ScienceDaily Technology Headlines
for Sunday, September 25, 2011
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Nature shows the way: Self-healing membranes (September 24, 2011) -- The plant liana, whose stabilization rings of woody cells heal spontaneously after suffering damage, serves as a natural example to bionic experts of self-repairing membranes. Such membranes could find use, for example, in rubber dinghies. Researchers have borrowed this trick from nature and developed a polymer foam surface coating with a closed cell construction which not only reduces the pressure loss after the membrane is damaged but also makes the inflatable structure more resistant and giving it a longer operational life. ... > full story
NASA's UARS satellite re-enters Earth's atmosphere (September 24, 2011) -- NASA's decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23 and 1:09 a.m. Sept. 24, 20 years and nine days after its launch on a 14-year mission that produced some of the first long-term records of chemicals in the atmosphere. The precise re-entry time and location of debris impacts have not been determined. During the re-entry period, the satellite passed from the east coast of Africa over the Indian Ocean, then the Pacific Ocean, then across northern Canada, then across the northern Atlantic Ocean, to a point over West Africa. The vast majority of the orbital transit was over water, with some flight over northern Canada and West Africa. ... > full story
Nature offers key lessons on harvesting solar power, say chemists (September 24, 2011) -- Clean solutions to human energy demands are essential to our future. While sunlight is the most abundant source of energy at our disposal, we have yet to learn how to capture, transfer and store solar energy efficiently. According to a new study, the answers can be found in the complex systems at work in nature. ... > full story
NASA to demonstrate communications via laser beam (September 24, 2011) -- It currently takes 90 minutes to transmit high-resolution images from Mars, but NASA would like to dramatically reduce that time to just minutes. A new optical communications system that NASA plans to demonstrate in 2016 will lead the way and even allow the streaming of high-definition video from distances beyond the moon. ... > full story
Researchers pinpoint the cause of MRI vertigo: Machine's magnetic field pushes fluid in the inner ear's balance organ (September 23, 2011) -- A team of researchers says it has discovered why so many people undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), especially in newer high-strength machines, get vertigo, or the dizzy sensation of free-falling, while inside or when coming out of the tunnel-like machine. ... > full story
New source of super-chilled neutrons provides tools for understanding fundamental physics concepts (September 23, 2011) -- Research into fundamental constants of nature and the search for new particles will benefit from new production method for ultra-cold neutrons. ... > full story
Cloaking magnetic fields: First antimagnet developed (September 23, 2011) -- Spanish researchers have designed what they believe to be a new type of magnetic cloak, which shields objects from external magnetic fields, while at the same time preventing any magnetic internal fields from leaking outside, making the cloak undetectable. ... > full story
Producing flexible CIGS solar cells with record efficiency (September 23, 2011) -- New technology has yielded flexible solar cells with an 18.7% record efficiency. Key to the breakthrough is the control of the energy band gap grading in the copper indium gallium (di)selenide semiconductor, also known as CIGS, the layer that absorbs light and converts it into electricity. Scientists achieved this by controlling the vapor flux of elements during different stages of the evaporation process for growing the CIGS layer. ... > full story
Solar activity can affect re-entry of UARS satellite (September 23, 2011) -- The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is headed toward Earth, but it hasn't been easy to precisely determine the path and pace of UARS because space itself changes over time -- in response to incoming energy and particles from the sun. ... > full story
Particles appear to travel faster than light: OPERA experiment reports anomaly in flight time of neutrinos (September 23, 2011) -- Scientists with the OPERA experiment, which observes a neutrino beam from CERN 730 km away at Italy's INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory, are presenting surprising new results that show neutrinos traveling faster than light. The OPERA result is based on the observation of over 15,000 neutrino events measured at Gran Sasso, and appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light, nature's cosmic speed limit. Given the potential far-reaching consequences of such a result, independent measurements are needed before the effect can either be refuted or firmly established. ... > full story
New targets for the control of HIV predicted using a novel computational analysis (September 23, 2011) -- Over 25 years of intensive research have failed to create a vaccine for preventing HIV. A new computational approach has predicted numerous human proteins that the human immunodeficiency virus requires to replicate itself -- "a powerful resource for experimentalists who desire to discover new targets." ... > full story
New metal hydride clusters provide insights into hydrogen storage (September 23, 2011) -- A new study has shed light on a class of heterometallic molecular structures whose unique features point the way to breakthroughs in the development of lightweight fuel cell technology. The structures contain a previously-unexplored combination of rare-earth and d-transition metals ideally suited to the compact storage of hydrogen. ... > full story
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