Experimental networked display refreshes holograms every two seconds
Researchers at the University of Arizona (UA), Tucson, have developed a holographic system that can transmit a series of 3D images in near-real-time, a precursor to holographic videoconferencing. (more…)
The new Polaris gamma ray detector can pinpoint the location of special nuclear materials, such as those used for dirty bombs or nuclear weapons. Image credit: Zhong He
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A table-top gamma-ray detector created at the University of Michigan can not only identify the presence of dangerous nuclear materials, but can pinpoint and show their exact location and type, unlike conventional detectors.
“Other gamma ray detectors can tell you perhaps that nuclear materials are near a building, but with our detector, you can know the materials are in room A, or room B, for example,” said Zhong He, an associate professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences.
“This is the first instrument for this purpose that can give you a real-time image of the radiation source. Not only can we tell you what material is there, but we can tell you where it is, and you can find it and walk towards it.” (more…)
Two spacecraft are now beginning to study the moon’s environment as part of NASA’s ARTEMIS mission, whose principal investigator is Vassilis Angelopoulos, a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences. (more…)
Geologist Noah Plavansky examines rocks deposited after a "Snowball Earth" glacial event. Image credit: Lyons Lab, UC-Riverside
*Spike in ancient marine phosphorus concentrations linked to emergence of complex life*
Biogeochemists have found new evidence linking “Snowball Earth” glacial events to the rise of early animals. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Study results appear in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.
The controversial Snowball Earth hypothesis posits that, on several occasions, the Earth was covered from pole to pole by a thick sheet of ice lasting for millions of years.
These glaciations, the most severe in Earth history, occurred from 750 to 580 million years ago. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A paralyzed patient may someday be able to “think” a foot into flexing or a leg into moving, using technology that harnesses the power of electricity in the brain, and scientists at University of Michigan School of Kinesiology are now one big step closer.
Researchers at the school and colleagues from the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego have developed technology that for the first time allows doctors and scientists to noninvasively isolate and measure electrical brain activity in moving people. (more…)
The fault initially thought to have triggered January’s devastating earthquake in Haiti is likely still under considerable strain and continues to pose a significant seismic hazard, according to a study published online in Nature Geoscience Sunday.
U.S. Geological Survey geologist Carol Prentice led a team of scientists to Haiti immediately after the earthquake to search for traces of ground rupture and to investigate the geology and paleoseismology of the area. (more…)
One of the most terrible consequences of offshore quakes is giant tsunami waves, sweeping everything on their way. Until now, scientists cannot answer a simple question: why in some cases they happen, and in others they do not? If it was established, then a tragedy like the one that has recently occurred in Indonesia could have been avoided.
An earthquake measuring 7.5 points, which occurred late on Monday, October 25 in Indonesia, caused a tsunami, which affected Mentawai islands in the western part of the country. Interestingly, the epicenter of the aftershocks of this earthquake was located 78 km west of the South Island Pagai of the Mentawai archipelago, at a depth of 20 km below the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Apparently, this is why the first few minutes after the earthquake the Indonesian government reported the tsunami threat, but later canceled the alert. (more…)
A highly skillful and delicate method of sharpening and retouching stone artifacts by prehistoric people appears to have been developed at least 75,000 years ago, more than 50,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The new findings show that the technique, known as pressure flaking, took place at Blombos Cave in South Africa during the Middle Stone Age by anatomically modern humans and involved the heating of silcrete — quartz grains cemented by silica — used to make tools. Pressure flaking takes place when implements previously shaped by hard stone hammer strikes followed by softer strikes with wood or bone hammers are carefully trimmed on the edges by directly pressing the point of a tool made of bone on the stone artifact. (more…)
