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Quantum Physics Breakthrough: Scientists Find an Equation for Materials Innovation


ScienceDaily
Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:11 UTC
Princeton engineers have made a breakthrough in an 80-year-old quandary in quantum physics, paving the way for the development of new materials that could make electronic devices smaller and cars more energy efficient.

Scientist
© Frank WojciechowskiProfessor Emily Carter and graduate student Chen Huang developed a new way of predicting important properties of substances. The advance could speed the development of new materials and technologies.
By reworking a theory first proposed by physicists in the 1920s, the researchers discovered a new way to predict important characteristics of a new material before it's been created. The new formula allows computers to model the properties of a material up to 100,000 times faster than previously possible and vastly expands the range of properties scientists can study.

"The equation scientists were using before was inefficient and consumed huge amounts of computing power, so we were limited to modeling only a few hundred atoms of a perfect material," said Emily Carter, the engineering professor who led the project.
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Ring fort may have held Bronze Age sports arena

Michael Parsons
irishtimes.com
Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:56 UTC
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© Ordnance Survey of IrelandAn aerial photo of Rathnadrinna Fort, about 3km south of the Rock of Cashel in Co Tipperary.
A mysterious ring fort in Co Tipperary holds "massive potential for discoveries" according to archaeologists who have carried out the first survey of the site.

Their initial findings suggest that the site may have been used for Bronze Age sporting contests in an arena that is the ancient equivalent of Semple Stadium.

Archaeologists have long been curious about the origins of the Rathnadrinna Fort located about 3km south of the Rock of Cashel - one of Ireland's most important heritage locations and seat of the High Kings of Munster.
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Meteor

First measurement of the age of cometary material

Anne M. Stark
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:47 UTC
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© LLNLSecondary electron image of the Coki section analyzed in this study showing mineral shards surrounded by compressed aerogel.
Livermore, California - Though comets are thought to be some of the oldest, most primitive bodies in the solar system, new research on comet Wild 2 indicates that inner solar system material was transported to the comet-forming region at least 1.7 million years after the formation of the oldest solar system solids.

The research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and colleagues provides the first constraint on the age of cometary material from a known comet. The findings are published in the Feb. 25 edition of Science Express.

The NASA Stardust mission to comet Wild 2, which launched in 1999, was designed around the premise that comets preserve pristine remnants of materials that helped form the solar system. In 2006, Stardust returned with the first samples from a comet.
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Magnify

Near-Frictionless Diamond Material

Jordan Reese
Penn State
Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:42 UTC
Philadelphia - - Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and IBM Research-Zürich have fabricated an ultra sharp, diamond-like carbon tip possessing such high strength that it is 3,000 times more wear-resistant at the nanoscale than silicon.

The end result is a diamond-like carbon material mass-produced at the nanoscale that doesn't wear. The new nano-sized tip, researchers say, wears away at the rate of one atom per micrometer of sliding on a substrate of silicon dioxide, much lower than that for a silicon oxide tip which represents the current state-of-the-art. Consisting of carbon, hydrogen, silicon and oxygen molded into the shape of a nano-sized tip and integrated on the end of a silicon microcantilever for use in atomic force microscopy, the material has technological implications for atomic imaging, probe-based data storage and as emerging applications such as nanolithography, nanometrology and nanomanufacturing.
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Laptop

Facebook status updates to appear in Google

Emma Barnett
Telegraph
Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:21 UTC
Google has begun indexing status updates from Facebook Pages and including them in its real-time search results.

The integration follows hot on the heels of the news last week that the search engine had begun indexing MySpace users' updates. Google has been integrating tweets from Twitter since the end of last year.

This is the first time Google has integrated any information from Facebook into its search results. However, the information it is allowed to integrate is more limited than the deal the social network has in place with Microsoft's Bing. Google can only index status updates from Facebook Pages - which are "for organisations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information to fans in an official, public manner", according to the network's own definition, and act more as marketing tools.
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Was Noah's ark round?

Thane Burnett
QMI Agency
Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:57 UTC
Ark
© Reuters/Fatih SaribasGreenpeace volunteers build a modern-day version of the legendary Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey in this 2007 file photo.
The boat that rocked may have also rolled round more than we ever thought possible.

An ancient tablet being studied by a leading language expert is painting a new picture of Noah's ark. And it's rethinking of history's most famous love-boat may have made a lot of practical sense.

Ancient Babylonian, carved into a clay tablet salvaged by a British serviceman serving in the Middle East in the late 1940s, spells out an entirely different version of the shape of the vessel that's pictured on the nursery walls of many babies.

Irving Finkel, an expert at the British Museum, tells QMI Agency the 3,700-year-old clay tablet describes the ark as circular, rather than the bow and stern version usually depicted.

"I was astonished," Finkel says of translating the lines of script, inscribed by the hands of a poet.

For the first time, he adds, someone was reconsidering the very shape of the boat that, according to the bible, saved Noah, his family and a whole lot of animals from drowning.

The poet likely drew on vessels he was familiar with. Since the ark wouldn't have had to sail to escape the rising floodwaters - instead, it simply needed to float - then it could have been designed like round coracles still used in Iraq and Iran.
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Physicists Discover Odd Fluctuating Magnetic Waves


ScienceDaily
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:40 UTC
Physicist
© Lauren Brennan/Brown UniversityBrown University physicist Vesna Mitrovic and colleagues have discovered magnetic waves that fluctuate when exposed to certain conditions in a superconducting material. The find may help scientists understand more fully the relationship between magnetism and superconductivity.
At the quantum level, the forces of magnetism and superconductivity exist in an uneasy relationship. Superconducting materials repel a magnetic field, so to create a superconducting current, the magnetic forces must be strong enough to overcome the natural repulsion and penetrate the body of the superconductor. But there's a limit: Apply too much magnetic force, and the superconductor's capability is destroyed.

This relationship is pretty well known. But why it is so remains mysterious. Now physicists at Brown University have documented for the first time a quantum-level phenomenon that occurs to electrons subjected to magnetism in a superconducting material. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, Vesna Mitrovic, joined by other researchers at Brown and in France, report that at under certain conditions, electrons in a superconducting material form odd, fluctuating magnetic waves. Apply a little more magnetic force, and those fluctuations cease: The electronic magnets form repeated wave-like patterns promoted by superconductivity.

The discovery may help scientists understand more fully the relationship between magnetism and superconductivity at the quantum level. The insight also may help advance research into superconducting magnets, which are used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a host of other applications. "If you don't understand [what is happening at] the quantum [level], how can you design a more powerful magnet?" asked Mitrovic, assistant professor of physics.
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Telescope

Light, Wind and Fire

Henri Boffin
European Southern Observatory
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:22 UTC
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© ESOStar-forming region NGC 346
Today ESO has released a dramatic new image of NGC 346, the brightest star-forming region in our neighbouring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud, 210 000 light-years away towards the constellation of Tucana (the Toucan). The light, wind and heat given off by massive stars have dispersed the glowing gas within and around this star cluster, forming a surrounding wispy nebular structure that looks like a cobweb. NGC 346, like other beautiful astronomical scenes, is a work in progress, and changes as the aeons pass. As yet more stars form from loose matter in the area, they will ignite, scattering leftover dust and gas, carving out great ripples and altering the face of this lustrous object.
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An electrifying discovery: New material to harvest electricity from body movements

Michael Bernstein
American Chemical Society
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:16 UTC
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© Frank Wojciechowski"Piezo-rubber," super-thin films that harvest energy from motion, could be worn on the body or implanted to power cell phones, heart pacemakers, and other electronics in the future.
Scientists are reporting an advance toward scavenging energy from walking, breathing, and other natural body movements to power electronic devices like cell phones and heart pacemakers. In a study in ACS' monthly journal, Nano Letters, they describe development of flexible, biocompatible rubber films for use in implantable or wearable energy harvesting systems. The material could be used, for instance, to harvest energy from the motion of the lungs during breathing and use it to run pacemakers without the need for batteries that must be surgically replaced every few years.
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Sherlock

New Dinosaur Discovered Head First, for a Change


ScienceDaily
Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:00 UTC
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© Brigham Young UniversityBYU geology professor Brooks Britt
A team of paleontologists has discovered a new dinosaur species they're calling Abydosaurus, which belongs to the group of gigantic, long-necked, long-tailed, four-legged, plant-eating dinosaurs such as Brachiosaurus.

In a rare twist, they recovered four heads -- two still fully intact -- from a quarry in Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah. Complete skulls have been recovered for only eight of more than 120 known varieties of sauropod.

"Their heads are built lighter than mammal skulls because they sit way out at the end of very long necks," said Brooks Britt, a paleontologist at Brigham Young University. "Instead of thick bones fused together, sauropod skulls are made of thin bones bound together by soft tissue. Usually it falls apart quickly after death and disintegrates."

Britt is a co-author on the discovery paper scheduled to appear in the journal Naturwissenshaften.
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