Other Sciences news
A new University of Otago study looking at the traits of unarmed insurgencies over six decades contains lessons which could equally apply today to countries such as protest-torn Egypt and Tunisia.
(PhysOrg.com) -- People seek out shortcuts just about everywhere -- in traffic, at grocery stores, in weight loss regimens and on keyboards. But Frank Morgan, an upcoming UA guest speaker, said soap bubbles present the most simple example of heightened efficiency.
Fears that most UK companies would slash investment in skills training as a result of the recession have proved to be largely unfounded, researchers at Cardiff University and the University of London have concluded. Although some employers have cut spending to the bone, total expenditure on training has reduced only slightly.
(PhysOrg.com) -- New research from the CIBC Centre in Human Capital and Productivity at The University of Western Ontario shows parental income is a much stronger determinant of post-secondary attendance in the U.S. than in Canada.
Social psychologist Aaronette M. White believes in living feminism not just talking about it.
Countries that enter into defense pacts with other nations are less likely to be attacked, according to new research from Rice University. And those countries are not more likely to attack others.
(AP) -- One of the world's great museums resembled a military camp on Thursday, with soldiers patrolling behind its wrought iron gates and armored vehicles parked nearby. Inside, workers with white coats and latex gloves delicately handled artifacts that were damaged in the chaos sweeping Egypt.
Housing 1,200 stores, an underwater zoo, a SEGA indoor theme park, an Olympic-size ice rink, a 22-screen Cineplex and the world's largest gold market, the Dubai Mall is a retail marvel that attracts tourists from around the world. Thanks to one Wayne State researcher, its multilingual, multicultural employees are using an efficient, cost-effective instructional process to learn their job duties.
The "glass ceiling" for women administrators in college athletics may be cracked, but is not completely broken, according to a new study co-authored by a North Carolina State University researcher.
Why are some words short and others long? For decades, a prominent theory has held that words used frequently are short in order to make language efficient: It would not be economical if "the" were as long as "phenomenology," in this view. But now a team of MIT cognitive scientists has developed an alternative notion, on the basis of new research: A word’s length reflects the amount of information it contains.
The widespread availability of ultrasound scans in India is giving rise to abortions of female foetuses on an unprecedented scale, according to new research by Professor Sonia Bhalotra from the University’s Center for Market and Public Organization.
Celina Suarez and her twin sister, Marina, had always hoped they'd find dinosaur bones in the backyard of their childhood home in San Antonio, Texas.
The aging population, 65 years and older, includes nearly 3.8 million divorced men and women, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Illnesses and end-of-life issues can be particularly difficult for singles without spouses or designated caregivers. A new study from the University of Missouri provides insight into the experiences of exes who care for their former spouses, offering support, assistance with daily tasks and management of health needs.
Hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars have been wasted on everything from doughnuts to rockets, auditors told Congress Thursday as budget-minded lawmakers prepared to slash science funding.
(PhysOrg.com) -- While enthusiasts across the world pored over the Voynich manuscript, one of the most mysterious writings ever found – penned by an unknown author in a language no one understands – a research team at the UA solved one of its biggest mysteries: When was the book made?
The Internet has become not only a tool for disseminating knowledge through scientific publications, but it also has the potential to shape scientific research through expanding the field of metaknowledge—the study of knowledge itself.
A fossilized foot bone recovered from Hadar, Ethiopia, shows that by 3.2 million years ago human ancestors walked bipedally with a modern human-like foot, a report that appears Feb. 11 in the journal Science, concludes. The fossil, a fourth metatarsal, or midfoot bone, indicates that a permanently arched foot was present in the species Australopithecus afarensis, according to the report authors, Carol Ward of the University of Missouri, together with William Kimbel and Donald Johanson, of Arizona State University's Institute of Human Origins.
Nanotechnology news
In asymmetric warfare, early detection and identification of trace level chemical and biological agents and explosive compounds is critical to rapid reaction, response, and survivability. While there are many methods currently being used that can detect these threats, none allow for the unique fingerprinting of threat agents at trace levels.
Plasmons, which are density waves of electrons, are of great interest to pure and applied scientists because of their novel properties, and because of their application to sensing and photonic technologies. These applications are possible because plasmons are sensitive to surface properties, and allow for the concentration of electric fields into small volumes. Fabricating the intricate nanostructures necessary to support plasmons, however, has proved a challenge. Now a straightforward fabrication technique, capable of generating plasmon-supporting nanogap structures over large areas, has been demonstrated by Wakana Kubo and Shigenori Fujikawa from the RIKEN Innovation Center, Wako, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency.
Physics news
(PhysOrg.com) -- Children's fingerprints disappear faster than those of adults -- a little-known fact that can hamper investigations of kidnapping cases. To investigate this phenomenon, a team of researchers used beams of infrared light at Brookhaven's National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) as a powerful detective's microscope, finding that fingerprint staying power is based on the amount and types of oil in your skin.
Microwave photons can nullify the conductivity of electrons confined to the surface of liquid helium
Trapping electrons in a flat plane prevents them from moving freely in the third dimension and opens the door to a whole range of unusual physics. These effects are harnessed, for example, in modern ultrafast transistors, which confine electrons to thin layers of high-quality semiconductor crystals such as gallium arsenide. But scattering from impurities in semiconductors can mask the deeper underlying physics of these so-called two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs). Liquid helium may provide an alternative to semiconductors since it is largely impurity free. Using this approach, Denis Konstantinov and Kimitoshi Kono from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute (Japan) have demonstrated a novel effect where light totally switches off the conductivity of 2DEGs.
Space & Earth news
Dextre, the Canadian Space Agency's robotic "handyman", is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 26 crew member aboard the International Space Station on Feb. 3, 2011.
NASA has extended Phase E of the contract with Arizona State University (ASU), Ariz., for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) instrument aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. This cost-no-fee extension is for the amount of $11,368,735 and will be for a period of approximately two years, from March 1, 2011 through March 15, 2013.
(PhysOrg.com) -- A bonus round is something one usually associates with the likes of a TV game show, not a pioneering deep space mission.
NASA’s Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite was in the right place at the right time in early 2011. On January 4, while flying past the east coast of Greenland, CALIPSO caught a top-down glimpse of an unusual atmospheric phenomenon—polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), also known as nacreous clouds.
Mysterious "night shining" or noctilucent clouds are beautiful to behold, and are usually seen during the summertime, appearing at sunset. They are thin, wavy ice clouds that form at very high altitudes and reflect sunlight long after the Sun has dropped below the horizon. Scientists don’t know exactly why they form, but continue to observe them – both from Earth and from space. These images were taken by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite.
NASA's Glory mission is scheduled to launch Wednesday, Feb. 23, from Space Launch Complex 576-E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Liftoff is targeted for 5:09 a.m. EST (2:09 a.m. PST) in the middle of a 48-second launch window.
Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center were keeping a close eye on a low pressure area known as System 94S yesterday, and satellite data helped confirm that today it has strengthened into Tropical Storm Bingiza.
A low pressure area located a couple of hundred miles northwest of Western Australia appears in a better position for development into a tropical cyclone according to infrared NASA satellite imagery. Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite shows some strong convection in the low, named System 96S.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Just in time for Valentine's Day comes a new image of a ring -- not of jewels -- but of black holes.
(PhysOrg.com) -- The ongoing turmoil inside Jupiter’s missing – and slowly re-emerging – South Equatorial Belt can now be seen in unprecedented detail thanks to the Keck II telescope’s Adaptive Optics system and the cooperation of the icy Jovian moon Europa. In this newly released Keck image, the gas giant is shown as it looks in thermal infrared (IR) light, at a wavelength of nearly 5 microns (shown in bright red and yellow), overlaid on a composite image of three shorter, near infrared bands (1.21, 1.58 and 1.65 microns).
(PhysOrg.com) -- A chronology of 1,000 years of earthquakes at the southern end of the San Andreas Fault nixes the idea that lake changes in the now-dry region caused past quakes. However, researchers say, the timeline pulled from sediment in three deep trenches confirms that this portion of the fault is long past the expected time for a major temblor that would strongly shake the Los Angeles Basin.
Those light-emitting diodes marketed as safe, environmentally preferable alternatives to traditional lightbulbs actually contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially hazardous substances, according to newly published research.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Alaskan forests used to be important players in Mother Nature’s game plan for regulating carbon dioxide levels in the air. It’s elementary earth science: Trees take up carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.
Bearing brown and black scorch marks from its fiery tour in orbit in December, the Dragon spacecraft built by US company SpaceX went on display in the US capital on Thursday.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Large dams could have the potential to significantly alter local rainfall in some regions, according to a team of researchers including Roger Pielke Sr., of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES).
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of an ocean sediment core taken from deep water off the coast of the western Antarctic Peninsula is beginning to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge of climate variability in the region.
Chemistry news
Empa researchers, together with TISCA TIARA, a Swiss manufacturer of artificial turf, have developed a novel fiber for artificial turf. The bi-component fiber returns to an upright position again and again thanks to a hard core and avoids abrasions and grass burns after a fall because of a soft sheath. The turf has already been laid on two football pitches in Switzerland.
A new alloy promises to lessen welders' risk of breathing toxic fumes on the job.
UC Santa Barbara scientists have made a discovery that has the potential for use in the early diagnosis and eventual treatment of plaque-related diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Type 2 diabetes. Their work is published in a recent issue of Nature Chemistry.
(PhysOrg.com) -- An enigmatic protein system that uses sunlight and water to create fuel became a little less mysterious, thanks to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Michigan, and University of California -- Davis.
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