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Spitzer and ALMA Reveal a Star’s Bubbly Birth

By Guest PostNovember 11, 2013Sciencealberto noriega crespo, alma, atacama large millimeter, bouncing baby, bubbly birth, Chile, hector arce, herbig haro, hh objects, NASA, spitzer, spitzer space telescope, star, star making, submillimeter array, yale university

It’s a bouncing baby . . . star! Combined observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the newly completed Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile have revealed the throes of stellar birth as never before in the well-studied object known as HH 46/47.

Herbig-Haro (HH) objects form when jets shot out by newborn stars collide with surrounding material, producing small, bright, nebulous regions. To our eyes, the dynamics within many HH objects are obscured by enveloping gas and dust. But the infrared and submillimeter wavelengths of light seen by Spitzer and ALMA, respectively, pierce the dark cosmic cloud around HH 46/47 to let us in on the action. (more…)

A shot in the dark: Detector at UW on the hunt for dark matter

By Guest PostNovember 9, 2013Scienceaxion, dark matter, dark matter experiment, detector at uw, elementary particle, geneva, gravitational glue, gravitationally to matter, gray rybka, higgs boson, hunt, Large Hadron Collider, leslie rosenberg, magnetic field, microwave photons, milky way galaxy, particle physics, quantum chromodynamics, sensitive microwave receiver, switzerland, theory, university of washington

Leslie Rosenberg and his colleagues are about to go hunting. Their quarry: A theorized-but-never-seen elementary particle called an axion.

The search will be conducted with a recently retooled, extremely sensitive detector that is currently in a testing and shakeout phase at the University of Washington’s Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics. (more…)

Stretchable energy sources

By Guest PostNovember 7, 2013Scienceactive electrodes, bingqing wei, China, cnt, continuous carbon nanotube, donghua university, electrochemical performance, energy management systems, energy storage devices, network, polyvinyl alcohol, shanghai, solid electrolyte, stretchable energy sources, sulfuric acid gel, supercapacitors, tsu wei chou, wss

UD researchers develop stretchable wire-shaped supercapacitor

Advances in flexible and stretchable electronics have prompted researchers to explore ways to create stretchable supercapacitors — robust energy storage devices — to power these and other devices.

Supercapacitors offer significant advantages over common batteries, including the ability to recharge in seconds, exceptionally long life span and high reliability, leading to their incorporation in portable consumer electronics, memory backup devices, hybrid vehicles and even large industrial scale power and energy management systems. (more…)

Crashing rockets could lead to novel sample-return technology

By Guest PostNovember 7, 2013Scienceblack rock desert, bothell, california, capsule, Chernobyl, crashing rockets, nevada desert, nuclear power facility, robert hoyt, robert winglee, sample return technology, tethers unlimited, ukraine, university of washington

During spring break the last five years, a University of Washington class has headed to the Nevada desert to launch rockets and learn more about the science and engineering involved. Sometimes, the launch would fail and a rocket smacked hard into the ground.

This year, the session included launches from a balloon that were deliberately directed into a dry lakebed. Far from being failures, these were early tests of a concept that in the future could be used to collect and return samples from forbidding environments – an erupting volcano, a melting nuclear reactor or even an asteroid in space. (more…)

Global warming led to dwarfism in mammals — twice

By Guest PostNovember 6, 2013Environment, Scienceabigail dambrosia, carbon dioxide, climate change, diacodexis, dwarfism in mammals, early horse hyracotherium, early horses, eocene thermal maximum, etm2, future global warming, geological past, global warming, greenhouse gases, heat trapping, human caused, hyperthermals, hyracotherium, jaw fossils, modern day horse, paleocene eocene, paleontologist, petm, philip gingerich, primate cantius, thermal maximum, university of michigan, will clyde

ANN ARBOR — Mammal body size decreased significantly during at least two ancient global warming events. A new finding that suggests a similar outcome is possible in response to human-caused climate change, according to a University of Michigan paleontologist and his colleagues.

Researchers have known for years that mammals such as primates and the groups that include horses and deer became much smaller during a period of warming, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), about 55 million years ago. (more…)

Study Finds Natural Compound Can Be Used for 3-D Printing of Medical Implants

By Guest PostNovember 3, 2013Science3d printing, 3d printing technology, alexander nguyen, anastasia koroleva, biocompatible, chapel hill, laser zentrum hannover, medical implants, natural compound, non toxic polymers, nontoxic, north Carolina, photoreactive liquid precursors, riboflavin, roger narayan, shaun gittard, solid polymer, state university, three-dimensional, university, vitamin b2

Researchers from North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Laser Zentrum Hannover have discovered that a naturally-occurring compound can be incorporated into three-dimensional (3-D) printing processes to create medical implants out of non-toxic polymers. The compound is riboflavin, which is better known as vitamin B2.

“This opens the door to a much wider range of biocompatible implant materials, which can be used to develop customized implant designs using 3-D printing technology,” says Dr. Roger Narayan, senior author of a paper describing the work and a professor in the joint biomedical engineering department at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill. (more…)

Single mutation gives virus new target

By Guest PostNovember 3, 2013Sciencecell cultures, ganglioside sugar, human polyomavirus, surface of cells

A mutation as minute as swapping just one amino acid can completely change the target that a virus will bind to on a victim cell — potentially shifting what kind of cell and eventually what kind of organism a virus could infect.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In a new study published online in the journal PLoS Pathogens, an international team of scientists showed that by swapping a single amino acid they could change the sugar to which the human BK polyomavirus will binds on the surface of cells. The BK polyomavirus lost the ability to bind its usual target sugar and instead “preferred” the same sugar as its cousin SV40 polyomavirus, which is active in monkeys. (more…)

‘Witch Head’ Brews Baby Stars

By Guest PostNovember 2, 2013Sciencebaby stars, clouds of nebula, witch head, witch head nebula

A witch appears to be screaming out into space in this new image from NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The infrared portrait shows the Witch Head nebula, named after its resemblance to the profile of a wicked witch. Astronomers say the billowy clouds of the nebula, where baby stars are brewing, are being lit up by massive stars. Dust in the cloud is being hit with starlight, causing it to glow with infrared light, which was picked up by WISE’s detectors. (more…)

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