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Mars Base

Did NASA's Voyager 1 Spacecraft Just Exit the Solar System? | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/r-spacecraft-solar-system.html

scibyte66 scibyte67 Voyager1

shared by Mars Base on 09 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Scientists are crunching one more set of numbers to find out for sure.
  • New data from the spacecraft indicate that the historic moment of its exit from the solar system might have come and gone two months ago
  • For two years now, data beamed back to Earth by Voyager 1 has hinted at its close approach to the edge of the solar system, a pressure boundary called the heliopaus
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • bubble of electrically charged particles blowing outward from the sun (called the heliosphere) exactly counterbalances the inward pressure of the gas and dust from interstellar space, causing equilibrium between the two
  • scientists have had trouble figuring out what, exactly, happens at or near this boundary — making it hard to tell whether Voyager has crossed it
  • In 2010, Voyager passed the point where the solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outward from the sun, seemed to
  • indicated that the wind had suddenly died down, and all the surrounding solar particles were at a standstill
  • "stagnation region" came as a surprise
  • expected to see the solar wind veer sideways
  • the perplexing collapse of the solar wind at the edge of the heliosphere left them without a working model for the outer solar system
  • no well-established criteria of what constitutes exit from the heliosphere
  • "All theoretical models have been found wanting."
  • a space scientist at Johns Hopkins who works with Voyager 1 data, said that in any model of the heliopause, an object exiting through it should experience three changes: a sharp rise in the number of collisions with cosmic rays (high-energy particles from space), a dramatic drop in the number of collisions with charged particles from the sun, and a change in the direction of the surrounding magnetic field.
  • Based on two of those criteria, Voyager 1 looks as if it passed through the heliopause at the end of the summer
  • The level of these cosmic ray collisions jumped significantly in late August.
  • spacecraft has experienced a steady rise in the number of collisions with particles whose energies are greater than 70 Mega-electron-volts, indicating they are probably cosmic rays emanating from supernova explosions far beyond the solar system
  • in late August, cosmic ray collisions sharply rose, and solar particle collisions sharply fell: two indicators of a transition through the heliopause
  • To officially declare Voyager's crossing, the scientists need to check if the third condition holds
  • change in magnetic field direction
  • e interstellar field beyond the influence of the sun) is critical because, even though there is debate among astrophysicists as to what direction the field will lie in
  • unlikely that it is the direction that we have been seeing at Voyager 1 throughout the most recent years
  • scientists could not say when the magnetic field analysis would be finished. But when it is
  • Once we have a consensus within the team we will inform NASA for a proper announcement,
Mars Base

LHC Experiment Yields No Insight into Post-Higgs Physics | Observations, Scientific Ame... - 0 views

blogs.scientificamerican.com/...nsight-into-post-higgs-physics

scibyte72 HiggsBoson

shared by Mars Base on 14 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • the Standard Model has survived another test
  • the new data limit the possibilities for many hypothesized extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics, including the concept of supersymmetry
  • observed a new kind of particle behavior
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • supersymmetry—the proposal that every elementary particle has a heavier, as-yet-unseen cousin
  • The LHC has yet to find any evidence for supersymmetric particles of any kind
  • Supersymmetry is not ruled out by our measurement, but it is strongly constrained
  • only certain flavors of supersymmetry jibe with the new data
  • Failure to find one variant of a theory is not evidence against other variants,”
  • If you’re looking for your lost keys, failing to find them in the kitchen, living room and bedroom is not evidence against their being somewhere else in the house
  • ry rare decay of a strange beauty particle
  • into two particles called muons. (A muon is a charged particle akin to a heavyweight electron
  • The rarity of the decay makes it difficult to observe
  • the reigning theory of subatomic particles and forces, the Standard Model of particle physics, predicts just how often the effect should occur
  • The LHCb data (pdf) match up well with the Standard Model predictions
Mars Base

First drug to improve heart failure mortality in over a decade - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-failure-mortality-decade.html

scibyte96 scibyte97 heart

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Coenzyme Q10 decreases all cause mortality by half
  • results of a multicentre randomised double blind trial
  • It is the first drug to improve heart failure mortality in over a decade
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) occurs naturally in the body and is essential to survival
  • CoQ10 works as an electron carrier in the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cells, to produce energy and is also a powerful antioxidant
  • CoQ10 levels are decreased in the heart muscle of patients with heart failure, with the deficiency becoming more pronounced as heart failure severity worsens
  • Double blind controlled trials have shown that CoQ10 improves symptoms, functional capacity and quality of life in patients with heart failure with no side effects
  • until now, no trials have been statistically powered to address effects on survival
  • study randomised 420 patients with severe heart failure
  • to CoQ10 or placebo and followed them for 2 years
  • primary endpoint was time to first major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE)
  • unplanned hospitalisation due to worsening of heart failure, cardiovascular death, urgent cardiac transplantation and mechanical circulatory support
  • CoQ10 halved the risk of MACE
  • 29 (14%) patients in the CoQ10 group reaching the primary endpoint compared to 55 (25%) patients in the placebo group
  • CoQ10 also halved the risk of dying from all causes, which occurred in 18 (9%) patients in the CoQ10 group compared to 36 (17%) patients in the placebo group
  • CoQ10 treated patients had significantly lower cardiovascular mortality
  • and lower occurrence of hospitalisations for heart failure
  • There were fewer adverse events in the CoQ10 group compared to the placebo group
  • CoQ10 is the first medication to improve survival in chronic heart failure since ACE inhibitors and beta blockers more than a decade ago
  • Other heart failure medications block rather than enhance cellular processes and may have side effects
  • CoQ10
  • is a natural and safe substance, corrects a deficiency in the body and blocks the vicious metabolic cycle in chronic heart failure called the energy starved heart
  • CoQ10 is present in food, including red meat, plants and fish, but levels are insufficient to impact on heart failure
  • CoQ10 is also sold over the counter as a food supplement but
  • Food supplements can influence the effect of other medications including anticoagulants and patients should seek advice from their doctor before taking them
Mars Base

Breath Test Could Sniff Out Infections in Minutes | Observations, Scientific American B... - 0 views

blogs.scientificamerican.com/...niff-out-infections-in-minutes

scibyte77 MedicalDevice

shared by Mars Base on 12 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Researchers have developed a test that can detect the presence of common infectious bacteria based just on the breath
  • The test picks up signature volatile organic compound (VOC)—particles emitted in gasses—profiles that the bacteria produce that are distinct those that the body—or other bacteria—give off
  • researchers
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • conducted the studies in lab mice that were infected with different types of common bacteria
  • two different strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can cause pneumonia, and one strain of Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause respiratory infections
  • The next day, the researchers tested the animals’ breath by ionizing breath samples then shooting them through a mass spectrometer to analyze concentrations of various VOCs in a process called secondary electrospray ionization mass spectrometry
  • The test detected the different bacterial infections as well as differentiated between healthy and infected
  • also located the difference between the two strains of P. aeruginosa
  • technique will have to be tested in large human trials before it makes an appearance in the clinic
  • the rapidity of the test is appealing. And it could at least make it a good first step in detecting bacterial infections, with a follow-up culture coming later if deemed necessary—to detect drug-resistant TB, for example
  • suspect that we will also be able to distinguish between bacterial, viral and fungal infections of the lung
  • Similar breath tests have also been studied for detecting other ailments, such as diabetes and cancer
Mars Base

SkySweeper robot makes inspecting power lines simple and inexpensive (w/ video) - 0 views

phys.org/...-robot-power-lines-simple.html

scibyte91 SkySweeper

shared by Mars Base on 18 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Mechanical engineers at the University of California
  • invented a robot designed to scoot along utility lines, searching for damage and other problems that require repairs.
  • the SkySweeper prototype could be scaled up for less than $1,000, making it significantly more economical than the two models of robots currently used to inspect power lines
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Made of off-the-shelf electronics and plastic parts printed on an inexpensive 3D printer
  • Current line inspection robots are large, complex, and expensive
  • Utility companies may also use manned or unmanned helicopters equipped with infrared imaging to inspect lines
  • SkySweeper could be outfitted with induction coils that would harvest energy from the power line itself, making it possible for the robot to stay deployed for weeks or months at a time
  • strengthening the clamps so they can release from the rope and swing down the line, one end to the other, thereby swinging past cable support points
Mars Base

IBM researchers make world's smallest movie using atoms (w/ video) - 0 views

phys.org/...orld-smallest-movie-atoms.html

scibyte92 scibyte93

shared by Mars Base on 02 May 13 - No Cached
  • Scientists from IBM
  • unveiled the world's smallest movie, made with one of the tiniest elements in the universe: atoms
  • Named "A Boy and His Atom," the Guinness World Records -verified movie used thousands of precisely placed atoms to create nearly 250 frames of stop-motion action.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world while opening up a dialogue with students and others on the new frontiers of math and science
  • In order to make the movie, the atoms were moved with an IBM-invented scanning tunneling microscope
  • weighs two tons, operates at a temperature of negative 268 degrees Celsius and magnifies the atomic surface over 100 million times
  • IBM Research lab one of the few places in the world where atoms can be moved with such precision.
  • Remotely operated on a standard computer, IBM researchers used the microscope to control a super-sharp needle along a copper surface to "feel" atoms
  • Only 1 nanometer away from the surface, which is a billionth of a meter in distance, the needle can physically attract atoms and molecules on the surface and thus pull them to a precisely specified location on the surface
  • moving atom makes a unique sound that is critical feedback in determining how many positions it's actually moved
  • scientists rendered still images of the individually arranged atoms, resulting in 242 single frames
  • the same team of IBM researchers who made this movie also recently created the world's smallest magnetic bit. They were the first to answer the question of how many atoms it takes to reliably store one bit of magnetic information: 12.
  • it takes roughly 1 million atoms to store a bit of data on a modern computer or electronic device
  • atomic memory could one day store all of the movies ever made in a device the size of a fingernail.
Mars Base

Chipmaker Races to Save Stephen Hawking's Speech as His Condition Deteriorates: Sc... - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte80 StephenHawking

shared by Mars Base on 01 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has long relied on technology to help him connect with the outside world despite the degenerative motor neuron disease he has battled for the past 50 years
  • a highly respected computer scientist indicated at last week’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that he and his team may be close to a breakthrough that could boost the rate at which the physicist communicates, which has fallen to a mere one word per minute in recent years.
  • For the past decade Hawking has used a voluntary twitch of his cheek muscle to compose words and sentences one letter at a time that are expressed through a speech-generation device connected to his computer.
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Each tweak stops a cursor that continuously scans text on a screen facing the scientist.
  • Intel chief technology officer
  • noted that Hawking can actually make a number of other facial expressions as well that might also be used to speed up the rate at which the physicist conveys his thoughts
  • Even providing Hawking with two inputs would give him the ability to communicate using Morse code
  • Intel has since the late 1990s supplied Hawking with technology to help the scientist express himself
  • The latest chapter in their work together began in late 2011 when Hawking reached out to
  • inform
  • the Intel co-founder and father of Moore’s law that the physicist’s ability to compose text was slowing and inquiring whether Intel could help.
  • met with Hawking early last year around the time of the latter’s 70th birthday celebration in Cambridge, where the Intel CTO was one of the speakers
  • After meeting with Hawking
  • he wondered whether his company’s processor technology could restore the scientist’s ability to communicate at five words per minute, or even increase that rate to 10
  • Intel is now working on a system that can use Hawking’s cheek twitch as well as mouth and eyebrow movements to provide signals to his computer
  • built a new, character-driven interface in modern terms that includes a better word predictor
  • company is also exploring the use of facial-recognition software to create a new user interface for Hawking that would be quicker than selecting individual letters or words
  • A black box beneath his wheelchair contains an audio amplifier, voltage regulators and a USB hardware key that receives the input from an infrared sensor on Hawking’s eyeglasses, which detects changes in light as he twitches his cheek
  • current setup includes a tablet PC with a forward-facing Webcam that he can use to place Skype calls
  • A hardware voice synthesizer sits in another black box on the back of the chair and receives commands from the computer via a USB-based serial port
  • Intel’s work with Hawking is part of the company’s broader research into smart gadgets as well as assistive technologies for the elderly
  • The key to advancing smart devices—which have been at a plateau over the past five or six years—is context awareness
  • Devices will really get to know us the way a friend would, understanding how our facial expressions reflect our mood
  • Intel’s plan for identifying personal context requires a combination of hardware sensors—camera, accelerometer, microphone, thermometer and others
  • with software that can check one’s personal calendar, social networks and Internet browsing habits, to name a few.
  • use this [information] to reason your current context and what's important at any given time [and deliver] pervasive assistance
  • One approach to “pervasive assistance” is the Magic Carpet, a rug that Intel and GE developed with embedded sensors and accelerometers that can record a person’s normal routine and even their gait, sounding an alert when deviations are detected.
  • Such assistance will anticipate our needs, letting us know when we are supposed to be at an appointment and even reminding us to carry enough cash when running certain errands
Mars Base

Eggs of enigmatic dinosaur discovered - 0 views

phys.org/...4-eggs-enigmatic-dinosaur.html

scibyte42 dinosaur

shared by Mars Base on 11 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • reported a 70 million years old pocket of fossilized bones and unique eggs of an enigmatic birdlike dinosaur in Patagonia.
  • unique are the two eggs preserved near articulated bones of its hindlimb. This is the first time the eggs are found in a close proximity to skeletal remains of an alvarezsaurid dinosaur
  • The dinosaur represents the latest survivor of its kind from Gondwana, the southern landmass in the Mesozoic Era
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • belongs to one of the most mysterious groups of dinosaurs, the Alvarezsauridae, and it is one of the largest members, 2.6 m, of the family
  • The two eggs found together with the bones during the expedition might have been inside the oviducts of the Bonapartenykus female when the animal perished
  • numerous eggshell fragments later found show considerable calcite resorption of the inner eggshell layer
  • suggest that at least some of the eggs were incubated and contained embryos at an advanced stage of their development.
  • analyzed the eggshells and found that it did not belong to any known category of the eggshell microstructure-based taxonomy
  • a new egg-family, the Arraigadoolithidae
  • using the electron scanning microscopy I observed unusual fossilized objects inside of the pneumatic canal of the eggshells
  • the first evidence of fungal contamination of dinosaur eggs
Mars Base

Asteroid Miners Wanted to Tap Space Rock Riches | Planetary Resources | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/lanetary-resources-hiring.html

sciByte44 Asteroid AsteroidMining

shared by Mars Base on 25 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • One of the reasons that we chose to announce the company at this time is because we're beginning to aggressively search for the world's best engineers, to complement our team
  • looking for engineers to help design and build a fleet of asteroid-mining robots
  • not a motley crew led by Bruce Willis
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • among its investors Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, who are worth $16.7 billion and $6.2 billion
  • company's advisers include filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron, former NASA astronaut Tom Jones and MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager
  • Water can be broken into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen, the chief components of rocket fuel
  • platinum-group metals it plans to extract will help lower the cost of many products here on Earth, including hand-held electronic devices and monitors for televisions and computers.
Mars Base

Data support theory on location of lost Leonardo da Vinci painting - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...ry-lost-leonardo-da-vinci.html

scibyte38 art daVinci

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Evidence uncovered during research conducted in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio late last year appears to support the theory that a lost Leonardo da Vinci painting existed on the east wall of the Hall of the 500, behind Giorgio Vasari's mural "The Battle of Marciano."
  • data supporting the theoretical location of the da Vinci painting "The Battle of Anghiari" was obtained through the use of an endoscopic probe that was inserted through the wall on which the Vasari fresco was painted
  • Using endoscopic technology
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • researchers were able to view the wall behind the Vasari mural and obtain samples for analysis
  • data from chemical analysis, while not conclusive, suggest the possibility that the da Vinci painting, long assumed to have been destroyed in the mid-16th century when the Hall of the 500 was completely remodeled, might exist behind the Vasari.
  • Although we are still in the preliminary stages
  • data are very encouraging
  • still a lot of work to be done to solve this mystery
  • evidence does suggest that we are searching in the right place."
  • team report four lines of evidence supporting the hypothesis that the lost Leonardo painting is located behind the Vasari mural
  • sample containing a black material was analyzed with SEM-EDX
  • scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy), which identifies the chemical elements present in a sample
  • material found behind the Vasari wall shows a chemical composition similar to black pigment found in brown glazes on Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" and "St. John the Baptist," identified in a recently published scientific paper by the Louvre, which analyzed all the da Vinci paintings in its collection.
  • Flakes of red material were found
  • these samples seems to identify them as organic material, which could be associated with red lake (lacquer). This type of material is unlikely to be present in an ordinary plastered wall.
  • research team confirmed the existence of an air gap, originally identified through radar scans conducted of the Hall, between the brick wall on which Vasari painted his mural and the wall located behind
  • finding suggests that Vasari may have preserved da Vinci's masterpiece by building a wall in front of it at this location. No other location in the Hall presented this type of air gap.
  • opportunity to conduct an endoscopic investigation through the Vasari wall
  • identified 14 areas to be explored
  • six points of entry were ultimately implemented
  • chosen by the restorers of the Opificio delle Peitre Dure in areas free of original Vasari paint
  • including cracked or previously restored areas, to ensure that drilling would not cause any damage to the original Vasari mural
  • Testing on those samples was conducted with portable instruments on the scaffolding itself
  • The painting commemorated the 1440 victory of the battle on the plain of Anghiari between Milan and the Italian League led by the Republic of Florence
  • 1503, da Vinci was commissioned
  • to paint the "The Battle of Anghiari"
Mars Base

Laser lightning rod: Guiding bursts of electricity with a flash of light - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...lightning-rod-electricity.html

scibyte38 lightning

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • New research reveals that brief bursts of intense laser light can redirect these high-power electrical discharges.
  • French researchers have coaxed laboratory-generated lightning into striking the same place, not just twice, but over and over
  • used femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second) pulses of laser light to create a virtual lightning rod out of a column of ionized gas
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Previous experiments confirmed that femtosecond laser could produce ultrashort filaments of ionized gas that act like electrical guide
  • Further studies revealed that these filaments could function over long distances, potentially greater than 50 meters.
  • of new experiments
  • research team sent a laser beam skimming past a spherical electrode to an oppositely charged planar electrode
  • laser stripped away the outer electrons from the atoms along its path
  • a plasma filament that channeled an electrical discharge from the planar electrode to the spherical one
  • researchers added a longer, pointed electrode to their experiment
  • Without the laser, the discharge obeyed this rule and always struck the taller, pointed electrode
  • With the laser, however, the discharge was redirected, following the filaments and striking the spherical electrode instead
  • even after the initial path of the discharge began to form
Mars Base

Polymer Power Drives Tiny Reactions - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...er_power_drives_tiny_reactions

scibyte38

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Applying force to polymers in water generates enough energy to drive chemical reactions
  • won’t replace large-scale energy operations
  • offers a way to harness the wisps of unused energy generated by everyday endeavors, like walking or compacting plastic bags at a recycling center
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • capturing such energy could lead to cheap, clean ways to sanitize a small container of water, for example, or to run a simple lab bench reaction
  • Scientists knew that bonds can break when mechanical force is applied to a polymer
  • breakage can generate free radicals, atoms with unpaired electrons that are eager to engage in further reactions
  • new work shows that when a polymer is squeezed in water, the free radicals migrate and react with the water, generating enough hydrogen peroxide to spur other reactions.
  • When the scientists added gold and silver metal salts to a PDMS tube filled with water, squeezing the tube powered reactions that generated gold and silver nanoparticles
  • also injected the sole of a Nike LeBron sneaker with water and a compound that fluoresces when it is cleaved
  • Half an hour of walking applied force to the polymers in the sneaker’s sole, and the resulting free radicals made enough hydrogen peroxide to cleave the fluorescing compound and make the sole glow. 
  • capturing and converting the mechanical energy of polymer squeezing into energy for driving reactions can be as efficient as 30 percent
  • comparable to some power plants that use coal.
  • PDMS is used in some medical devices such as catheters, and in some breast implants, raising the issue that normal wear in the body might generate free radicals that could cause inflammation and other problems
  • adding an antioxidant such as vitamin E, which latches onto free radicals, to the implant ingredients might be a quick and easy way to
  • Some of the body’s immune cells, though, generate well more hydrogen peroxide than that generated by the polymers
  • the fact that enough free radicals are generated to drive reactions — which might even contribute to the breakdown of medical devices — is interesting, Tang says. “I don’t know how unique it is or material-specific, but it could have potential importance.”
Mars Base

Nanotechnology breakthrough could dramatically improve medical tests - 0 views

phys.org/...logy-breakthrough-medical.html

scibyte49 NanoDevice MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • The material consists of a series of glass pillars in a layer of gold. Each pillar is speckled on its sides with gold dots and capped with a gold disk. Each pillar is just 60 nanometers in diameter, 1/1,000th the width of a human hair
  • laboratory test used to detect disease and perform biological research could be made more than 3 million times more sensitive
  • increased performance could greatly improve the early detection of cancer, Alzheimer's disease and other disorders by allowing doctors to detect far lower concentrations of telltale markers than was previously practical.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • The greater the glow, the more of the biomarker is present.
  • if the amount of biomarker is too small, the fluorescent light is too faint to be detected, setting the limit of detection
  • major goal in immunoassay research is to improve the detection limit.
  • involves a common biological test called an immunoassay, which mimics the action of the immune system to detect the presence of biomarkers
  • When biomarkers are present
  • the immunoassay test produces a fluorescent glow (light) that can be measured in a laboratory
  • tackled this limitation by using nanotechnology to greatly amplify the faint fluorescence from a sample
  • fashioning glass and gold structures so small they could only be seen with a powerful electron microscope
  • able to drastically increase the fluorescence signal compared to conventional immunoassays, leading to a 3-million-fold improvement in the limit of detection
  • key to the breakthrough lies in a new artificial nanomaterial called D2PA
  • a thin layer of gold nanostructures surrounded glass pillars just 60 nanometers in diameter.
  • A nanometer is one billionth of a meter; that means about 1,000 of the pillars laid side by side would be as wide as a human hair.
  • e pillars are spaced 200 nanometers apart and capped with a disk of gold on each pillar
  • sides of each pillar are speckled with even tinier gold dots about 10 to 15 nanometers in diameter
  • a sample such as blood, saliva or urine is taken from a patient and added to small glass vials containing antibodies that are designed to "capture" or bind to biomarkers of interest in the sample
  • Another set of antibodies that have been labeled with a fluorescent molecule are then added to the mix
  • biomarkers are not present in the vials
  • fluorescent detection antibodies do not attach to anything and are washed away
  • immunoassays are commonly used in drug discovery and other biological research.
  • plays a significant role in other areas of chemistry and engineering, from light-emitting displays to solar energy harvesting
Mars Base

At Long Last, Physicists Discover Famed Higgs Boson - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...-last-physicists-discover.html

scibyte53 HiggsBoson

shared by Mars Base on 04 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Both the CMS (top) and the ATLAS (bottom) detectors see evidence of the Higgs boson decaying into a pair of photons in the form of a peak in a so-called mass plot. The agreement of the two peaks and other data clinch the discovery of the Higgs.
  • CMS detector see clear signs of the Higgs decaying into two photons
  • From the energies of the two photons, physicists can infer the mass of their supposed parent particle
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • peak atop a background produced by random photon pairs
  • signals the presence of a Higgs-like particle with a mass of 125 giga-electron volts (GeV) or about 133 times the mass of the proton
  • CMS researchers also see evidence of the Higgs decaying to a pair of particles called W bosons or a pair of particles called Z bosons
  • ATLAS team sees a similar peak in the mass plot for Higgses decaying into photon pairs
  • ATLAS researchers also see the Higgs decaying into Z bosons and other combinations of particles
  • Taken together, ATLAS's signals just meet the 5 sigma standard of discovery, Gianotti reported, earning immediate applause
  • in 1970, theorists predicted the existence of a particle called the charm quark; two experimenters independently discovered the particle in 1974, for which they received the Nobel Prize in physics 2 years later
  • In 1968, theorists predicted the existence of the W and Z bosons; in 1983, those particles were also discovered
  • won the Nobel Prize in
  • won it in 1984
  • Physicists say that conceptual holes in the standard model strongly suggest that the theory is incomplete
  • in the standard model interactions between the Higgs and the other particles ought to force the mass of the Higgs to skyrocket to a value a trillion times larger
  • that doesn't happen
  • most physicists suspect there are new particles out there that somehow counteract ballooning of the Higgs mass.
  • But will such particles have low enough masses to be discovered with any conceivable human-made atom smasher? "There's absolutely no guarantee,"
  • Peter Higgs
Mars Base

Superhard carbon material could crack diamond - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...d-carbon-material-diamond.html

scibyte25

shared by Mars Base on 09 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • By applying extreme pressure to compress and flatten carbon nanotubes, scientists have discovered that they can create a new carbon polymer that simulations show is hard enough to crack diamond
  • directly compressing carbon nanotube bundles to design and to synthesize novel metastable carbon allotropes
  • applying pressure to some of these carbon allotropes can change the bonds, resulting in different forms of carbon with novel electronic and mechanical properties
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • the scientists here used a recently developed technique called the Crystal Structure Analysis by Particle Swarm Optimization
Mars Base

collectSPACE - news - "NASA's Curiosity rover flying to Mars with Obama's, others' auto... - 0 views

www.collectspace.com/...news-112611a.html

Curiosity scibyte23

shared by Mars Base on 28 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • on the rover's deck
  • is a plaque inscribed with the signatures of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, in addition to other administration and NASA leaders
  • continues a more than 40-year tradition of sending presidential plaques on planetary missions
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Elsewhere on the rover is the autograph of the 14-year-old girl from Kansas who gave Curiosity its name
  • millions of digital signatures from members of the public who signed up through NASA
  • NASA's Mars program leaders round out the autographs on the plate
  • It's on the rover in the front left corner
  • it will be visible and that at some point will be photographed on Mars by Curiosity's camera-topped mast
  • "When we made the request to the White House for permission to launch, we took this along with us and said, 'Oh by the way, if you sign this we will stick it on the rover.'"
  • Clara Ma, who won NASA's naming contest with the suggestion of "Curiosity," signed the rover in 2009
  • As part of her prize, she was invited to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where in June 2009 she donned a "bunny suit" to step into a clean room and sign her name on the rover
  • Silicon chips attached to Curiosity's deck bear the digital signatures of people who submitted their names through NASA's website for going to Mars aboard the rover. Each chip is about the size of a dime
  • More than 1.24 million names were submitted online
  • etched into silicon using an electron-beam machine used for fabricating micro-devices at JPL
  • more than 20,000 visitors to locations of work on the rover at JPL and Kennedy Space Center wrote their names on pages, which were scanned and reproduced at microscopic scale on another chip
  • As Curiosity drives over the martian terrain, the groves in each wheel will form a string of 'dash' and 'dot' imprints — morse code that will spell out "J-P-L."
Mars Base

MESSENGER Solves Solar Flare Mystery - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ger-solves-solar-flare-mystery

scibyte21 messenger sun

shared by Mars Base on 10 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • the MESSENGER spacecraft was able to capture a average-sized solar flare
  • allowing astronomers to study high-energy solar neutrons at less than 1 astronomical unit (AU) from the sun for the first time
  • Previously, only the neutron bursts from the most powerful solar flares have been recorded on neutron spectrometers on Earth or in near-Earth orbit
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  • results help solve a mystery of why some coronal mass ejections produce almost no energetic protons that reach the Earth, while others produce huge amounts
  • inferred the continuous production of protons in the 30-to-100-MeV (million electron volt) range due to the flare
  • MESSENGER’s Neutron Spectrometer was able to record neutrons from this flare over a period of six to ten hours
  • at least some moderate-sized flares continuously produce high-energy neutrons in the solar corona
  • Solar flares spew high-energy neutrons into interplanetary space. Typically, these bursts last about 50 to 60 seconds at the sun.
  • forms an extended seed population in interplanetary space that can be further accelerated by the massive shock waves produced by the flares
  • another population results from the decay of the neutrons near the sun
  • About 90 percent of all ions produced by a solar flare remain locked to the sun on closed magnetic lines
  • It appears that these seed populations of energetic protons near the sun could provide the answer
  • Sometimes they’re in the right place for the shock waves to send them toward Earth
  • seed populations are not evenly distributed
  • at other times they’re in locations where the protons are accelerated in directions that don’t take them near Earth
  • Energetic protons from solar flares can damage Earth-orbiting satellites and endanger astronauts on the International Space Station or on missions to the Moon and Mars.
  • scientists need to know a lot more about the mechanisms that produce flares and which flare events are likely to be dangerous
  • At some point they hope to be able to predict space weather — where precipitation is in the form of radiation — with the same accuracy that forecasters predict rain or snow on Earth.
  • The beauty of MESSENGER is that it’s going to be active from the minimum to the maximum solar activity during Solar Cycle 24
  • observe the rise of a solar cycle much closer to the sun than ever before
Mars Base

Pop music has become louder, less original: study finds - 0 views

phys.org/...2012-07-music-louder.html

music scibyte56

shared by Mars Base on 26 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • conclusion of a computer analysis of nearly half-a-million songs recorded between 1955 and 2010
  • global loudness level of music recordings has consistently increased over the years
  • the diversity of chords and melodies has "consistently diminished in the last 50 years
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  • spanned a variety of genres, including rock, pop, hip hop, metal and electronic
Mars Base

Eye implants make vision-restoring progress - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...implants-vision-restoring.html

Scibyte55 RestoringVision

shared by Mars Base on 18 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Second Sight’s Argus II, a retinal prosthesis already on the market in Europe
  • Bio-Retina from NanoRetina, which is to start clinical trials next year
  • Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System was developed to provide electrical stimulation of the retina to induce visual perception
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  • system includes an antenna, an electronics case, and electrode array
  • designed to bypass damaged photoreceptors altogether
  • video camera in the glasses captures a scene
  • video is sent to a small patient-worn computer VPU where it is processed and transformed into instructions sent back to the glasses via a cable
  • transmitted wirelessly to the antenna in the implant
  • signals are sent to the electrode array, which emits small pulses of electricity. The pulses bypass the damaged photoreceptors and stimulate the retina’s remaining
  • Users of the Argus II bionic eye say that they can see rough shapes and track the movement of objects; they can slowly read large writing.
  • Anticipation is high, meanwhile, for a bionic retina that has been designed to restore sight at less cost and with a different technique
  • Bio-Retina developed by Nano Retina does not make use of an external camera
  • vision-restoring sensor is placed inside the eye, on top of the damaged retina
  • 24×24-resolution (576-pixel) sensor atop the damaged retina. The device generates a grayscale image
  • implant is inserted through an incision in the eye
  • procedure takes 30 minutes and requires only local anesthesia
  • transforms naturally received light into an electrical signal that stimulates the neurons, which send the pictures received by Bio-Retina to the brain
  • rechargeable, battery-powered mini-laser on a pair of eyeglasses powers the implant wirelessly
  • anticipated recover time is up to one week
  • patients able to distinguish faces and to be able to look from side to side with their eyes rather than needing to turn their heads
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