Ainissa Ramirez, associate professor of mechanical engineering, describes the science behind a tasty bit of chemistry — ice cream. She shows how to make ice cream using liquid nitrogen, which is as cold as the surface of Neptune, and describes why these cold temperatures makes ice cream, creamier. She demonstrates how our knowledge of how […]
Quiz: This beautiful mind was promoting game theory long before Cold War think tanks used mathematics to understand strategic maneuvering. Plotting, as a result, has never been the same. (more…)
Thin Layer of Germanium May Replace Silicon in Semiconductors
COLUMBUS, Ohio—The same material that formed the first primitive transistors more than 60 years ago can be modified in a new way to advance future electronics, according to a new study. (more…)
UCLA study IDs small molecule that destroys potentially dangerous cells
Pluripotent stem cells can turn, or differentiate, into any cell type in the body, such as nerve, muscle or bone, but inevitably some of these stem cells fail to differentiate and end up mixed in with their newly differentiated daughter cells. (more…)
Keeping up with current scientific literature is a daunting task, considering that hundreds to thousands of papers are published each day. Now researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a computer program to help them evaluate and rank scientific articles in their field. (more…)
Researchers working with data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have discovered one way the bubble of charged particles around Saturn — known as the magnetosphere — changes with the planet’s seasons. The finding provides an important clue for solving a riddle about the planet’s naturally occurring radio signal. The results might also help scientists better understand variations in Earth’s magnetosphere and Van Allen radiation belts, which affect a variety of activities at Earth, ranging from space flight safety to satellite and cell phone communications.
The paper, just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, is led by Tim Kennelly, an undergraduate physics and astronomy major at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, who is working with Cassini’s radio and plasma wave science team. (more…)
By mimicking the bulging, bowl-shaped eyes possessed by dragonflies, praying mantises, houseflies and other insects, a team of researchers that includes a University of Colorado Boulder engineer has built an experimental digital camera that can take exceptionally wide-angle photos without distorting the image.
To create the innovative camera, which also allows for a practically infinite depth of field, the scientists used stretchable electronics and a pliable sheet of microlenses made from a material similar to that used for contact lenses. The researchers described the camera in an article published on May 1, 2013 in the journal Nature. (more…)
Fossil-hunting expeditions to Tanzania, Zambia and Antarctica provide new insights
Predecessors to dinosaurs missed the race to fill habitats emptied when nine out of 10 species disappeared during Earth’s largest mass extinction 252 million years ago.
Or did they?
That thinking was based on fossil records from sites in South Africa and southwest Russia.
It turns out, however, that scientists may have been looking in the wrong places. (more…)
