Space Season: ScienceDaily Technology Headlines -- for Friday, February 4, 2011

ScienceDaily Technology Headlines

for Friday, February 4, 2011

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Northern Mars landscape actively changing (February 4, 2011) -- Sand dunes in a vast area of northern Mars long thought to be frozen in time are changing with both sudden and gradual motions, as revealed by images from a high-resolution camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO. The new findings help scientists to better understand what features and landscapes on Mars can be explained by current processes and which require environmental conditions no longer present on the planet. ... > full story

Microbiologists aim to optimize bio-ethanol production (February 4, 2011) -- Researchers are working to resolve an emerging "food versus fuel" rivalry: they are investigating how to most effectively utilize residual field crop material for industrial production of bio-ethanol. Getting a handle on the full "toolbox" that soil bacteria use to transform cellulose into sugar could help to optimize combinations of enzymes for industrial use, potentially leading to development of a specialized degradation tool for every kind of plant waste containing cellulose. ... > full story

Same rules apply to some experimental systems regardless of scale (February 4, 2011) -- New experiments show that common scientific rules can apply to significantly different phenomena operating on vastly different scales. The results raise the possibility of making discoveries pertaining to phenomena that would be too large or impractical to recreate in the laboratory. ... > full story

Ionization by strong laser fields: Understanding the 'Ionization Surprise' (February 4, 2011) -- In 2009 researchers found an "ionization surprise" that defied explanation. Until that time, it had been commonly thought that the ionization of atoms by strong laser fields was well-understood, but novel experiments where rare gas atoms were ionized using relatively long (few-micrometers) wavelength laser light suddenly revealed an unexpected and universal low-energy feature that defied explanation. Now, scientists have provided an explanation. ... > full story

Effective search terms yield the right information (February 4, 2011) -- It does not matter how good a search engine is if the person doing a search does not ask for the desired information in the right way. So far, a great deal of the research on information retrieval has aimed to develop search algorithms and powerful search engines. Yet, a new doctoral thesis on natural language processing shows that it is also important to look at the terms people type into the search box. ... > full story

Missing link between young, old galaxies? Gas jet galaxy could explain how starforming galaxies become red and dead (February 3, 2011) -- Astronomers may have found the missing link between young, gas-filled, star-forming galaxies and older, gas-depleted galaxies typically characterized as "red and dead." New research finds that a long-known "early-type" galaxy, NGC 1266, is expelling molecular gas, mostly hydrogen, from its core. The unusual galaxy may help explain how gas-filled galaxies rid themselves of their molecular gas. ... > full story

Communication pathways within proteins may yield new drug targets to stop superbugs (February 3, 2011) -- A biophysicist has developed a new method to identify communication pathways connecting distant regions within proteins. With this tool, the researcher has identified a mechanism for cooperative behavior within an entire molecule, a finding that suggests that in the future it may be possible to design drugs that target anywhere along the length of a molecule's communication pathway rather than only in a single location as they do today. ... > full story

Energy-efficient intelligent house can monitor health, prototype shows (February 3, 2011) -- A prototype of an energy-efficient house which can send alerts if its residents are ill has been developed. ... > full story

Surprise hidden in Titan's smog: Cirrus-like clouds (February 3, 2011) -- Every day is a bad-air day on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Blanketed by haze far worse than any smog belched out in Los Angeles, Beijing or even Sherlock Holmes's London, the moon looks like a dirty orange ball. Described once as crude oil without the sulfur, the haze is made of tiny droplets of hydrocarbons with other, more noxious chemicals mixed in. Gunk. Now thin, wispy clouds of ice particles, similar to Earth's cirrus clouds have also been discovered. ... > full story

'Tall order' sunlight-to-hydrogen system works, neutron analysis confirms (February 3, 2011) -- Researchers have developed a biohybrid photoconversion system -- based on the interaction of photosynthetic plant proteins with synthetic polymers -- that can convert visible light into hydrogen fuel. ... > full story

Future surgeons may use robotic nurse, 'gesture recognition' (February 3, 2011) -- Surgeons of the future might use a system that recognizes hand gestures as commands to control a robotic scrub nurse or tell a computer to display medical images of the patient during an operation. ... > full story

Small snack for Milky Way: Astrophysicists find new remnants of neighboring galaxy in our own (February 3, 2011) -- An international team of astronomers has discovered a new stream of stars in our Milky Way: the "Aquarius Stream", named after the constellation of Aquarius. The stream of stars is a remnant of a smaller galaxy in our cosmic neighborhood, which has been pulled apart by the gravitational pull of the Milky Way about 700 million years ago. The discovery is a result of the measurement of the velocities of 250,000 stars with the RAVE Survey based at the Australian Astronomical Observatory's UK Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, NSW, Australia. ... > full story

Internet out of space? Development of the next generation of Internet addresses needs to speed up, academic warns (February 3, 2011) -- As the original Internet address system reaches its end, an academic warns that deployment of the next generation of addresses needs to speed up to maintain Internet services. With the Internet likely to reach a major milestone this Thursday at 3 pm, when the very last Internet addresses using the original Internet protocol, called IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) are allocated to Regional Registries and ISPs, computer scientists say that careful planning by developers and engineers, dating back to the mid-1990s, has provided the capability for the Internet to continue to grow beyond the depletion of the original addressing system. ... > full story

Taking unpleasant surprises out of cosmetic surgery (February 3, 2011) -- New software aims to improve the outcome of cosmetic surgery. Scientists have built a tool that generates a far more anatomically accurate after-surgery image than ever before. The research will permit surgeons to avoid unexpected results and determine the most favorable outcome for their patients. ... > full story

Giant virus, tiny protein crystals show X-ray laser's power and potential (February 3, 2011) -- Two new studies demonstrate how the unique capabilities of the world's first hard X-ray free-electron laser could revolutionize the study of life. In one study, researchers used the laser to demonstrate a shortcut for determining the 3-D structures of proteins. In a separate paper, the same team reported making the first single-shot images of intact viruses, paving the way for snapshots and movies of molecules, viruses and live microbes in action. ... > full story

Picture-perfect pure-disc galaxy (February 3, 2011) -- The bright galaxy NGC 3621, captured in a new image using the Wide Field Imager on the 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile, appears to be a fine example of a classical spiral. But it is in fact rather unusual: it does not have a central bulge and is therefore described as a pure-disc galaxy. ... > full story

Ice dome made using novel construction method (February 3, 2011) -- Civil engineers have built an ice dome 10 meters in diameter in Obergurgl, in the Austrian Alps, using an ingenious construction method. ... > full story

Exploring an 'island of inversion,' physicists find new clues to element synthesis in supernovae (February 3, 2011) -- A new discovery, and the questions is raises, could help explain in greater detail how elements are synthesized in the explosion of stars. Although theory predicted a spherical arrangement in the nucleus of magnesium-32, experiments had only revealed a configuration shaped like an American football. Now, through experiments at CERN, physicists have confirmed the existence of a spherical magnesium-32 nucleus, formed at a much lower than predicted energy level. ... > full story

Current use of biodiesel no more harmful than regular diesel, Norwegian study finds (February 3, 2011) -- Up to 7 percent biodiesel blended in regular diesel will presumably not cause greater health risks for the population than the use of pure fossil diesel, according to a new Norwegian assessment. ... > full story

Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle space ferry ready for launch (February 3, 2011) -- ESA's latest Automated Transfer Vehicle is ready for launch to the International Space Station on Feb. 15 from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The unmanned spaceship will deliver essential supplies and reboost the Station during its mission lasting three and half months. ... > full story

Tuning graphene film so it sheds water (February 2, 2011) -- Windshields that shed water so effectively that they don't need wipers. Ship hulls so slippery that they glide through the water more efficiently than ordinary hulls. These are some of the potential applications for graphene, one of the hottest new materials in the field of nanotechnology. ... > full story

Cassini sends back postcards of Saturn's moons (February 2, 2011) -- On Jan. 31, 2011, NASA's Cassini spacecraft passed by several of Saturn's intriguing moons, snapping images along the way. Cassini passed within about 60,000 kilometers (37,282 miles) of Enceladus and 28,000 kilometers (17,398 miles) of Helene. It also caught a glimpse of Mimas in front of Saturn's rings. In one of the images, Cassini is looking at the famous jets erupting from the south polar terrain of Enceladus. ... > full story

Crowd workers are not online Shakespeares, but research shows they can write (February 2, 2011) -- Writing can be a solitary, intellectual pursuit, but researchers have shown that the task of writing an informational article also can be accomplished by dozens of people working independently online. ... > full story

New nanoparticles make blood clots visible (February 2, 2011) -- For almost two decades, cardiologists have searched for ways to see dangerous blood clots before they cause heart attacks. Now, researchers report that they have designed nanoparticles that find clots and make them visible to a new kind of X-ray technology. ... > full story

New tumor-tracking technique for radiotherapy spares healthy tissue, could improve cancer treatment (February 2, 2011) -- Medical physicists have demonstrated a new real-time tumor-tracking technique that can help minimize the amount of radiation delivered to surrounding healthy tissue in a patient -- up to 50 percent less in some cases -- and maximize the dose the tumor receives. ... > full story

Possible path to creating next-generation computer chips (February 2, 2011) -- Researchers have made a breakthrough in the use of visible light for making tiny integrated circuits. Though their advance is probably at least a decade from commercial use, they say it could make it possible to continue the decades long tread of making ever smaller, faster and cheaper computer chips. ... > full story

NASA finds Earth-size planet candidates in habitable zone, six planet system (February 2, 2011) -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun. ... > full story

'Air laser' may sniff bombs, pollutants from a distance (February 2, 2011) -- Engineers have developed a new laser sensing technology that may allow soldiers to detect hidden bombs from a distance and scientists to better measure airborne environmental pollutants and greenhouse gasses. ... > full story

NASA's NEOWISE completes scan for asteroids and comets a family portrait (February 2, 2011) -- NASA's NEOWISE mission has completed its survey of small bodies, asteroids and comets, in our solar system. The mission's discoveries of previously unknown objects include 20 comets, more than 33,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and 134 near-Earth objects (NEOs). The NEOs are asteroids and comets with orbits that come within 45 million kilometers (28 million miles) of Earth's path around the sun. ... > full story

Internet addresses: An inevitable shortage, but an uneven one (February 2, 2011) -- As Internet authorities prepare to announce that they have handed over all of the available addresses, a research group that monitors address usage has completed the latest in its series of Internet censuses, mapping and analyzing the dimensions of usage and shortage. ... > full story

Video games are good for girls, if parents play along (February 2, 2011) -- Researchers have conducted a study on video games and children between 11 and 16 years old. They found that girls who played video games with a parent enjoyed a number of advantages. Those girls behaved better, felt more connected to their families and had stronger mental health. ... > full story

Forensic breakthrough: Recovering fingerprints on fabrics could turn clothes into silent witnesses (February 2, 2011) -- Forensic experts in Scotland are leading the way in the research of new ground-breaking forensic techniques within the field of fingerprints. The new research seeks to recover fingerprint ridge detail and impressions from fabrics -- a technique that has up until now proved difficult. It is the first time in more than 30 years that fingerprints on fabrics have been a major focus for research and the team have already had a number of successes. ... > full story

First mission to Mercury (February 2, 2011) -- As the team of scientists behind NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft eagerly awaits the craft’s entry into Mercury’s orbit on 17 March, we could soon get answers to questions about the origin, composition, interior structure and geological history of this mysterious planet. ... > full story

Scientists customize a magnet's performance by strategically replacing key atoms (February 2, 2011) -- Scientists have strategically replaced key atoms in a gadolinium-germanium compound, causing changes in the resulting alloy's ferromagnetism. The discovery may eventually help as materials scientists search for new, exotic substances for use in today's and future generations of high-tech products. ... > full story

Computer-assisted diagnosis tools to aid pathologists (February 2, 2011) -- Researchers are leveraging powerful Ohio Supercomputer Center resources to develop computer-assisted diagnosis tools for diagnosing Follicular Lymphoma. Accurate grading of the pathological samples generally leads to a promising prognosis, but diagnosis depends solely upon a labor-intensive process that can be affected by fatigue, reader variation and bias. These computer-assisted procedures will provide pathologists grading cancerous Follicular Lymphoma samples with quicker, more consistently accurate diagnoses. ... > full story

Exotic phases on an atom chip (February 2, 2011) -- The development of modern technologies relies on the exquisite knowledge of transport properties. Electronic devices and computers are indeed based on the possibility to generate and control currents of electrons, elementary particles which abound in materials. By exploiting their electric charge and their response to electromagnetic fields, these particles are minutely guided along circuits composed of fine conducting materials. Thus, the information transport from which we benefit daily is associated to an intrinsic property of the electron: its charge. ... > full story

NASA's Kepler spacecraft discovers extraordinary new planetary system (February 2, 2011) -- Scientists using NASA's Kepler, a space telescope, recently discovered six planets made of a mix of rock and gases orbiting a single sun-like star, known as Kepler-11, which is located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth. "The Kepler-11 planetary system is amazing," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist and a Kepler science team member at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. "It's amazingly compact, it's amazingly flat, there's an amazingly large number of big planets orbiting close to their star -- we didn't know such systems could even exist." ... > full story

Kepler finds evidence of habitable Earth-size planets in Milky Way (February 2, 2011) -- Is our Milky Way galaxy home to other planets the size of Earth? Are Earth-sized planets common or rare? NASA scientists seeking answers to those questions recently revealed their discovery. "We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone -- a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Some candidates could even have moons with liquid water," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and the Kepler Mission's science principal investigator. "Five of the planetary candidates are both near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their parent stars." ... > full story

NASA's Stardust adjusts flight path for comet meetup (February 2, 2011) -- Just over two weeks before its flyby of comet Tempel 1, NASA's Stardust spacecraft fired its thrusters to help refine its flight path toward the comet. The Stardust-NExT mission will fly past comet Tempel 1 on Valentine's Day (Feb. 14, 2011). ... > full story

Early tests find nanoshell therapy effective against brain cancer (February 1, 2011) -- Researchers have successfully destroyed tumors of human brain cancer cells in the first animal tests of a minimally invasive treatment that zaps glioma tumors with heat. The researchers reported that four of seven mice that received the new treatment for glioma tumors had no signs of cancer more than three months after treatment. ... > full story

Giant radio telescope goes multi-national: First images from LOFAR (February 1, 2011) -- In the quest to discover more about our Universe and the birth of stars and galaxies, a new UK telescope connected for the first time to others across Europe has delivered its first 'radio pictures'. The images of the 3C196 quasar (a black hole in a distant galaxy) were taken in January 2011 by the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT). LOFAR (Low Frequency Array), which is co-ordinated by ASTRON in the Netherlands, is a network of radio telescopes designed to study the sky at the lowest radio frequencies accessible from the surface of the Earth with unprecedented resolution. ... > full story

Cluster encounters 'natural particle accelerator' above Earth's atmosphere: How northern and southern lights are generated (February 1, 2011) -- The European Space Agency's Cluster satellites have flown through a natural particle accelerator just above Earth's atmosphere. The data they collected are unlocking how most of the dramatic displays of the northern and southern lights are generated. ... > full story

Scientists model tiny rotors, key to future nanomachines (February 1, 2011) -- Researchers have created a molecular midway where atoms dip, dive and soar. Through molecular dynamics simulations, they have now defined the ground rules for the rotor motion of molecules attached to a gold surface. ... > full story

Clean streets and intact road surfaces help to keep the air clean (February 1, 2011) -- Road traffic is one of the main sources of fine particulate matter in the atmosphere, above all when the weather situation favors the creation of winter smog. Vehicle tailpipe emissions are responsible for just less than half of the fine particles, however. The majority of this pollutant is produced by mechanical wear and resuspension of dust due to air turbulence from passing vehicles, as a study by atmospheric scientists has shown. ... > full story

Metamaterials approach makes better satellite antennas (February 1, 2011) -- Cheaper, lighter and more energy-efficient broadband devices on communications satellites may be possible using metamaterials to modify horn antennas, according to engineers. ... > full story

Smart lasers could make cancer biopsies painless, help speed new drugs to market (February 1, 2011) -- Biopsies in the future may be painless and noninvasive, thanks to smart laser technology. To test for skin cancer, patients today must endure doctors cutting away a sliver of skin, sending the biopsy to a lab and anxiously awaiting the results. Using laser microscopes that deploy rapid, ultra-short pulses to identify molecules, doctors may soon have the tools to painlessly scan a patient's troublesome mole and review the results on the spot, new research suggests. ... > full story

Tracking the origins of speedy space particles (February 1, 2011) -- NASA's Time History of Events and Macroscale Interaction during Substorms (THEMIS) spacecraft combined with computer models have helped track the origin of the energetic particles in Earth's magnetic atmosphere that appear during a kind of space weather called a substorm. Understanding the source of such particles and how they are shuttled through Earth's atmosphere is crucial to better understanding the Sun's complex space weather system and thus protect satellites or even humans in space. ... > full story

Hunt for dark matter closes in at Large Hadron Collider (February 1, 2011) -- Physicists are closer than ever to finding the source of the Universe's mysterious dark matter, following a better than expected year of research at the Compact Muon Solenoid particle detector, part of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. ... > full story