Yahoo! Yahoo! "Way Too Bright" Supernova Eludes Astronomers. Solar Cell Could Dramatically Improve Energy Harvest. A special coating could dramatically improve the percentage of energy that can be harvested from solar cells by splitting photons in two, new research suggests. For every photon (or particle of light) that hits a solar cell, the coating — called pentacene — doubles the number of electrons, and energy, that can be harvested, at least with high-energy blue or green wavelengths of light. The findings were reported today (April 18) in the journal Science. "We think it's an exciting direction for solar to improve its efficiency," said study co-author Marc Baldo, an electrical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Low efficiency One of the barriers to the wider adoption of solar energy is its high cost.
Light creates electricity in silicon solar cells when each photon dislodges a single electron in the silicon, leaving behind a "hole" — an effective positive charge — where it once was. But silicon solar cells only absorb photons from some parts of the visible light spectrum. The Limits of the Earth-Part 2: Expanding the Limits. This is part two of a two-part series on the limits of human economic growth on planet Earth. Part one details some of the environmental and natural resource challenges we're up against. Part two, here, looks at the ultimate size of the resource pool and solutions to our problems. Both parts are based on Ramez Naam's new book, The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite PlanetThe Solution: Growing the PieAs part one of this series showed, we are up against incredible challenges: feeding a world with a rapidly growing appetite, the continuing loss of the world's precious forests, the ongoing collapse of fish species in the oceans, the rapid depletion of our fresh water resources, and the over-arching threat of climate change, which makes all others far worse.Ending growth isn't a realistic option.
View gallery Figure 2 - Food yields in the US and other developed nations are twice those of the world as a whole … The second problem with renewables is storage. How Earthquakes in Chile Have Permanently Deformed Earth. Earthquakes can permanently crack the Earth, an investigation of quakes that have rocked Chile over the past million years suggests. Although earthquakes can wreak havoc on the planet's surface, more than a century of research has suggested the Earth actually mostly rebounds after quakes, with blocks of the world's crust elastically springing back, over the course of months to decades, to the way they initially were. Such rebounding was first seen after investigations of the devastating 1906 San Francisco temblor thathelped lead to the destruction of more than 80 percent of the city.
The rebound is well-documented nowadays by satellite-based GPS systems that monitor Earth's movements. However, structural geologist Richard Allmendinger of Cornell University and his colleagues now find major earthquakes of magnitude 7 or greater apparently caused the crust in northern Chile to crack permanently. Atacama exposed Model rethink. Private Asteroid-Mining Project Launching Tiny Satellites in 2014. A billionaire-backed asteroid-mining company aims to start putting its big plans into action soon, launching its first hardware into space by this time next year. Planetary Resources, which counts Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt among its investors, plans to loft a set of tiny "cubesats" to Earth orbit in early 2014, to test out gear for its first line of asteroid-prospecting spacecraft. "Our belief and our philosophy is that the best testbed is space itself," Chris Voorhees, Planetary Resources' vice president of spacecraft development, said Wednesday (April 24) during a Google+ Hangout event.
[Planetary Resources' Asteroid-Mining Plans (Images)] "Despite the fact that we're a deep-space company, we're going to use Earth orbit as much as possible," Voorhees added. "For us, it's a valuable learning experience, and that's what we plan on doing one year hence. " The Arkyd-3 "is the testbed manifestation of our Arkyd-100 spacecraft. It just happens to be flying," Voorhees said. Does Antimatter Fall Up or Down? Scientists Can't Say. When it comes to antimatter, what goes up doesn't necessarily come down. In a new study, physicists weighed antimatter in an effort to determine how this strange cousin of matter interacts with gravity. Ordinary matter atoms fall down due to the pull of gravity, but the same might not be true of antimatter, which has the same mass as matter, but opposite charge and spin.
Scientists wondered whether antimatter atoms would instead fall up when pulled by gravity, and whether such a thing as antigravity exists. "In the unlikely event that antimatter falls upward, we'd have to fundamentally revise our view of physics and rethink how the universe works," Joel Fajans, a physicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in a statement. Conducting experiments on antimatter atoms is difficult, because when matter and antimatter meet, the two annihilate. But which direction does it fall toward? "Is there such a thing as antigravity?
(4 unread) - jabccba - Yahoo! Mail. Crystal 'Flowers' Bloom in Harvard Nanotech Lab. Imagine peering into a microscope and finding yourself in a garden. That's the case at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where researchers have found a way to shape microscopic crystals into complex and often beautiful structures. Inspired by coral reefs, seashells and other naturally occurring complex mineral structures, postdoctoral fellow Wim L. Noorduin and Harvard colleagues have been researching ways to manually recreate similar designs. These "flowers" were created by mixing barium chloride and sodium silicate, also known as waterglass, in a beaker of water. The resulting reaction also combines with carbon dioxide in the air to create crystals made of barium carbonate in the water.
Noorduin found that as the crystals self-assembled, he could control their shape, size and direction of growth by altering the temperature, the amount of carbon dioxide allowed into the reaction and the acidity of the water. How Radiation in Space Poses a Threat to Human Exploration (Infographic) Radiation in space takes the form of subatomic particles from the sun as well as from sources in the Milky Way galaxy and beyond. These high-speed particles tear through DNA molecules, splitting them or damaging the instructions they have encoded for cell reproduction. The damaged DNA can lead to cancers or other diseases. Radiation exposure can be acute (a high dose in a short period of time) or chronic (low levels of radiation over a long time). The magnetic field generated by electric currents in the Earth’s liquid iron core extends far into space, shielding the planet from 99.9 percent of harmful radiation. For people outside the protection of Earth's magnetic field, space radiation becomes a serious hazard.
An instrument aboard the Curiosity Mars rover during its 253-day deep-space cruise revealed that the radiation dose received by an astronaut on even the shortest Earth-Mars round trip would be about 0.66 sievert. The moon has no atmosphere and a very weak magnetic field. Just add water: How scientists are using silicon to produce hydrogen on demand. Related images(click to enlarge) Swihart Research Group, University at Buffalo Super-small particles of silicon react with water to produce hydrogen almost instantaneously, according to University at Buffalo researchers.
In a series of experiments, the scientists created spherical silicon particles about 10 nanometers in diameter. When combined with water, these particles reacted to form silicic acid (a nontoxic byproduct) and hydrogen -- a potential source of energy for fuel cells. The reaction didn't require any light, heat or electricity, and also created hydrogen about 150 times faster than similar reactions using silicon particles 100 nanometers wide, and 1,000 times faster than bulk silicon, according to the study.
The findings appeared online in Nano Letters on Jan. 14. "When it comes to splitting water to produce hydrogen, nanosized silicon may be better than more obvious choices that people have studied for a while, such as aluminum," said researcher Mark T. Nanostructured nanowires appears to solve loss of superconductivity in very strong magnetic fields. Researchers have discovered a way to efficiently stabilize tiny magnetic vortices that interfere with superconductivity—a problem that has plagued scientists trying to engineer real-world applications for decades.
The discovery could remove one of the most significant roadblocks to advances in superconductor technology. When magnetic fields reach a certain strength, they cause a superconductor to lose its superconductivity. But there is a type of superconductor—known as “Type II”—which is better at surviving in relatively high magnetic fields. In these superconductors, magnetic fields create tiny whirlpools or “vortices.”
Superconducting current continues to travel around these vortices to a point, but eventually, as the magnetic field strengthens, the vortices begin to move about and interfere with the material’s superconductivity, introducing resistance. Vinokur and his colleagues, however, discovered a surprise. No-Kill, High-Resolution 3-D Movies of Cells Now Possible [Video + Infographic] Quantum Refrigerator Offers Extreme Cooling and Convenience. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a solid-state refrigerator that uses quantum physics in micro- and nanostructures to cool a much larger object to extremely low temperatures.
What's more, the prototype NIST refrigerator, which measures a few inches in outer dimensions, enables researchers to place any suitable object in the cooling zone and later remove and replace it, similar to an all-purpose kitchen refrigerator. The cooling power is the equivalent of a window-mounted air conditioner cooling a building the size of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. "It's one of the most flabbergasting results I've seen," project leader Joel Ullom says.
"We used quantum mechanics in a nanostructure to cool a block of copper. The cooling elements are sandwiches of a normal metal, a 1-nanometer-thick insulating layer, and a superconducting metal. Cooling to temperatures below 300 mK currently requires complex, large and costly apparatus. 3D Printers Demonstrate Rapid Robot Evolution | Science and Technology. NEW YORK — Robots are simply more efficient than humans at certain tasks. They already excel at building cars, exploring distant planets and hunting for explosives, but it turns out that robots might also evolve much faster than their flesh-and-blood counterparts.
Nick Cheney, a Ph.D. student at Cornell University, presented his research at an Inside Cornell lecture on May 21. Cheney has developed a method by which complex computer simulations in a specific virtual environment — robots , by his definition — can evolve from selective pressures, just like animals in nature, but on a timescale of days instead of countless generations. To demonstrate the technology, Cheney showed how a series of diverse but effective robots spontaneously evolved from a single, inefficient ancestor. He programmed a virtual environment with only one parameter: robots that moved faster would be able to produce more offspring. "Nature is amazing in how it designs things," Cheney said. This Periodic Table Song from AsapSCIENCE – who.
Coursekit is now Lore. What’s the Story? Science & Technology This Periodic Table Song from AsapSCIENCE – who have previously illustrated such mysteries as the science of love and what marijuana does to your brain – is for science-lovers what The Elements of Style Rap was for literary nerds. Enjoy, then wash down with the elements of the periodic table, personified as anime-inspired heroes . ( ↬ It’s Okay To Be Smart ) #AsapSCIENCE #science #chemistry #remix #animation 124 notes. Strange Dark Matter Interactions Could Create Galactic Disks and Dark Light | Wired Science. A small percentage of the dark matter in our universe might be able to interact with itself through an as-of-yet unknown dark force, forming dark atoms and possibly even emitting dark light.
Lest you think theoretical physicists have gone completely off the deep end, this form of dark matter, called double-disk dark matter, has some specific cosmological consequences that astronomers could observe. While traditional dark matter floats around galaxies in a spherical halo, this more interactive form of dark matter would have “dynamics similar to ordinary matter,” said theoretical physicist Andrey Katz , who is a post-doc at Harvard University and co-author of a paper that appeared May 23 in Physical Review Letters .
“It can form a disk which is very similar to our galaxy’s massive galactic disk.” Because it’s subject to the attractive force of gravity, matter tends to clump together. What Katz and his team propose is that some of the dark matter might have complicated interactions. 'Space Warriors' Hallmark Movie Features Space Camp Training. Space Camp — the dream summer vacation of science-minded kids everywhere — is the star of a new movie from the Hallmark Channel. Since 1982, Space Camp has provided a place for kids to train as Mission Controllers and spaceflyers on simulated shuttle millions. Now, it's the setting for a science-fiction film about teenagers who help NASA save the International Space Station. "I got to do a lot of my own stunts and really interact with the space center itself," Grayson Russell, a 15-year-old who plays Rusty Riggs in the movie, told SPACE.com.
"We got to do a lot of astronaut training on a smaller scale. My favorite part is that we got to scuba dive. " [ Watch a Clip from the Movie (Video) ] The movie makes its Hallmark Channel premiere on Friday night (May 31) at 8 p.m. Filmed on-site at Space Camp's home at the U.S. Robonaut, the real-life robotic astronaut helper on the orbiting laboratory, even makes a special guest appearance in the film. 0 of 10 questions complete. First Ever Topographic Map of Titan Produced. Titan, the largest of Saturn’s natural satellites and the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere, is a fascinating little place. Peering through its thick orange clouds may not be the easiest of tasks, but a team of planetary scientists using NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have created the first full topographical map of its surface — created using radar measurements.
Knowing more about the surface of this smoggy moon is invaluable in understanding how it works, and what processes are occurring on its surface. Our knowledge of Mars was revolutionized by measurements made with the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), and now it’s Titan’s turn. Top 10 Places To Find Alien Life Titan is one of the most active and interesting places in the solar system. One interesting thing about Titan is that it’s surprisingly flat. Just to put that into perspective, mountains on other planets are dramatically larger than this. BIG PIC: Titan’s ‘Nile River’ Discovered. Lofted Space-Saving Furniture for Bedroom Interiors. Cold-Loving Bacteria Offer Clues for Life on Mars | Extremophiles. Scientists grow microscopic flowers by controlling crystal formation - Images.
3D-Printed 'Bionic' Ear Can Hear Beyond Human Ability. Spin Zone: Physicists Get First Look at Strange Quantum Magnetism. Scientists find that graphene can be used to build lasers. Engineers Developing Suit for Space Diving | Technology Space. Take a look at NASA's new solar-powered ion propulsion engine. Mysterious and Well-Preserved Oort Cloud Object Heading Into Our Solar System. Engineers Developing Suit for Space Diving | Technology Space. New 3D Printer Brings Full Color Artwork to Life | 3D Printing. New 3D Printer Brings Full Color Artwork to Life | 3D Printing. Battlestar Galactica Flight Simulator Can Spin Any Direction | Video. Students Build Battlestar Galactica-Inspired Flight Simulator.
Students Build Battlestar Galactica-Inspired Flight Simulator. Quantum gravity takes singularity out of black holes - space - 29 May 2013. Study: neutron star 'shocks' astronomers by slowing down. How Radiation in Space Poses a Threat to Human Exploration (Infographic) Graphene-based image sensor to enhance low-light photography. NASA Mission Pinpoints Lost & Hidden Asteroids. The moon's mysteriously uneven gravity is explained at last. Metamaterial flat lens projects 3D UV images of objects. Metamaterial flat lens projects 3D UV images of objects. Giant, fluorescent pink slugs found on mountain | The Sideshow. Metamaterial flat lens projects 3D UV images of objects. Viking History: Facts & Myths. About Michael Anissimov. CT Scanning Reveals Gorgeous Insect Images | Butterflies. Hovertrax works like a pared-down Segway - Images. Hovertrax works like a pared-down Segway. New microbatteries combine the advantages of lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors.
Noosphere. Flexible Armor: Mysterious Seahorse Astounds Scientists. Make the Drop - Orange Drop. After Benghazi, IRS tea party probe: Govt seized AP phone records | The Ticket. Microparticles allow you to live without breathing | RevoSeek.com. Print - 110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years. Revolutionary New Space-Diving Suit Will Rival Anything You’ve Ever Seen In The Movies. Physicists May Have Created A 'New Form Of Matter' Star-Shaped Gravity Waves Discovered By Physicists In France. New material harvests energy from water vapor. Giant Gas Clouds Found In Void Between Nearby Galaxies. Cheap Nanotech Filter Clears Hazardous Microbes and Chemicals from Drinking Water. Nanotechnology Helps Engineers Build Stronger, Tougher Bikes and Planes. Spherical "Ekinoids" to house future generations in off-grid towns. Brain-scanning headphones play music to suit your mood.
3D printing for every single one of us. RigidBot 3D Printer by Michael Lundwall. Mysterious and Well-Preserved Oort Cloud Object Heading Into Our Solar System. Teensy Sponge Soaks Up Venom in Blood. Robohand Lets Kids Play Again | 3D Printed Mechanical Hand. Metamaterials experts show a way to reduce electrons' effective mass to nearly zero. Warp Speed, Scotty? Star Trek's FTL Drive May Actually Work. WikiHouse. First Trailer for Sci-Fi Thriller 'Europa Report' Unveiled (Video) Students Build Battlestar Galactica-Inspired Flight Simulator. Terrafugia announces its plans for a VTOL "flying car"
That's Wonky! Some Atoms Have Pear-Shaped Nuclei. Plug into a plant: A new approach to clean energy harvesting. Sun up and street surf with the Solar Electric Scooter. James Holloway's profile. Jupiter Still Has Water from 1994 Comet Crash. Make your own invisibility cloak with a 3D printer. From prefab skyscrapers to prefab houses, Klik claims to fit the bill. 7 Man-Made Substances that Laugh in the Face of Physics. 7 Man-Made Substances that Laugh in the Face of Physics. Fake Forest Converts Sunlight into Chemical Energy. Dark Lightning Linked to its Luminous Twin. 'Protein Origami' Developed by Scientists | Protein Nanotechnology. Liberty. Revolutionary New Space-Diving Suit Will Rival Anything You’ve Ever Seen In The Movies.
Huge Rock Crashes Into Moon, Sparks Giant Explosion. Controversially, Physicist Argues Time Is Real | Illusion of Time. 'Space Warriors' Hallmark Movie Features Space Camp Training. NASA awards grant for 3-D food printer; could it end world hunger? | The Sideshow. Hedonistic Robots Could Destroy Humanity | Robots. The Limits of the Earth, Part 1: Problems. Next-generation Very Light Car architecture takes center stage. Loophole in Spooky Quantum Entanglement Theory Closed.