Science & TechnologyS


Einstein

'Intelligent' oil droplet navigates chemical maze

Colin Barras
New Scientist
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:48 UTC




There's some humbling news from the chemical world for anyone who has ever found themselves lost in a garden maze. A simple droplet of organic solvent can find its way through a complicated labyrinth with nothing more to go on than a slight pH difference.

Bartosz Grzybowski's team at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, used a common polymer to fashion a two-dimensional labyrinth some 2 centimetres on each side. They then flooded the maze with strongly alkaline potassium hydroxide solution, before placing a hydrochloric acid-soaked chunk of gel at the maze exit.

After about 40 seconds they placed a droplet of mineral oil containing hexyldecanoic acid at the maze entrance. The oil, which cannot mix with the potassium hydroxide solution, sits on the surface. But it remains still only for a matter of seconds - it soon begins tearing around the maze at speeds of up to 10 millimetres per second, sniffing out the shortest path to the acid-soaked gel, and solving the maze in the process.
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Telescope

Quasar Pair Captured In Galaxy Collision


Space Daily / SPX
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:45 UTC
Image
© NASA/CXC/SAO/P. Green et al. Optical: Carnegie Obs./Magellan/W. Baade Telescope/J.S. Mulchaey et al.
This composite image shows the effects of two galaxies caught in the act of merging. A Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows a pair of quasars in blue, located about 4.6 billion light years away, but separated on the sky by only about 70 thousand light years.

These bright sources, collectively called SDSS J1254+0846, are powered by material falling onto supermassive black holes. An optical image from the Baade-Magellan telescope in Chile, in yellow, shows tidal tails - gravitational-stripped streamers of stars and gas - fanning out from the two colliding galaxies.

This represents the first time a luminous pair of quasars has been clearly seen in an ongoing galaxy merger.

"Quasars are the most luminous compact objects in the Universe, and though about a million of them are now known, it's incredibly hard work to find two quasars side by side," said Paul Green, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA, who led the study.
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Robot

Pentagon to make 'immortal organisms'


Press TV
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:58 UTC
The Pentagon's advanced research division has allocated $6 million to create immortal synthetic organisms, which can die on command and keep a genetic record of what they have been doing, a report says.

Based on the 2011 budget of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project, known as 'BioDesign,' aims to create artificial life, presumably with military purposes, Wired News reported.

The DNA of these genetically engineered organisms is altered to "produce the intended biological effect." These changes will ideally prevent cell death but induce the 'self-destruct option' in case of malfunction or falling into the wrong hands.
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Info

Smart dust could give early warning of space storms

Jessica Griggs
New Scientist
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:53 UTC
Image
© SOHO/ESA/NASA/SPLSolar flare, headed our way.
A swarm of "smart dust" spacecraft, positioned at a sweet spot between the Earth and the sun, could alert us to the approach of dangerous space storms well before a conventional craft can. The first prototypes are due for launch into low-Earth orbit this year, perhaps as early as May.

Mason Peck, a mechanical engineer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and his colleague Justin Atchison have designed a 1-centimetre-square spacecraft that is 25 micrometres thick and weighs under 7.5 milligrams. The craft is modelled on the dust particles that orbit the sun and are propelled by the photons streaming out from the sun. This solar radiation pressure would have a negligible effect on normal-sized spacecraft but is significant at the millimetre scale. The grooved edges of the "spacecraft-on-a chip" deflect incoming photons in such a way as to ensure it always faces the sun.

The craft's miniature size would let it hitch a ride into space on the back of another satellite mission headed for the Lagrange point between the Earth and the sun. A Lagrange point is a kind of gravitational sweet spot, where a small object can be stationary relative to two larger objects.
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Meteor

Astronomers Spot Aftermath of Asteroid Collision


Boulder Weekly / McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:14 UTC
Image
© NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA)Is this mystery object a comet or the result of an asteroid collision?
An object imaged last week by the Hubble Space Telescope looks at first glance to be a comet, but a closer examination indicates it is something researchers have never seen before - the immediate aftermath of two asteroids colliding.

The scattered debris that looks like a comet's tail is actually the result of two asteroids colliding nearly head-on at more than 11,000 miles per hour, scattering pieces in all directions, NASA announced earlier this week. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, where the collision occurred, contains the remains of many such events from the distant past, but this is first time that researchers have observed such debris so soon after a collision.

The object, called P/2010 A2, was first observed Jan. 6 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program, and astronomers thought it was a comet. But images taken by Hubble on Jan. 25 and 29 show something far different.

Comets are icy bodies that fall into the inner solar system from distant reservoirs in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. As they warm up, they shed particles and water vapor that are pushed away from the comet in a smooth tail by solar pressure.

Comment: For a closer look at meteorites, asteroids and comets read Laura Knight-Jadczyk's Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls.

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Info

Electric Planes Could Transform How We Fly

Charles Choi
TechNewsDaily.com
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:49 UTC
As the promise of electric cars grows, so too does the potential of electric planes. These aircraft, whose motors are far more efficient, reliable and quiet than internal combustion engines, could help transform how we fly - if a few problems could be solved.

Electric motors are three to four times better than internal combustion engines at driving an airplane propeller. And the reliability of electric motors is "perhaps 10 times or even 20 times that of a piston engine," said Brien Seeley, president of the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation, an independent flight test agency which hosts NASA's Centennial Challenges for Aeronautics.
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Sun

High-Tech Glitter to Create Flexible Solar Panels

Adam Hadhazy
TechNewsDaily.com
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:43 UTC
Researchers have unveiled super-small solar cells no bigger than the pieces of glitter on your holiday ornaments and cards. These highly efficient photovoltaics could be game-changers in the burgeoning field of solar power, allowing arrays of microcells to be placed on bendable or curved surfaces and even woven into clothing.

Unlike the conventional, rigid solar cells deployed as flat panels on rooftops, for instance, the new miniscule cells could be encapsulated in flexible plastic and made to fit virtually any object.

"With this technology, one can envision ubiquitous [solar-powered] devices," said Greg Nielson, lead investigator at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
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Magnify

Archaeologists stumble on 8,000-year-old skeleton in Kenyir Lake


The Star Online
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:39 UTC
Hulu Terengganu - Archaeologists have stumbled upon human skeletal remains believed to be from the Mesolithic Age in the Bewah Cave in the Kenyir Lake area, according to a university professor.

The remains, believed to be those of a youth, are estimated to be between 8,000 and 11,000 years old, said Prof Datuk Dr Nik Hasan Shuhaimi Nik Abdul Rahman, deputy director of the Institute of the Malay World and Civilisation (ATMA) of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).

The remains were uncovered by archaeologists from UKM, the Museums Department and the Terengganu Museum Board at a depth of 65 to 70 centimetres, he told reporters after a visit by Terengganu Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said and reporters to the cave on Saturday.
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Magnify

Cuneiform tablets, Seals and Tombs Unearthed in Syria

Ruaa AL-Jazaeri
Global Arab Network
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:34 UTC
Image
© Unknown
According to Syrian media, archaeological expeditions working at North-eastern Syria (Hasaka Province) have discovered several collective tombs and parts of seals with different shapes in addition to 27 cuneiform tablets dating back to 2500 BC.

Director of Hasska Antiquities Department Abdul-Masih Baghdo said that the British expedition working at the site of Tal Barak had studied many clay jars discovered at the site.

He added that the expedition also studied several archaeological findings to find out the location of the buildings dating back to the Babylonian and Mitanni periods.

Three collective tombs were also unearthed at the site of Tal Majnuna, dating back to the period between 3600 to 3800 BC.
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Magnify

Wall with Maya Seignior Glyphs Discovered at Archaeological Zone


artdaily.org
Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:28 UTC
Image
© EFE/Héctor Montaño/INAHThe discovery adds up to the sarcophagus recently uncovered by specialists.
Chiapas, Mexico.- A wall with a rich glyphic text that includes the complete name of the ruler that founded one of the most important Maya military seigniories was discovered in Tonina Archaeological Zone, in Chiapas. Epigraphists point out that the finding will bring in new information regarding Maya grammar, since it shows linguistic features yet to be deciphered.

The discovery adds up to the sarcophagus recently uncovered by specialists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). The wall dated in 708 AD was detected at El Palacio; a stucco portrait of K'inich B'aaknal Chaahk, the most powerful seignior of the ancient Maya city, was found as well.
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