4-wheel drive: Smallest electric car in the world (November 10, 2011) -- Reduced to the max: the emission-free, noiseless 4-wheel drive car, jointly developed by Swiss researchers and their Dutch colleagues, represents lightweight construction at its most extreme. The nano car consists of just a single molecule and travels on four electrically-driven wheels in an almost straight line over a copper surface. ... > full story

Sound, digested: New software tool provides unprecedented searches of sound, from musical riffs to gunshots (November 10, 2011) -- Audio engineers have developed a novel artificial intelligence system for understanding and indexing sound, a unique tool for both finding and matching previously un-labeled audio files. ... > full story

Giant planet ejected from the solar system? (November 10, 2011) -- Just as an expert chess player sacrifices a piece to protect the queen, the solar system may have given up a giant planet and spared the Earth, according to a new article. ... > full story

Weird world of water gets a little weirder (November 10, 2011) -- Strange, stranger, strangest! To the weird nature of one of the simplest chemical compounds -- the stuff so familiar that even non-scientists know its chemical formula -- add another odd twist. Scientists are reporting that good old H2O, when chilled below the freezing point, can shift into a new type of liquid. ... > full story

Fundamental discovery casts enzymes in new light (November 10, 2011) -- A tree outside an office window provided the inspiration for a discovery that may ultimately lead to drugs with fewer side effects, less expensive biofuels and more. ... > full story

New process for making non-sticky, biodegradable chewing gum developed (November 10, 2011) -- We find it on chairs, stuck under desks, on pavements or stuck to our shoes. Chewing gum is sticky -- and it does not degrade easily. This leads to increased cleaning costs for our local authorities. However, an Irish professor has developed a novel process for creating biodegradable chewing gum. ... > full story

Big, little, tall and tiny: Learning spatial terms improves children's spatial skills (November 10, 2011) -- Preschool children who hear their parents describe the size and shape of objects and then use those words themselves perform better on tests of their spatial skills, researchers have found. The study is the first to show that learning to use a wide range of spatial words predicts children's later spatial thinking, which in turn is important in mathematics, science and technology. ... > full story

Fast new test for terrible form of food poisoning (November 10, 2011) -- Scientists are reporting development of a fast, reliable new test that could help people avoid a terrible type of food poisoning that comes from eating fish tainted with a difficult-to-detect toxin from marine algae growing in warm waters. ... > full story

Are electron tweezers possible? Apparently so (November 10, 2011) -- A recent paper demonstrates that the beams produced by modern electron microscopes can be used not just to look at nanoscale objects, but to move them around, position them and perhaps even assemble them. ... > full story

Physicists chip away at mystery of antimatter imbalance (November 10, 2011) -- Why there is stuff in the universe is one of the long-standing mysteries of cosmology. A team of researchers has just concluded a 10-year-long study of the fate of neutrons in an attempt to resolve the question, the most sensitive such measurement ever made. The universe, they concede, has managed to keep its secret for the time being, but they've succeeded in significantly narrowing the number of possible answers. ... > full story

Clear vision despite a heavy head: Model explains the choice of simple movements (November 10, 2011) -- The brain likes stereotypes -- at least for movements. Simple actions are most often performed in the same manner. A mathematical model explains why this is the case and could be used to generate more natural robot movements and to adapt prosthetic movements. ... > full story

Researchers develop eButton, an easier way to monitor food intake, exercise, and lifestyle (November 10, 2011) -- People attempting to lose weight won't need to track their daily food intake anymore, thanks to a wearable, picture-taking device. eButton -- a device worn on the chest (like a pin) that contains a miniature camera, accelerometer, GPS, and other sensors -- captures data and information of health activities, eliminating the need for daily self-reporting. ... > full story

For new microscope images, less is more (November 9, 2011) -- When people email photos, they sometimes compress the images, removing redundant information and thus reducing the file size. Compression is generally thought of as something to do to data after it has been collected, but mathematicians have recently figured out a way to use similar principles to drastically reduce the amount of data that needs to be gathered in the first place. Now scientists have utilized this new theory, called compression sensing, to build a microscope that can make images of molecular vibrations with higher resolution and in less time than conventional methods. The microscope provides chemists with a powerful new experimental tool. ... > full story

Computer trained to evaluate breast cancer (November 9, 2011) -- Computer scientists and pathologists are training computers to analyze breast cancer microscopic images. The computer analysis were more accurate than those conducted by humans. ... > full story

Can metals remember their shape at nanoscale, too? (November 9, 2011) -- Physicists have now visualized changes in shape memory materials down to the nanometric scale. ... > full story

Ancient lunar dynamo may explain magnetized moon rocks (November 9, 2011) -- The presence of magnetized rocks on the surface of the moon, which has no global magnetic field, has been a mystery since the days of the Apollo program. Now a team of scientists has proposed a novel mechanism that could have generated a magnetic field on the moon early in its history. ... > full story

Is that a robot in your suitcase? (November 9, 2011) -- A flying robot as small as a dinner plate that can zoom to hard-to-reach places and a fleet of eco-friendly robotic farm-hands are just two of the exciting projects a robotics team in Australia is working on. ... > full story

'Noise' tunes logic circuit made from virus genes (November 9, 2011) -- In the world of engineering, “noise” – random fluctuations from environmental sources such as heat – is generally a bad thing. In electronic circuits, it is unavoidable, and as circuits get smaller and smaller, noise has a greater and more detrimental effect on a circuit’s performance. Now some scientists are saying: if you can’t beat it, use it. ... > full story

New hybrid detector monitors alpha, beta, and gamma radiation simultaneously (November 9, 2011) -- By combining three layers of detection into one new device, a team of researchers from Japan has proposed a new way to monitor radiation levels at power plant accident sites. The device would be more economical that using different devices to measure different types of radiation, and could limit the exposure times of clean-up workers by taking three measurements simultaneously. ... > full story

NASA develops super-black material that absorbs light across multiple wavelength bands (November 9, 2011) -- NASA engineers have produced a material that absorbs on average more than 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that hits it -- a development that promises to open new frontiers in space technology. ... > full story

Video game playing tied to creativity, research shows (November 9, 2011) -- Both boys and girls who play video games tend to be more creative, regardless of whether the games are violent or nonviolent, according to new research. ... > full story

Drinking water from plastic pipes: Is it harmful? (November 9, 2011) -- Pipe-in-pipe systems are now commonly used to distribute water in many homes. The inner pipe for drinking water is made of a plastic called cross-linked polyethylene. Are these pipes harmful to health and do they affect the taste and odor of drinking water? ... > full story

Researchers create extra-long electrical arcs using less energy (November 9, 2011) -- Photos taken by the researchers show plasma arcs up to 60 meters long casting an eerie blue glow over buildings and trees at the High Voltage Laboratory at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. ... > full story

Draft roadmap for cloud computing technology (November 9, 2011) -- The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has released for public comment a draft "roadmap" that is designed to foster federal agencies' adoption of cloud computing, support the private sector, improve the information available to decision makers and facilitate the continued development of the cloud computing model. ... > full story

Cybersecurity workforce framework issued for public comment (November 9, 2011) -- The U.S. National Initiative on Cybersecurity Education (NICE) has published for public comment a draft document that classifies the typical duties and skill requirements of cybersecurity workers. ... > full story

New reports urges more detailed utility metering to improve building efficiency (November 9, 2011) -- A new interagency report recommends systematic consideration of new metering technologies, called submetering, that can yield up-to-date, finely grained snapshots of energy and water usage in commercial and residential buildings to guide efficiency improvements and capture the advantages of a modernized electric power grid. ... > full story

NASA releases radar movie of asteroid 2005 YU55 (November 9, 2011) -- Scientists working with the 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., have generated a short movie clip of asteroid 2005 YU55. The images were generated from data collected at Goldstone on Nov. 7, 2011, between 11:24 a.m. and 1:35 p.m. PST (2:24 p.m. and 4:35 p.m. EST). They are the highest-resolution images ever generated by radar of a near-Earth object. ... > full story

Incredible shrinking material: Engineers reveal how scandium trifluoride contracts with heat (November 8, 2011) -- They shrink when you heat 'em. Most materials expand when heated, but a few contract. Now engineers have figured out how one of these curious materials, scandium trifluoride, does the trick -- a finding, they say, that will lead to a deeper understanding of all kinds of materials. ... > full story

European biofuels are as carbon intensive as petrol, new study suggests (November 8, 2011) -- New research into greenhouse gas emissions from oil palm plantations provides robust measures now being used to inform international policies on greenhouse gas emissions. ... > full story

Secrets of tunneling through energy barriers: How massless electrons tunnel through energy barriers in a carbon sheet called graphene (November 8, 2011) -- Electrons moving in graphene behave in an unusual way, as demonstrated by 2010 Nobel Prize laureates for physics Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who performed transport experiments on this one-carbon-atom-thick material. A review article explores the theoretical and experimental results to date of electrons tunneling through energy barriers in graphene. ... > full story

Nanotubes in environment 'rob' green algae of space and light (November 8, 2011) -- Nanoparticles such as carbon nanotubes, which are found in an ever-increasing number of products, are ending up more and more frequently in our surroundings. If and how they affect aquatic ecosystems are questions which are still unanswered. An new study shows that while carbon nanotubes do not have toxic effects on green algae they do inhibit its growth by depriving the plant of light and space. ... > full story

Critical step to opening elusive class of compounds to drug discovery (November 8, 2011) -- Taxanes are a family of compounds that includes one of the most important cancer drugs ever discovered, Taxol, among other cancer treatments. But the difficulty producing these complex molecules in the lab has hampered or blocked exploration of the family for further drug leads. Scientists have now successfully achieved a major step toward the goal of synthetically producing Taxol and other complex taxanes on a quest to harness chemical reactions that could enable research on previously unavailable potential drugs. ... > full story

NASA captures new images of large asteroid passing Earth (November 8, 2011) -- NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif. has captured new radar images of Asteroid 2005 YU55 passing close to Earth. The asteroid safely will safely fly past our planet slightly closer than the moon's orbit on Nov. 8. The last time a space rock this large came as close to Earth was in 1976, although astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time. The next known approach of an asteroid this size will be in 2028. ... > full story