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Heat-Sensitive Material Remembers Four Shapes

Stephanie Pappas
TechNewsDaily
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:33 UTC
A substance called a polymer usually used to make fuel cells can "remember" up to four different shapes, and revert to each one at different temperatures, according to new research.

The polymer, or others like it, could be used in fields ranging from biomedical engineering to space exploration.

Perfluorosulphonic acid ionomer (PFSA) is what's known as a shape memory polymer. A polymer is a substance made mostly of repeating identical or similar molecules.

The chemical structure of shape memory polymers allows them to "memorize" shapes under certain conditions of heat, magnetism or moisture. The next time they're exposed to those conditions, the polymers revert back to the memorized shapes.
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Evil Rays

First 3D TV Sets To Go On Sale 'By April'

Matt Smith
Sky News Online
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:11 UTC
Electronics giant Samsung is promising the first 3D TV sets will go on sale in Britain by the end of the month.

The Korean firm is expected to reveal more details at a launch in New York but entry-level prices for the dedicated 3D sets are thought to be around £1,800.

Samsung says 2010 will be the year of the "3D television revolution" with "explosive growth in demand".
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Meteor

DR Congo ring may be giant 'impact crater'

Paul Rincon
BBC News
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:26 UTC
Image
© Terrametric, IncA survey in the area is now required to stand up some of the ideas
Deforestation has revealed what could be a giant impact crater in Central Africa, scientists say.

The 36-46km-wide feature, identified in DR Congo, may be one of the largest such structures discovered in the last decade.

Italian researchers considered other origins for the ring, but say these are unlikely.

They presented their findings at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, US.

The ring shape is clearly visible in the satellite image by TerraMetrics Inc reproduced on this page.
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Info

Ancient Norse colonies hit bad climate times

Alexandra WItze
ScienceNews
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:08 UTC
New research reveals just how bad an idea it was to colonize Greenland and Iceland more than a millennium ago: average temperatures in Iceland plummeted nearly 6°Celsius in the century that followed the island's Norse settlement in about A.D. 870, a climate record gleaned from mollusk shells shows.

The record is the most precise year-by-year chronology yet of temperatures experienced by the northern Norse colonies, says William Patterson, an isotope geochemist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, who led the new work. The study will appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"We're aware from written documents of the kinds of things that people faced in the North Atlantic over the last 1,000 years," he says. "This is a way to quantify the experiences they had."
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Saturn

Most extreme white dwarf binary system found with orbit of just 5 minutes


Warwick News
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:57 UTC
Image
© Unknown
An international team of astronomers, including Professor Tom Marsh and Dr Danny Steeghs from the University of Warwick, have shown that the two stars in the binary HM Cancri definitely revolve around each other in a mere 5.4 minutes. This makes HM Cancri the binary star with by far the shortest known orbital period. It is also the smallest known binary. The binary system is no larger than 8 times the diameter of the Earth which is the equivalent of no more than a quarter of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

The binary system consists of two white dwarfs. These are the burnt- out cinders of stars such as our Sun, and contain a highly condensed form of helium, carbon and oxygen. The two white dwarfs in HM Cancri are so close together that mass is flowing from one star to the other. HM Cancri was first noticed as an X-ray source in 1999 showing a 5.4 minutes periodicity but for a long time it has remained unclear whether this period also indicated the actual orbital period of the system. It was so short that astronomers were reluctant to accept the possibility without solid proof.
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Magnify

All of Life's Ingredients Found in Orion Nebula (Life as We Know It)

Aleis Madrigal
Wired
Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:16 UTC
Image
© ESA, HEXOS, HIFI Consortium
The ingredients for life as we know it have been found in the Orion Nebula.

By finely separating the spectrum of incoming light, astronomers are able to detect the chemical fingerprints of molecules like water and methanol. The spectrograph that their work produces can be seen in the image above. The peaks represent the presence of the molecule indicated.

The new data was collected by the Herschel Telescope, launched into space last year by the European Space Agency. Herschel's HiFi instrument uses a new technique to do more-sensitive spectroscopy. It will enable scientists to better understand the chemistry of space.
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Sherlock

Gas pipeline probe uncovers 1000-year-old shipwrecks in Baltic Sea


Agence France-Presse
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:12 UTC
Image
© AFP/Patrice DereMap of northern Europe showing the route of the planned Nord Stream gas pipeline.
A dozen previously unknown shipwrecks, some of them believed to be up to 1,000 years old, were discovered in the Baltic Sea during a probe of the sea bed to prepare for the installation of a large gas pipeline, the Swedish National Heritage Board said Monday.

"We have manage to identify 12 shipwrecks, and nine of them are considered to be fairly old," Peter Norman, a senior advisor with the heritage board, told AFP.

"We think many of the ships are from the 17th and 18th centuries and we think some could even be from the Middle Ages," he said, stressing that "this discovery offers enormous culture-historical value.

The shipwrecks were discovered during a probe by the Russian-led Nord Stream consortium of the sea bed route its planned gas pipeline from Russia to the European Union will take through the Baltic.

"They used sonar equipment first and discovered some unevenness along the sea bottom ... so they filmed some of the uneven areas, and we could see the wrecks," Norman explained.

The discovery was made outside Sweden's territorial waters, but within its economic zone, he said.
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Info

Why and How Did Native Americans Build Mounds?

Richard Thornton
Examiner
Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:34 UTC
Image
© Richard Thornton, ArchitectThe Great Temple Mound at Ocmulgee & acropolis dominated a 12 mile long cluster of villages.
When English and Scottish settlers first arrived in what was to become the United States, they encountered literally thousands of abandoned earthen and shell mounds that seemed not to be associated with occupied Indian villages. Typically, the new arrivals assumed that the "savages" were intellectually incapable of carrying out major public works. Therefore, they speculated that Europeans or advanced societies from the Middle East had once lived in the New World until they were exterminated by the Indians. It would not be for another 200 years that the public would become generally aware that about 90-95% of the societies who built those mounds had died of diseases or had been enslaved in the decades following Spanish exploration of the region.

Some tribes in the Lower Mississippi Valley were still occupying mounds when French settlers arrived, so there was no French speculation about the origin of abandoned mounds. The best known of these last mound builders were the Natchez. They also stopped building mounds after the 1720s.
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Info

A Mayan mural shows how the other half lived

Stéphan Reebs
Natural History Magazine
Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:41 UTC
Image
© Calakmul Archaeological Project1,300-year-old mural portrays a Mayan porter carrying a large vessel.
Very old artworks provide a fascinating glimpse of ancient life, but not without limitations: they typically portray the lifestyles of the rich and famous (rulers, royals, generals, and priests), abandoning the masses to the mists of history. That's why the recent discovery of a 1,300-year-old mural at Calakmul, Mexico, is so significant. It is the only known pre-Columbian artwork depicting ordinary Maya engaged in everyday activities, rather than serving the wealthy.
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People

Vast Majority of People Feel Internet Access is a Right

Tony Bradley
PC World
Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:49 UTC
A recent survey conducted by the BBC found that the vast majority of users around the world consider access to the Internet to be a right. The speed at which Internet access has gone from a privilege, to a luxury, and now to a right is a testament to how transformative it has been--shaping politics, news, entertainment, research, and more.

While individual users have come to view Internet and Web access as a right, it seems almost ludicrous to consider it anything other than a complete necessity for businesses today. Part of the reason that the current initiatives of the United States FCC are so important is that an open Internet is a requirement for keeping the business playing field level, and access to reasonable broadband speeds is essential for conducting business efficiently and effectively.
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