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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Nanoparticles Can Now Withstand Extreme Heat

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Scientists have been trying to produce metallic nanoparticles able to withstand large temperatures for a long time, but their efforts have thus far been in vein. These small structures could come in handy as catalysts for hydrogen production, or as active components in new catalysts systems, which might see cars emit less pollution than they do now. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have just demonstrated high-temperature stability in nanoparticles for the first time, opening the way for these applications to finally be set into motion.

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Optical pressure sensors give robots the human touch

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ARTIFICIAL skin embedded with optical sensors could help robots develop a more human touch.
Existing sensors, such as those based on simple pressure switches and motor resistance, are limited in their ability to detect subtle changes in pressure and to distinguish between different textures. A key reason for this is the electrical components and wires they are made from tend to be inflexible.

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French scientists create skin fast from stem cells

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French scientists have found a way to create human skin rapidly from stem cells, a discovery that could save the lives of many burns victims who are vulnerable to infection and now wait weeks for a skin graft.

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Innovation puts next-generation solar cells on the horizon

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Scientists at Monash University, in collaboration with colleagues fromthe universities of Wollongong and Ulm in Germany, have produced tandem dye-sensitised solar cells with a three-fold increase in energy conversion efficiency compared with previously reported tandem dye-sensitised solar cells.

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Mathematical model of a simple circuit in a chicken brain raises fundamental questions

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Model circuit (right) duplicates the anatomy of the chicken microcircuit studied in Ralf Wessel's WUSTL lab (left). The complexity of the neuron's response arises from feedback loops in the circuit.


Taiwanese researchers show several flexible e-reader screens

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Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) showed off a number of flexible display screen technologies in Taipei on Thursday as part of a show promoting e-readers and e-paper.

New Microscope Reveals the Shape of Atoms

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Improved field-emission microscope images electron orbitals, confirming their theoretical shapes

Researchers have now managed to image the electron orbitals and show for the first time that, in a sense, atoms really look like those textbook images.

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Astronauts Want a Next-Gen Ride 10 Times Safer Than the Shuttle

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Astronauts say the next crew launch vehicle should have disaster odds of just 1 in 1,000


NASA's Astronaut Office wants the next vehicle carrying astronauts into space to have launch disaster odds of just 1 in 1,000, compared to the 1 in 129 odds of a shuttle launch disaster. It also wants the vehicle to have crew escape or launch abort capability, to meet NASA's human-rating safety standards, and to undergo thorough testing and analysis with independent oversight.

TenCate Advanced Armour Introduces New Variations of TenCate Pro-Tector®

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TenCate Pro-Tector® is a proprietary coated ballistic technology based on aramid fibres currently available, combined with a variation of resin systems. This results in a flexible, lightweight, high-performance material, mostly intended for use in personal protection solutions.

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LED Bulbs Save Substantial Energy, a Study Finds

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The study results show that over the entire life of the bulb — from manufacturing to disposal — the energy used for incandescent bulbs is almost five times that used for compact fluorescents and LED lamps.

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Robotic clam could detonate underwater mines

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Inspired by the amazing ability of the small clam to dig and wedge itself far deeper and more securely than would be thought, researchers developed a robotic clam that moves the same way and can detonate hidden mines.

Raytheon's Rolling Airframe Missile Completes Key Flight Tests

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Raytheon's Rolling Airframe Missile Block 2 successfully completed three instrumented test vehicle flights between April and October designed to demonstrate the system's upgraded kinematic capabilities.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Device spells doom for superbugs

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Researchers have demonstrated a prototype device that can rid hands, feet, or even underarms of bacteria, including the hospital superbug MRSA.
The device works by creating something called a plasma, which produces a cocktail of chemicals in air that kill bacteria but are harmless to skin.

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Nanowires key to future transistors, electronics

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Researchers are closer to using tiny devices called semiconducting nanowires to create a new generation of ultrasmall transistors and more powerful computer chips. The researchers have grown the nanowires with sharply defined layers of silicon and germanium, offering better transistor performance.

Robotic surgeon

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The robot in question is the da Vinci Surgical System.

A mass of mechanical joints wrapped in transparent sheeting, the da Vinci is a spider-like unit the size of a double fridge, with four overhanging limbs.


CROSSHAIRS to protect vehicles against bullets, RPGs

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DARPA has ordered a new system that could make taking a shot at the U.S. military's 38-ton sitting ducks just a little more problematic.

CROSSHAIRS (Counter Rocket-Propelled Grenade and Shooter System with Highly Accurate Immediate Responses) is a modular, vehicle-mounted, threat detection and countermeasure system that locates and engages enemy shooters.

Turning Seaweed into the Fuel of the Future

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Seaweed holds promise as more than an ingredient in a purifying face mask or a maki roll.
So say researchers at E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., which alongside Seattle-based Bio Architecture Lab (BAL) has secured $9 million from the Department of Energy to explore seaweed's potential as a feedstock for biobutanol, an advanced biofuel.

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High-Pressure Diamond Anvil Creates a New Solid from Xenon and Hydrogen

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Science under pressure can produce marvelous results, such as an entirely new way to store hydrogen fuel. Researchers combined the noble gas xenon with molecular hydrogen (H2) to make a never-before-seen solid that opens the doors to an entire new family of materials for hydrogen storage.

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Planetary Society to launch three separate solar sails

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The Planetary Society (Washington, DC) has announced LightSail--a plan to sail a spacecraft on sunlight alone by the end of 2010. The new solar-sail project, boosted by a $1 million anonymous donation, was unveiled at an event on Capitol Hill on the 75th anniversary of the birth of Planetary Society co-founder Carl Sagan.

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Tata and Berkeley Frigid to MDI's Air Cars

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Indian carmaker Tata Motors is voicing concerns about the range and durability of the compressed-air powered minicar technology.

Magnetic heat shield test could use Russian launcher

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As a capsule re-enters the atmosphere the air heats up around it due to friction and usually a high-temperature-resistant material is needed to absorb that. A magnetic field is able to deflect the hot atmospheric air away from the vehicle's surface, reducing or eliminating the need for a heat-absorbing material.

Jamming Skin Enabled Locomotion

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During military operations it can be important to gain covert access to denied or hostile space. Unmanned platforms such as mechanical robots are of limited effectiveness if the only available points of entry are small openings. Under the Chemical Robots (ChemBots) Program, DARPA is creating a new class of soft, flexible, mesoscale mobile objects that can identify and maneuver through openings smaller than their dimensions and perform various tasks.

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Russia to deploy more S-400 air-defense battalions in 2010

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Russia is to deploy another five air-defense battalions equipped with advanced S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems next year, the Air Force commander said on Thursday.

International Space Station Under Threat of Space Junk Collision

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At issue is an old rocket that could force the five astronauts on the orbiting station to change their orbit to avoid getting whacked by the debris. It's a Delta 2 rocket that launched a comet-sampling probe called Stardust from the Kennedy Space Center back on Feb. 7, 1999. The rocket is still up there, and ten years later, it has come back to haunt the International Space Station.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

New materials for jet engines

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New materials, including alloys based on metals with higher melting points, such as molybdenum (Mo) and niobium (Nb) alloyed with silicon (Si), are now being seriously examined as alternatives by academic and industrial groups.

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'Smart' Armor Learns More With Every Bullet

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Smart armor being developed by scientists and engineers at U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center in Michigan can not only predict its own failure, but also identify the size of bullets shot at it and even generate electrical power upon impact.

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Switchgrass Looks Like a Dream Field

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If you grow it, the cars will run. That's still the idea behind cellulosic ethanol, which is biofuel from tough, reedy, and often discarded plant parts. A recent study indicates that switchgrass could yield the most biomass for this fuel.

Airbus A330 MRTT Demos Simultaneous Refuelling of 2 Fighters

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The Airbus Military A330 MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport) continues to pass new programme milestones and has now demonstrated simultaneous refuelling of two fighters.

Splitting Time from Space—New Quantum Theory Topples Einstein's Spacetime

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Was Newton right and Einstein wrong? It seems that unzipping the fabric of spacetime and harking back to 19th-century notions of time could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.

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IBM Reveals the Biggest Artificial Brain of All Time

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IBM has revealed the biggest artificial brain of all time, a simulation run by a 147,456-processor supercomputer that requires millions of watts of electricity and over 150,000 gigabytes of memory. The brain simulation is a feat for neuroscience and computer processing—but it's still one-eighty-third the speed of a human brain and is only as large as a cat's.