Logy Magazine. The James Webb Space Telescope has been in the news a lot lately.
Often referred to as the replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope, its existence has been in jeopardy since a House committee voted to cut its funding this summer. While the telescope promises to revolutionize space science, its expanding budget has caused politicians and others to wonder if the promised returns justify the cost. The JWST is not merely an upgraded version of Hubble. Rather than measure visible and ultraviolet light like Hubble does, JWST will detect wavelengths from 0.6 (orange light) to 28 micrometers (deep infrared radiation of about 100 K (−173 °C or −280 °F)). Because JWST will be looking for heat, the telescope has to be kept very cold, and shielded from radiation coming from the Sun, Earth and Moon. Five years ago, the project was estimated to cost 2.4 billion dollars, but the latest reports peg the total at closer to 8.7 billion. 1142 - Faraway Eris is Pluto's Twin. Eso1142 — Science Release Dwarf planet sized up accurately as it blocks light of faint star 26 October 2011.
German boffins BREAK LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS! High performance access to file storage As you probably know, heat is one of the enemies of electronics, and heat management is a major design constraint of microelectronics.
Now, a German research group has demonstrated using waste heat to get electricity. No, we’re not really talking about perpetual motion here. What the researchers have observed is that in magnetic tunnel structures, changes in temperature produce a voltage across the structure. We already use magnetic tunneling in hard drive and MRAM (magnetoresistive) technologies. The temperature difference across a magnetic tunnel can create electricity, German researchers say.
The magnetic tunnel consists of two magnetic layers separated by a 1nm insulator. What the PTB researchers have noted is that the magnetization of the layers also impacts how the thermal current flows. Helping the heart with a dose of python (no, not the programming language) It's a pretty rare paper that includes providing transfusions to Burmese pythons.
It's rarer still for that sort of paper to have potential implications for human health. But a paper that fits that description will be appearing in today's edition of Science. Pythons, you see, can grow their heart mass by up to 40 percent within three days of a large meal, without any of the problems that major metabolic changes often cause in humans. Researchers have now figured out the signal that drives this rapid expansion, and shown that it has similar effects in mice. The process that allows the python's heart to expand is called hypertrophy.
Humans and other mammals can undergo the good type of hypertrophy when following an exercise regime or during pregnancy. Pythons don't grow their heart in response to exercise. Along with that increase comes a healthy dose of fat. Discovery: Cosmic Dust Contains Organic Matter from Stars. This story was updated at 1:28 p.m.
EDT. A new look at the interstellar dust permeating the universe has revealed hints of organic matter that could be created naturally by stars, scientists say. Researchers at the University of Hong Kong observed stars at different evolutionary phases and found that they are able to produce complex organic compounds and eject them into space, filling the regions between stars. The compounds are so complex that their chemical structures resemble the makeup of coal and petroleum, the study's lead author Sun Kwok, of the University of Hong Kong, said. Such chemical complexity was thought to arise only from living organisms, but the results of the new study show that these organic compounds can be created in space even when no life forms are present. "What impressed me most is that complex organics are easily formed by stars, they are everywhere in our own galaxy and in other galaxies," Kwok told SPACE.com in an email interview.
Space pilot: 'You miss the shots you don't take' - space - 26 October 2011. More than 500 people – including a dozen or so former or current NASA astronauts – applied to take paying passengers to the edge of space with the firm Virgin Galactic.
Keith Colmer, a former US air force test pilot with degrees in aerospace engineering and telecommunications, is the first to be chosen, joining Virgin's chief pilot David Mackay in flight training. Exploding balloons of milk frozen in high-speed photos. Roger Highfield, editor, New Scientist magazine (Image: James Huse, Josh Eaton and Steve Keylock) Balls of shadow dissolve into a seething mist of droplets.
To capture the way a balloon deforms as it bursts, James Huse, Josh Eaton and Steve Keylock spent hours working in darkness. They filled balloons with milk, hung them up in a studio (the photos are inverted), turned out the lights and left a camera with its shutter open. A craft knife on a stick was used to burst the balloons and the resulting pop triggered a flash of light. "The flash exposes the image," says Huse. A 3D Optical Metamaterial Made by Self-Assembly - Vignolini - 2011 - Advanced Materials. Fabrication of Left-Handed Metal Microcoil from Spiral Vessel of Vascular Plant - Kamata - 2011 - Advanced Materials.