Carbon Nanoribbons for Smaller, Speedier Computers

ScienceDaily (May 29, 2008) — Stanford chemists have developed a new way to make transistors out of carbon nanoribbons. The devices could someday be integrated into high-performance computer chips to increase their speed and generate less heat, which can damage today's silicon-based chips when transistors are packed together tightly.

For the first time, a research team led by Hongjie Dai, the J. G. Jackson and C. J. Wood Professor of Chemistry, has made transistors called "field-effect transistors"—a critical component of computer chips—with graphene that can operate at room temperature. Graphene is a form of carbon derived from graphite. Other graphene transistors, made with wider nanoribbons or thin films, require much lower temperatures. Full story HERE.

Definition: Resveratrol

Resveratrol is a phytoalexin produced naturally by several plants when under attack by pathogens such as bacteria or fungi. Resveratrol has also been produced by chemical synthesis^[1], and is sold as a nutritional supplement derived primarily from Japanese knotweed. A number of beneficial health effects, such as anti-cancer, antiviral, neuroprotective, anti-aging, and anti-inflammatory effects, have been reported, but all of these studies are "in-vitro" (test tube) or in yeast, worms, fruit flies, fish, mice, and rats. Resveratrol is found in the skin of red grapes and is a constituent of red wine but, based on extrapolation from animal trials, apparently not in sufficient amounts to explain the "French paradox" that the incidence of coronary heart disease is relatively low in southern France despite high dietary intake of saturated fats.

Full story HERE.

Samsung Electronics unveils 256GB solid state drive

Published: 07:45 EST, May 26, 2008
Samsung Electronics announced today that it has developed the world’s fastest, 2.5-inch, 256 Gigabyte (GB) multi-level cell (MLC) based solid state drive (SSD) using a SATA II interface at the fifth annual Samsung Mobile Solution Forum held at the Westin Taipei Hotel. Samsung’s new 256GB SSD is also the thinnest drive with the largest capacity to be offered with a SATA II interface.

With a sequential read speed of 200 megabytes per second (MB/s) and sequential write speed of 160MB/s, Samsung’s MLC-based 2.5-inch 256GB SSD is about 2.4 times faster than a typical HDD. Furthermore, the new 256 GB SSD is only 9.5millimeters (mm) thick, and measures 100.3x69.85 mm. Full story HERE.

Who needs sex when you can steal DNA?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tiny freshwater organisms that have amazed scientists because of their sex-free lifestyle may have survived so well because they steal genes from other creatures, scientists reported on Thursday.

They found genes from bacteria, fungi and even plants incorporated into the DNA of bdelloid rotifers -- minuscule animals that appear to have given up sex 40 million years ago.

"Bdelloid rotifers are small freshwater invertebrates that apparently lack sexual reproduction and can withstand desiccation at any life stage," Irina Arkhipova and Matthew Meselson of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and colleagues wrote in a report in the journal Science. Full story HERE.

Scientists image a single HIV particle being born

A mapmaker and a mathematician may seem like an unlikely duo, but together they worked out a way to measure longitude – and kept millions of sailors from getting lost at sea. Now, another unlikely duo, a virologist and a biophysicist at Rockefeller University, is making history of their own. By using a specialized microscope that only illuminates the cell’s surface, they have become the first to see, in real time and in plain view, hundreds of thousands of molecules coming together in a living cell to form a single particle of the virus that has, in less than 25 years, claimed more than 25 million lives: HIV.

This work, published in the May 25 advanced online issue of Nature, may not only prove useful in developing treatments for the millions around the globe still living with the lethal virus but the technique created to image its assembly may also change the way scientists think about and approach their own research. Full story HERE.

Another Phoenix lander photo

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera acquired this image of Phoenix hanging from its parachute as it descended to the Martian surface. Shown here is a 10 kilometer (6 mile) diameter crater informally called "Heimdall," and an improved full-resolution image of the parachute and lander. Although it appears that Phoenix is descending into the crater, it is actually about 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) in front of the crater. SOURCE.

Mars orbiters photograph Phoenix landing

May 26, 2008 -- A telescopic camera in orbit around Mars caught a view of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suspended from its parachute during the lander's successful arrival at Mars Sunday evening, May 25.

The image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter marks the first time ever one spacecraft has photographed another one in the act of landing on Mars. Full story HERE.

Phoenix lands on Mars

Silicone (NOT Silicon) Bioprocessor

Failed HIV Drug Gets Second Chance

May 23, 2008
Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered that adding tiny bits of gold to a failed HIV drug rekindle the drug's ability to stop the virus from invading the body's immune system.

The addition of gold nanoparticles to a modified version of a drug designed in the 1990s to combat HIV - but discarded due to its harmful side effects - creates a compound that prevents the virus from gaining a cellular foothold, say Dr. Christian Melander, assistant professor of chemistry at NC State, and doctoral student T. Eric Ballard.

Full story HERE.

Definition: Sociobiology

Sociobiology is a neo-Darwinian synthesis of scientific disciplines that attempts to explain social behavior in all species by considering the evolutionary advantages the behaviors may have. It is based on the idea that some behaviors (both social and individual) are at least partly inherited and can be affected by natural selection. It starts with the idea that these behaviors have evolved over time, similar to the way that physical traits are thought to have evolved. Therefore, it predicts that animals will act in ways that have proven to be evolutionarily successful over time, which can among other things result in the formation of complex social processes that have proven to be conducive to evolutionary fitness.

The discipline seeks to explain behavior as a product of natural selection, thus behavior is seen as an effort to preserve one's genes in the population. Inherent in sociobiological reasoning is the idea that certain genes or gene combinations that influence particular behavioral traits can be "passed down" from generation to generation.

Full story HERE. More HERE.
About E. O. Wilson, founder of the term, HERE.
About biophilia HERE.

Jey Leno's Tesla Roadster

Want to see his 1909 Baker Electric? Go HERE.

Turbulence in Jupiter's atmosphere

Turbulent storms may be sign of global climate change

Berkeley -- Increased turbulence and storms first observed on Jupiter more than two years ago are still raging, according to astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, who snapped high-resolution pictures of the planet earlier this month.

Captured with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the 10-meter Keck II telescope, this so-called "major upheaval" on Jupiter involves stunning changes in the planet's atmosphere, said lead astronomer Imke de Pater, professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley.

The images are available on NASA's Web site, http://hubblesite.org/news/2008/23.

Full story HERE.

First dinosaur tracks found in Arabian Peninsula

Wed May 21, 8:35 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered the tracks of a herd of 11 long-necked sauropods walking along a coastal mudflat in what is now the Republic of Yemen, the first discovery of dinosaur footprints on the Arabian peninsula. Sauropods, the largest land animals in earth's history, walked on four stout legs and ate plants.

"The nice thing is we finally filled in a bit of a blank spot in the dinosaur map," said Anne Schulp, a palaeontologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, who worked on the study. "Until 10 years not even bones were known from the Arabian peninsula and at last we have some dinosaur tracks."

The footprints dating from about 150 million years ago showed the sauropods traveling at the same speed along a river, likely in search of food, Schulp said in a telephone interview. Full story HERE.

Missing Matter Of Universe Found; Cosmic Web Discovered

ScienceDaily (May 20, 2008) — Although the universe contains billions of galaxies, only a small amount of its matter is locked up in these behemoths. Most of the universe's matter that was cooked up during and just after the Big Bang must be found elsewhere.

Now, in an extensive search of the relatively recent, local universe, University of Colorado at Boulder astronomers said they have definitively found about half of the missing normal matter, called baryons, in the spaces between the galaxies. This important component of the universe is known as the intergalactic medium and it extends essentially throughout all of space, from just outside our Milky Way galaxy to the most distant regions of space observed by astronomers. Full story HERE.

Biomedical Imaging in the Palm of your Hand

Atlanta (May 20, 2008) —Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a narrowband filter mosaic that will expand the uses and functionality of multispectral imaging—a technology that enables subsurface characterization. The new, single-exposure imaging tool could significantly improve point-of-care medical and forensic imaging by empowering front line clinicians with no specialized training to detect and assess, in real-time, the severity of bruises and erythema, regardless of patient skin pigmentation or available lighting.

In addition to this application, the filter could potentially offer a reliabile, low-cost method to instantaneously classify military targets, sort produce, inspect product quality in manufacturing, detect contamination in foods, perform remote sensing in mining, monitor atmospheric composition in environmental engineering and diagnose early stage cancer and tumors. Full story HERE.

MicroFueler

For more videos GO HERE.

Alaska's capital goes green after avalanche

Juneau, the capital of Alaska and a popular cruise-ship stop, has had little to celebrate since an avalanche wiped out the lines supplying it with hydroelectricity. But four weeks later it has become a model for energy conservation, with its citizens doing everything from unplugging tumble-driers to regulating airport runway lights.

It is a crisis no American metropolis would wish for itself. On 16 April, a roaring snow-slide in the Coastal Range made matchsticks of pylons linking the city to the hydroelectric dam about 40 miles to the south that supplied 80 per cent of its power.

The good news was that the local provider had back-up diesel generators waiting to be cranked up in just such a situation. Less good is the expense. Residents, who already have to contend with a cost of living higher than almost anywhere in the US because of Juneau's remoteness, were told to expect their power bills to quintuple during the three or four months that it would take to repair the lines. Full story HERE.

Definition: Casimir Effect

The Casimir effect and the Casimir-Polder force are physical forces arising from a quantized field. The typical example is of two uncharged metallic plates in a vacuum, placed a few micrometers apart, without any external electromagnetic field. In a classical description, the lack of an external field also means that there is no field between the plates, and no force would be measured between them. When this field is instead studied using quantum mechanics, it is seen that the plates do affect the virtual photons which constitute the field, and generate a net force^[1]—either an attraction or a repulsion depending on the specific arrangement of the two plates. Full story HERE.

'Wave Dragon' ocean generator

"Phase-changing" wood for self-heating homes

Origin of the Sahara

One Common Ancestor Behind Blue Eyes

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 31 January 2008 08:34 am ET

People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research.

A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before then, there were no blue eyes.

"Originally, we all had brown eyes," said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen. Full story HERE.

Satellite communications by laser

Satellites currently use radio waves to exchange data. Now the data rate has been increased a hundredfold by using lasers instead of radio signals. Two test satellites each carried a diode laser pump module developed with the help of Fraunhofer researchers.

The data whizzed back and forth at the speed of light between German satellite TerraSAR-X and US satellite NFIRE, covering more than 5000 kilometers in space without any errors. The bandwidth achieved in the test was a hundred times greater than during conventional communication by radio waves, enabling a data rate equivalent to roughly 400 DVDs per hour. Full story HERE.

Definition: LCD

A liquid crystal display (LCD) is a thin, flat display device made up of any number of color or monochrome pixels arrayed in front of a light source or reflector. It is often utilized in battery-powered electronic devices because it uses very small amounts of electric power.

Each pixel of an LCD typically consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, and two polarizing filters, the axes of transmission of which are (in most of the cases) perpendicular to each other. With no liquid crystal between the polarizing filters, light passing through the first filter would be blocked by the second (crossed) polarizer.

The surface of the electrodes that are in contact with the liquid crystal material are treated so as to align the liquid crystal molecules in a particular direction. This treatment typically consists of a thin polymer layer that is unidirectionally rubbed using, for example, a cloth. The direction of the liquid crystal alignment is then defined by the direction of rubbing. Electrodes are made of a transparent conductor called Indium Tin Oxide (ITO).

Full story HERE.

New Evidence From Earliest Settlement In The Americas

ScienceDaily (May 9, 2008) — New evidence from the Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Chile confirms its status as the earliest known human settlement in the Americas and provides additional support for the theory that one early migration route followed the Pacific Coast more than 14,000 years ago.

The paper, which includes the first new data reported from the site in 10 years, includes the identification of nine species of seaweed and marine algae recovered from hearths and other areas in the ancient settlement. The seaweed samples were directly dated between 14,220 to 13,980 years ago, confirming that the upper layer of the site, labeled Monte Verde II, was occupied more than 1,000 years earlier than any other reliably dated human settlements in the Americas. Full story HERE.

Researchers Target Tumors With Tiny 'Nanoworms'

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2008) — Scientists at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT have developed nanometer-sized “nanoworms” that can cruise through the bloodstream without significant interference from the body’s immune defense system and—like tiny anti-cancer missiles—home in on tumors.

Using nanoworms, doctors should eventually be able to target and reveal the location of developing tumors that are too small to detect by conventional methods. Carrying payloads targeted to specific features on tumors, these microscopic vehicles could also one day provide the means to more effectively deliver toxic anti-cancer drugs to these tumors in high concentrations without negatively impacting other parts of the body. Full story HERE.

Cell-based Sensors Sniff Out Danger

ScienceDaily (May 7, 2008) — A small, unmanned vehicle makes its way down the road ahead of a military convoy. Suddenly it stops and relays a warning to the convoy commander. The presence of a deadly improvised explosive device, or IED, has been detected by sophisticated new sensor technology incorporating living olfactory cells on microchips mounted on the unmanned vehicle. The IED is safely dismantled and lives are saved.

This scenario may become a reality, thanks to the work of three faculty researchers in the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering who are collaborating across engineering disciplines to make advanced "cell-based sensors-on-a-chip" technology possible. Pamela Abshire, electrical and computer engineering (ECE) and Institute for Systems Research (ISR); Benjamin Shapiro, aerospace engineering and ISR; and Elisabeth Smela, mechanical engineering and ECE; are working on new sensors that take advantage of the sensory capabilities of biological cells. Full story HERE.

Platypus genome is as weird as its looks

It's part-reptile, part-mammal, part-bird – and totally unique. Two centuries after European scientists deemed a dead specimen so outlandish it had to be a fake, the bizarre genetic secrets of Australia's platypus has been laid bare.

Platypuses lay eggs and produce venom like some reptiles, but they sport furry coats and feed their young with milk like mammals. The odd creatures are classed as monotremes, with only one close relative – the echidna.

But as primitive mammals that share the same ancestor as humans, a study of the animal's genome can improve biologists' understanding of how mammals evolved, while illuminating the platypus's strange physiology. Full story HERE.

Tissue Regeneration

Definition: Carbonado

Carbonado, commonly known as the 'Black Diamond,' is a natural polycrystalline diamond found in alluvial deposits in the Central African Republic and Brazil. Its natural colour is black or dark grey, and it is more porous than other diamonds.

Unlike other natural polycrystalline diamonds, carbonado has no mantle-derived inclusions and its carbon isotope value is very low. Additionally, carbonado exhibits strong luminescence (photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence) induced by nitrogen and by vacancies existing in the crystal lattice. Analysis of the luminescence suggests that radioactive inclusions existed in the formation process of carbonado. These and other characteristics that separate the carbonado from other diamonds have led to questions as to the carbonado's origin.

Full article HERE.
More information HERE and HERE.

Engineers find 'missing link' of electronics

18:00 30 April 2008
NewScientist.com news service

Nanoscale circuits based on molecules used in sunscreen lotion have led to the discovery of the "missing link" of electronics engineering – a previously mythical device known as a "memristor".

First predicted in 1971, the memristor could help develop denser memory chips or even electronic circuits that mimic the synapses of the human brain, says Stan Williams who made the discovery with colleagues at Hewlett-Packard's lab in Palo Alto, California.

Since electronics was developed, engineers have made circuits using combinations of three basic elements – resistors, capacitors and inductors.

But in 1971, a young circuit designer called Leon Chua at the University of California, Berkeley, realised something was missing. He was toying with the non-linear mathematics that describes how the four variables in a circuit – voltage, current, charge and flux – behave in the three basic elements.

Full story HERE.
More coverage HERE.

Dwarf Cloud Rat Rediscovered After 112 Years

CHICAGO—A team of Filipino and American scientists have rediscovered a highly distinctive mammal—a greater dwarf cloud rat—that was last seen 112 years ago. Furthermore, it has never before been discovered in its natural habitat and was thought by some to be extinct.

The greater dwarf cloud rat (Carpomys melanurus) has dense, soft reddish-brown fur, a black mask around large dark eyes, small rounded ears, a broad and blunt snout, and a long tail covered with dark hair. An adult weighs about 185 grams. Full story HERE.

Modular self-assembling robots

Better Treatment For Severe Blood Loss

ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2008) — Intravenous administration of isotonic fluids is the standard emergency treatment in the U.S. for patients with severe blood loss, but UC San Diego bioengineering researchers have reported improved resuscitation with a radically different approach. Building on earlier studies in humans that have shown benefits of intravenous fluids that are eight times saltier than normal saline, the researchers combined hypertonic saline with viscosity enhancers that thicken blood. Full story HERE.