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X-Ray Laser Fires Most Powerful Beam Ever

Xyber — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:25:39 +0000

An x-ray laser fired at a sample of aluminum has generated temperatures of 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than the sun’s corona.

Scientists achieved the sizzling temperatures using a powerful x-ray laser at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. By focusing rapid-fire pulses from the beam on a piece of aluminum foil thinner than spider’s silk, they were able to create a material known as hot dense matter.

The advancement represents the first time researchers have been able to produce such plasmas in a controlled way. The findings appear Jan. 25 in Nature.

Terminator-Style Contact Lens Closer to Reality

Xyber — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:20:10 +0000

A new generation of contact lenses that project images in front of the eyes is a step closer after successful animal trials, say scientists.

The technology could allow wearers to read floating texts and emails or augment their sight with computer-generated images, Terminator-syle. Researchers at Washington University who are working on the device say early tests show it is safe and feasible. But there are still wrinkles to iron out, like finding a good power source. Currently, their crude prototype device can only work if it is within centimetres of the wireless battery.

Nanomaterial is world’s lightest

Xyber — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:40:28 +0000

Researchers at HRL Laboratories and University of Southern California’s Composites Center have created what they say is the lowest-density material, a lattice of hollow tubes of the metal nickel.

Its volume is 99.99 percent air, and its density is 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimeter–not including the air in or between its tubes. That density is less than a thousandth that of water.

The researchers made it by fabricating structures with features whose dimensions range from millimeters to a ten-thousandth of that. They described their methods in a paper published yesterday in the journal Science.

“The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness of 100 nanometers, 1,000 times thinner than a human hair,” said Tobias Schaedler, the HRL researcher who’s lead author of the paper. Another HRL author, Bill Carter, likened the design to a small-scale version of the Eiffel Tower: strong, but mostly air.

Faster than light measurement shocks physicists

Xyber — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:11:24 +0000

There is a lot of talk over what it will mean if Cern’s latest scientific headline-maker turns out to be real. Researchers on the Opera experiment (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) seem to have managed to send a beam of particles four hundred miles at (very slightly) faster than the speed of light. If true, it messes with our ideas of time and causality – lightspeed is the absolute speed limit of the universe. It is, according to everything we know, literally and entirely impossible for events at point A to affect events at point B unless there has been time for light to pass between the two.

Subir Sarkar, head of particle theory at Oxford University, probably ran away with the “best quote” award when he told The Guardian: “Cause cannot come after effect and that is absolutely fundamental to our construction of the physical universe. If we do not have causality, we are buggered.”

More Here

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New Species of Ancient Furry Rhinoceros Found in Tibet

Xyber — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 13:39:55 +0000

A woolly rhino fossil dug up on the Tibetan Plateau is believed to be the oldest specimen of its kind yet found.

The creature lived some 3.6 million years ago – long before similar beasts roamed northern Asia and Europe in the ice ages that gripped those regions.

The discovery team says the existence of this ancient rhino supports the idea that the frosty Tibetan foothills of the Himalayas were the evolutionary cradle for these later animals.

Read on BBC

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Nine-tenths of species still undiscovered

Xyber — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:53:08 +0000

Even after centuries of effort, some 86 percent of Earth’s species have yet to be fully described, according to new study that predicts our planet is home to 8.7 million species.

That means scientists have cataloged less than 15 percent of species now alive—and current extinction rates mean many unknown organisms will wink out of existence before they can be recorded.

The study was driven by a simple question: “Are we within reach of finding all species, or are we way off?” said study leader Boris Worm of Canada’s Dalhousie University.

“The answer is, we are way off.”

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Earth’s Two Moons, Second Moon Attached Itself to First

Xyber — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:31:51 +0000

A new hypothesis claims the Earth may once have had two moons, which eventually crashed together forming our current celestial partner.

This new idea, reported in the journal Nature, could explain a long standing puzzle about the differences between the near and far sides of the lunar surface.

The near side is relatively low and flat with many large dark basalt mare, while the far side is high and mountainous, with thicker crust.

The work, based on computer simulations undertaken by planetary scientists Erik Asphaug and Martin Jutzi from the University of California, Santa Cruz, claims the lunar far side highlands, are the solid remains of a collision with a smaller companion moon.

NASA Launches Nanosatellite to Study Life in Space

Xyber — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 01:10:03 +0000

On Friday, a small, 5.5 kilogram propellant-free loaf-of-bread-sized satellite was launched into low earth orbit aboard a United States Air Force rocket. Its mission is to study the origins, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. The “nanosatellite”, called Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses (O/OREOS), was developed by NASA and is the first propellant-less small spacecraft to carry two independent science experiments.

Recommended: Physicists get set for little big bangs

Xyber — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 11:21:45 +0000

The Large Hadron Collider has been busy destroying protons by the billions. But now it’s set to do something completely different: generate miniature Big Bangs.

Scientists and researchers at CERN in Geneva are gearing up to launch experiments that attempt to recreate, as accurately as possible, the conditions immediately after the Big Bang, Discovery News reports. That could shed light on a state of matter that hasn’t existed in the known Universe for over 13.7 billion years.

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Fearsome T-Rex was a cannibal‎

Xyber — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 15:45:26 +0000

Paleontologists from the United States and Canada have claimed that Tyrannosaurus Rex was a cannibal. The paleontologists analyzed marks and gouges on the fossils of the Tyrannosaurus Rex to conclude that the T-Rex was a cannibal. Researchers predicted that it was likely due to the scavenging rather than active hunting.

The T. Rex was the only large, late Cretaceous carnivore in Western North America, said the paleontologists. The findings were published in study titled “Cannibalism in Tyrannosaurus rex.” The research was done by Nicholas R. Longrich (Yale), John R. Horner (Montana State), Gregory M. Erickson (Florida State), and Philip J. Currie (University of Alberta).