Category Archives: Science

Comet to Make Close Flyby of Red Planet in October 2014

By Guest PostMarch 7, 2013Scienceapproach to mars, binoculars, california institute, comet 2013 a1, deimos, distant oort cloud, earth, magnitude, mars impact, near earth object, neo program, observatory in australia, outermost moon, pasadena, program, red planet, rob mcnaught, siding spring, solar system, spaceguard, surface, Technology, telescopes, trajectory of comet

Comet 2013 A1 (Siding Spring) will make a very close approach to Mars in October 2014.

The latest trajectory of comet 2013 A1 (Siding Spring) generated by the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., indicates the comet will pass within 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) of Mars and there is a strong possibility that it might pass much closer. The NEO Program Office’s current estimate based on observations through March 1, 2013, has it passing about 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) from the Red Planet’s surface. That distance is about two-and-a-half times that of the orbit of outermost moon, Deimos.

Scientists generated the trajectory for comet Siding Spring based on the data obtained by observations since October 2012. Further refinement to its orbit is expected as more observational data is obtained. At present, Mars lies within the range of possible paths for the comet and the possibility of an impact cannot be excluded. However, since the impact probability is currently less than one in 600, future observations are expected to provide data that will completely rule out a Mars impact. (more…)

New Opportunities for Crystal Growth

By Guest PostMarch 6, 2013Scienceberkeley lab, characterization, crystal growth, crystal growth facility, crystal is unique, crystal purification, doe, edith bourret courchesne, emit gamma, energy resolution, enriched uranium, fibers, formation of snowflake, germanium crystals, growth, luminosity, material scientist, nanocrystals, new opportunities, nnsa, nuclear materials. plutonium, polycrystalline form, scintillation properties, semiconductor germanium, single crystals, source of radiation, synthesis of crystals, thin epitaxial films, trial and error, united states, useful crystals

Berkeley Lab Facility Provides Unique Capabilities for the Synthesis of New Crystals and Materials

Talk with material scientist Edith Bourret-Courchesne about what it takes to grow and develop useful crystals and a word you will hear repeated often is “patience.” As the leader of a unique crystal growth facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) dedicated to the synthesis of crystals and new materials, patience is more than a virtue, it’s a necessity.

“The growth of every crystal is unique, like the formation of a snowflake, and since we work with compounds that have never before been crystallized the processes by which we grow our crystals are also unique,” she says. “As a result, a lot of our research is aimed at understanding why something didn’t work.” (more…)

Physicists Demonstrate the Acceleration of Electrons by a Laser in a Vacuum

By Guest PostMarch 6, 2013Scienceaccelerate an electron, acceleration effect, acceleration of electrons, acceleration phenomena, beam energy, bnl atf, brookhaven national laboratory, capture acceleration scenario, channel for electrons, david cline, diagnostic system, diffraction, electron, electron beam, fudan university, fusion, graph of data, higgs boson particle, higgs factory, Large Hadron Collider, laser in vacuum, laser intensity, lawson woodward theorem, lei shao, light in vacuum, muon collider, new york, phase distribution, phase velocity, produce excess energy, shanghai, simulation prediction, spectrometer, strong longitudinal electric, understanding the universe, vacuum laser, xiaoping ding, yu kun ho

Accelerating a free electron with a laser has been a longtime goal of solid-state physicists.

David Cline, a distinguished professor in the UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Xiaoping Ding, an assistant researcher at UCLA, have conducted research at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and have established that an electron beam can be accelerated by a laser in free space.

This has never been done before at high energies and represents a significant breakthrough, Cline said, adding that it also may have implications for fusion as a new energy source. (more…)

Vortex Loops Could Untie Knotty Physics Problems

By Guest PostMarch 5, 2013Science3d printer, atmosphere, behavior culminates, charged gas, configuration, dustin kleckner, dynamics, elements, energy, exotic superfluids, failed catastrophically, fine scale twisting, high speed camera, hydrofoils, james franck institute, knot, knotted vortex loops, knottedness, lord kelvin, momentum, new york university, ordinary fluids, periodic table, physicist peter tait, physicists, physics subfields, plasma flows, plasma physics, reconnection, smoke ring, stable phenomena, turbulence, university of chicago, vortex knot, washington square park, weird behavior, william irvine

University of Chicago physicists have succeeded in creating a vortex knot—a feat akin to tying a smoke ring into a knot. Linked and knotted vortex loops have existed in theory for more than a century, but creating them in the laboratory had previously eluded scientists.

Vortex knots should, in principle, be persistent, stable phenomena. “The unexpected thing is that they’re not,” said Dustin Kleckner, a postdoctoral scientist at UChicago’s James Franck Institute. “They seem to break up in a particular way. They stretch themselves, which is a weird behavior.” (more…)

Cassini Spies Bright Venus from Saturn Orbit

By Guest PostMarch 5, 2013Sciencebright venus, cassini, cassini spacecraft, earth, false color version, geometry, high solar phase, image of venus, italian space agency, mars, masses, mercury, NASA, orbit around saturn, rocky compositions, rocky terrestrial planets, saturn atmosphere, saturn orbit, sizes, solar system, sunlight, twin planet

PASADENA, Calif. – A distant world gleaming in sunlight, Earth’s twin planet, Venus, shines like a bright beacon in images taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn.

One special image of Venus and Saturn was taken last November when Cassini was placed in the shadow of Saturn. This allowed Cassini to look in the direction of the sun and Venus, and take a backlit image of Saturn and its rings in a particular viewing geometry called “high solar phase.” This observing position reveals details about the rings and Saturn’s atmosphere that cannot be seen in lower solar phase. (more…)

A Long Distance Call: Astronaut’s Kids See Dad’s Office from Ladd

By Guest PostMarch 4, 2013Scienceadult kids, anthony, astronomer robert horton, brown, brown university, fast moving objects, heidi, heidi ford, international space station, kevin ford, ladd observatory, rhode islanders, sky, space station commander, telescope, ufo, valentines day greetings, watch dad fly

Space Station Commander Kevin Ford exchanged Valentine’s Day greetings with his adult kids Heidi and Anthony — he speeding by about 220 miles above Providence and they watching him fly past from Brown’s Ladd Observatory.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Rhode Islanders with their eyes skyward around 6 p.m. last Thursday might have noticed a curiously bright speck speeding across the evening sky. No, it wasn’t a UFO or an asteroid. It was the International Space Station, and for Providence resident Heidi Ford, it was dad’s office.

Heidi’s father Kevin Ford is currently the commander of the ISS. And with the help of Brown’s Ladd Observatory and astronomer Robert Horton, Heidi and her brother Anthony, who was visiting from Houston, got to see last week’s flyby close up while they talked to their dad on the phone. (more…)

Searching for the Solar System’s Chemical Recipe

By Guest PostMarch 4, 2013Scienceasteroids, basic ingredients, beams of vuv, carbon monoxide, clouds, comets, dust, elements, gas molecules, gas phase photodynamics, genesis mission, hydrogen sulfide, interplanetary ice, isotope ratios, isotopic differences, john heidenreich, mark thiemens, mass spectrometry, mean ocean water, moons, musahid musa ahmed, nanometer wavelength range, NASA, nitrogen, one extra neutron, origin, oxygen 17, oxygen isotope puzzle, photochemistry, physical factors, planets, primitive solar nebula, raindrops, san diego, smow, solar system recipe, standard, subrata chakraborty, teresa jackson, ultraclean aluminum foil, university of california, vacuum ultraviolet light, vuv wavelengths, x axis, y axis

Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Dynamics Beamline points to why isotope ratios in interplanetary dust and meteorites differ from Earth’s

By studying the origins of different isotope ratios among the elements that make up today’s smorgasbord of planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and interplanetary ice and dust, Mark Thiemens and his colleagues hope to learn how our solar system evolved. Thiemens, Dean of the Division of Physical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, has worked on this problem for over three decades.

In recent years his team has found the Chemical Dynamics Beamline of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to be an invaluable tool for examining how photochemistry determines the basic ingredients in the solar system recipe. (more…)

UCLA Researchers Further Refine ‘Nanovelcro’ Device to Grab Single Cancer Cells from Blood

By Guest PostMarch 3, 2013Scienceact like velcro, analysis, angewandte chemie, antoni ribas, biopsy samples, blood, blood samples, braf v600e, cancer cells, cancer grow, circulate, circulating melanoma cells, circulating tumor cells, cmcs, configuration, ctcs, disease, dna structure, early stages, fatal metastases, fibers coated, genes, genetic analysis, genomic evolution, growth, hematology, histopathology, hsian rong tseng, jonsson cancer center, laser micro dissection, liquid biopsy, lmd, melanoma, melanoma cells, melanoma tumors, metastasis, method, microscopic structure, nanoscale technology, nanoscale wires, nanovelcro chip, new tumors, oncology, patient, polymer nanofiber, progression, protein antibodies, researchers, roger lo, single cell genotyping, skin cancer, tumors, ucla, velcro like, working mechanism

Improvement enables ‘liquid biopsies’ for metastatic melanoma

Researchers at UCLA report that they have refined a method they previously developed for capturing and analyzing cancer cells that break away from patients’ tumors and circulate in the blood. With the improvements to their device, which uses a Velcro-like nanoscale technology, they can now detect and isolate single cancer cells from patient blood samples for analysis.

Circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, play a crucial role in cancer metastasis, spreading from tumors to other parts of the body, where they form new tumors. When these cells are isolated from the blood early on, they can provide doctors with critical information about the type of cancer a patient has, the characteristics of the individual cancer and the potential progression of the disease. Doctors can also tell from these cells how to tailor a personalized treatment to a specific patient. (more…)