Science & TechnologyS


Evil Rays

'Star Wars' scientists create laser gun to kill mosquitoes

Anouk Lorie
Cable News Network
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:46 UTC
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The WHO has reported that around half of the world's population is at risk of malaria.
London, England -- Scientists in the U.S. are developing a laser gun that could kill millions of mosquitoes in minutes. The WHO has reported that around half of the world's population is at risk of malaria.

The laser, which has been dubbed a "weapon of mosquito destruction" fires at mosquitoes once it detects the audio frequency created by the beating of its wings.

The laser beam then destroys the mosquito, burning it on the spot.

Developed by some of the astrophysicists involved in what was known as the "Star Wars" anti-missile programs during the Cold War, the project is meant to prevent the spread of malaria.

Lead scientist on the project, Dr. Jordin Kare, told CNN that the laser would be able to sweep an area and "toast millions of mosquitoes in a few minutes."
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Chalkboard

Black Sea Pollution Could Be Harnessed As Renewable Future Energy Source


Science Daily
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:07 UTC
The Black Sea harbours vast quantities of hydrogen sulfide, the toxic gas associated with the smell of rotten eggs. This noxious gas could be used as a renewable source of hydrogen gas to fuel a future carbon-free economy, according to Turkish researchers writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Nuclear Hydrogen Production and Applications.

The waters of the Black Sea contain very little oxygen. As such, the rare forms of life that live in the depths of the inland sea, so-called extremophile bacteria, survive by metabolising sulfate in the water. The sulfate fulfils a similar biochemical role to oxygen in respiration for these microbes allowing them to release the energy they need to live and grow from the nutrients they absorb from the water.
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Meteor

Comet impacts can destroy stellar systems

Michael Schirber
Space.com
Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:55 UTC
Many scientists believe the dinosaurs were snuffed out by comet collision

Some stars have a high level of comet activity around them, and that could spell doom for any life trying to take root on any local planets. Ongoing research is trying to determine what fraction of stellar systems may be uninhabitable due to comet impacts.

Many of our own solar system's comets are found in the Kuiper Belt, a debris-filled disk that extends from Neptune's orbit (30 AU) out to almost twice that distance. Other stars have been shown to have similar debris disks.

"The debris is dust and larger fragments produced by the break-up of comets or asteroids as they collide amongst themselves," says Jane Greaves of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
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Meteor

Moon craters reveal history of 4 billion year old asteroid bombardment in solar system


Asian News International
Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:40 UTC
London - A scientist is analyzing the age of craters found on the Moon in the 1990s to find out if they are the same age as the others, which would support the idea that asteroids bombarded the inner solar system about 4 billion years ago.

Most surveys of lunar impact craters have used photos, but Herbert Frey of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, wanted to know if there were any old craters buried beneath younger ones.
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Bizarro Earth

Volcanic roar may reveal jet physics at work

Ker Than
New Scientist
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:01 UTC
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© USGSVolcanic eruptions like this one at Mount St Helens in 1980 have been found to emit roars similar to those of jet engines.

The first close-range, low-frequency recordings of volcanic eruptions have revealed a surprising similarity to the noise made by jet engines. The finding may provide clues to what happens prior to volcanic explosions.

Hear an infrasound recording of an eruption at Mount St Helens, speeded up 200x.

Robin Matoza of the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues measured infrasonic signals from volcanic eruptions around the globe, getting as near to them as 13 kilometres - relatively close for these sorts of measurements. This was the first time that infrasonic signals from very large eruptions had been measured at relatively close range.
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Info

DNA origami comes to life

Colin Barras
New Scientist
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:26 UTC
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© Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesAn atomic force microscope image of a DNA "ribbon" (top) that assembled itself from a 'seed' of artificial DNA in a technique that could be used to make molecular-scale electronics. The lower image is a graphical interpretation of the structure.

In the natural world, DNA provides a kind of blueprint that directs a complex molecular dance which culminates in the creation of a much larger, more complex object - be it bacterium or elephant.

Now, using a method known as "DNA origami", chemists have managed a similar if much simplified version, creating artificial DNA that can also build itself into larger, more complex structures.

DNA with those capabilities could provide new ways of manufacturing on a small scale - for example, in the field of nanoelectronics - or performing calculations.

The new method has been developed by Paul Rothemund and Erik Winfree, both at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
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Info

Concept of 'hypercosmic God' wins Templeton Prize

Amanda Gefter
New Scientist
Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:00 UTC
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© John Templeton FoundationFrench physicist and philosopher of science Bernard d'Espagnat

Today the John Templeton Foundation announced the winner of the annual Templeton Prize of a colossal £1 million ($1.4 million), the largest annual prize in the world.

This year it goes to French physicist and philosopher of science Bernard d'Espagnat for his "studies into the concept of reality". D'Espagnat, 87, is a professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the University of Paris-Sud, and is known for his work on quantum mechanics. The award will be presented to him by the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace on 5 May.

D'Espagnat boasts an impressive scientific pedigree, having worked with Nobel laureates Louis de Broglie, Enrico Fermi and Niels Bohr. De Broglie was his thesis advisor; he served as a research assistant to Fermi; and he worked at CERN when it was still in Copenhagen under the direction of Bohr. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of Texas, Austin, at the invitation of the legendary physicist John Wheeler. But what has he done that's worth £1 million?

The thrust of d'Espagnat's work was on experimental tests of Bell's theorem. The theorem states that either quantum mechanics is a complete description of the world or that if there is some reality beneath quantum mechanics, it must be nonlocal - that is, things can influence one another instantaneously regardless of how much space stretches between them, violating Einstein's insistence that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
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Info

Gravity may venture where matter fears to tread

Marcus Chown
New Scientist
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:47 UTC
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© UnknownIf gravity can sneak into dimensions that are closed to us, it might explain some puzzling cosmic anomalies

There is nothing certain in this world, US founding father Benjamin Franklin once wrote, except death and taxes. As a scientist, he might have added a third inescapable force: gravity, the unseen hand that keeps our feet on the ground.

Gravity is the universal force. Not only does it stop us getting above ourselves, it keeps Earth orbiting around the sun, our sun swinging around the centre of the Milky Way, the Milky Way in a merry dance around its neighbours, and so on upwards. It is actually the weakest of nature's four forces, but whereas the other three - electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces - unleash their full strength only at the scales of atoms and particles, gravity conserves its power to trump all comers in the cosmos at large. Just take any two things that have mass, and whatever their size, wherever they are, they will feel gravity's grasp in exactly the same way.

Or will they? Justin Khoury, now of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and his colleagues Niayesh Afshordi and Ghazal Geshnizjani of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, are not so sure. They have listed a series of cosmological observations that cannot readily be explained with a one-size-fits-all gravity. None of these effects on its own, they stress, necessarily indicates anything amiss. But intriguingly, all of them melt away if you make just one assumption, albeit a controversial one: that how gravity works depends on the scale on which you look at it.
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Light Saber

Scientists convert sound into light


Space Daily
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:37 UTC
U.S. scientists say they have, for the first time, changed high frequency sounds into light by reversing a process that converts electrical signals to sound.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers said their new tool enhances the way computer chips, LEDs and transistors are build.

Commonly used piezo-electric speakers, such as those found in a cell phone, operate at low frequencies that human ears can hear, the scientists from LLNL and the Nitronex Corp. said. But by reversing that process, lead researchers Michael Armstrong, Evan Reed and Mike Howard used a very high frequency sound wave -- about 100 million times higher frequency than what humans can hear -- to generate light.
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Info

Galactic Dust Bunnies Found To Contain Carbon After All


Space Daily
Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:26 UTC
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© NASAThe "Cat’s Eye" nebula, or NGC 6543, is a well-studied example of a "planetary nebula." Such objects are the glowing remnants of dust and gas expelled from moderate-sized stars during their last stages of life. Our own sun will generate such a nebula in about five billion years.

Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers have found evidence suggesting that stars rich in carbon complex molecules may form at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

This discovery is significant because it adds to our knowledge of how stars form heavy elements - like oxygen, carbon and iron - and then blow them out across the universe, making it possible for life to develop.

Astronomers have long been baffled by a strange phenomenon: Why have their telescopes never detected carbon-rich stars at the center of our galaxy even though they have found these stars in other places? Now, by using Spitzer's powerful infrared detectors, a research team has found the elusive carbon stars in the galactic center.
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