Nano-dunes with the ion beam
Dresden, Germany (SPX) Sep 09, 2015 -
Many semiconductor devices in modern technology - from integrated circuits to solar cells and LEDs - are based on nanostructures. Producing arrays of regular nanostructures usually requires substantial effort. If they were self-organized, the production of such devices would be considerably faster and the costs would therefore sink.
Dr. Stefan Facsko from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Ross ...
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A small, inexpensive high frequency comb signal generator
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 16, 2015 -
The manipulation of electromagnetic radiation is an essential function of today's technology. Low frequency radiation - in the kilohertz and megahertz range - is easier to generate than gigahertz radiation. Yet higher frequencies can carry more information and travel farther.
Now researchers from the Italian National Research Council (SPIN-CNR) and the National Enterprise for nanoScience a ...
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Rat race over Scandinavia's household waste
Oslo (AFP) Sept 13, 2015 -
Norway and Sweden are locked in a tug-of-war over dozens of lorries that cross the border each day carrying loads of precious cargo: garbage.
Sweden is conscientious when it comes to sorting and recycling its waste and is in the rare position of lacking garbage for its incineration centres, which produce enough electricity for 250,000 homes and heat for 950,000 homes.
As a result, it has ...
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LEDs that use visible light to talk to each other and internet
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 15, 2015 -
The light that typically floods homes, offices and public buildings could provide something more than illumination. Scientists at Disney Research and ETH Zurich have demonstrated that light could be a medium for light bulbs to communicate - with each other, with objects and with the Internet.
Transmitting signals via light is nothing new; Alexander Graham Bell showed that speech could be c ...
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New tool for studying magnetic, self-propelled bacteria
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 16, 2015 -
In the Marvel Comics universe, Professor Xavier and the X-Men are only able to fend off their archrival Magneto, the magnetic mutant with the ability to control metals, once they truly understand the scope of the villain's powers. To better understand the behavior of the microbial world's Magnetos - the magnetically influenced water-dwellers known as magnetotactic bacteria - three researchers fr ...
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Study: Efficient new catalyst may pave way for hydrogen economy
Madison, Wis. (UPI) Sep 14, 2015 -
Many researchers continue to hold hope for an eco-friendly hydrogen economy - a comprehensive energy-delivery industry based on hydrogen.
Hydrogen can be burned to create heat or used in fuel cells to make electricity. It is also an efficient way to store energy. And unlike fossil fuels, which give off harmful emissions when burned, water is hydrogen's only byproduct.
But like s ...
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Platinum and iron oxide working together get the job done
Vienna, Austria (SPX) Sep 17, 2015 -
Platinum is a great catalyst and can be used for many different applications. It's expensive stuff though, so tiny platinum nanoparticles sitting on cheap metal oxide materials are used to convert harmful carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide.
Using scanning tunnelling microscopes, scientists at TU Vienna have now been able to image the catalytic behaviour of platinum sitting on iron-oxide, ...
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US defense agencies increase investment
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 17, 2015 -
A new analysis by the Synthetic Biology Project at the Wilson Center finds the Defense Department and its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) fund much of the U.S. government's research in synthetic biology, with less than 1 percent of total federal funding going to risk research.
The report, U.S. Trends in Synthetic Biology Research, finds that between 2008 and 2014, the Uni ...
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New Space Mining Tech Could Be Game-Changer for Interstellar Travel
Moscow (Sputnik) Sep 22, 2015 -
NASA researchers have come up with a seemingly simple - and extremely potent - idea: "optical mining," through which the water contained within millions of asteroids across the universe could be used as a source of propellant for spaceships, making space voyages cheaper than ever.
The concept, known as the Asteroid Provided In-Situ Supplies plan (Apis), was detailed by NASA researchers at ...
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Indra renews SMOS maintenance and development contract
Madrid, Spain (SPX) Sep 22, 2015 -
The European Space Agency has extended until 2017 the maintenance and development contract of the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) mission user segment, entrusted to Indra. The service could thereafter be extended for another two years, until 2019, depending on the program's development.
The SMOS satellite user segment for studying the Earth's water cycle is located at the European ...
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OriginGPS Secures $1.75M Funding Round
Airport City, Israel (SPX) Sep 22, 2015 -
OriginGPS has announced that it has closed $1.75 million of funding from existing shareholders and the technology accelerator, Lab IX, which is a part of Flex, a leading sketch-to-scale solutions company that designs and builds intelligent products for a connected world.
Drawing on its decade of experience, OriginGPS has developed innovative solutions to address the growing sector of weara ...
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Astronomers identify a new mid-size black hole
College Park MD (SPX) Sep 22, 2015 -
Nearly all black holes come in one of two sizes: stellar mass black holes that weigh up to a few dozen times the mass of our sun or supermassive black holes ranging from a million to several billion times the sun's mass. Astronomers believe that medium-sized black holes between these two extremes exist, but evidence has been hard to come by, with roughly a half-dozen candidates described so far. ...
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China to rehearse new carrier rocket for lunar mission
Beijing (XNA) Sep 22, 2015 -
A Long March-5 carrier rocket on Sunday was shipped from North China's Tianjin port for a rehearsal of a scheduled Chang'e-5 lunar mission around 2017.
It will be the first drill carried out in a launch site that involves both the carrier rocket and a probe, said the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. It did not locate the launch site.
The ...
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Russia, China May Create Joint Satellite Navigation System Receiver
Moscow (Sputnik) Sep 22, 2015 -
Russia and China are negotiating the development of a joint four-system satellite navigation receiver which would include access to China's BeiDou satellite navigation, a source in the Glonass satellite navigation company told Sputnik Thursday.
Currently, navigation receivers are either dual-system, including access to Russia's Glonass satellite navigation and US Global Positioning System ...
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ExoMars 2016 targets March launch window
Paris (ESA) Sep 22, 2015 -
A problem recently discovered in two sensors in the propulsion system of the entry, descent and landing demonstrator module has prompted the recommendation to move the launch of the ExoMars 2016 mission, initially foreseen in January, to March, still within the launch window of early 2016.
ExoMars is a joint endeavour between ESA and Russia's Roscosmos space agency. The recommendation was ...
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'Mars and Back on a Tank of Gas': NASA's Fuel Efficiency Record Smashed
Moscow (Sputnik) Sep 22, 2015 -
Paddy Neumann, a University of Sydney doctoral student in Physics, has developed an ionic space drive that has demolished the record for fuel efficiency.
NASA's HIPEP system allows 9600 (+/-200) seconds of specific impulse. Paddy's Neumann Drive, though, has measured as high as 14690 (+/-2000), shattering NASA's original record.
While NASA's HIPEP runs on xenon gas, the Neumann Drive ...
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Researchers propose new way to chart the cosmos in 3-D
Vancouver, Canada (SPX) Sep 22, 2015 -
If only calculating the distance between Earth and far-off galaxies was as easy as pulling out the old measuring tape. Now UBC researchers are proposing a new way to calculate distances in the cosmos using mysterious bursts of energy.
In a study featured in the journal Physical Review Letters, UBC researchers propose a new way to calculate cosmological distances using the bursts of energy ...
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Permanent data storage with light
Karlsruher, Germany (SPX) Sep 24, 2015 -
The first all-optical permanent on-chip memory has been developed by scientists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the universities of Munster, Oxford, and Exeter. This is an important step on the way towards optical computers. Phase change materials that change their optical properties depending on the arrangement of the atoms allow for the storage of several bits in a single cell. ...
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NASA Seeks Big Ideas from Students for Inflatable Heat Shield Technology
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 22, 2015 -
NASA is giving university and college students an opportunity to be part of the agency's journey to Mars with the Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge.
NASA's Game Changing Development Program (GCD), managed by the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington, and the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) are seeking innovative ideas for generatin ...
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Space Architecture: From Outer Space to the Ocean Floor
Houston TX (SPX) Sep 22, 2015 -
No longer the stuff of science fiction, the details of how people work and live in space and other extreme environments have become a growing part of the economy.
Education and training for the people who design and build those work and living zones is changing, too. The University of Houston's Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) - the only program of its kind in t ...
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Venezuela holds military exercise, raising tensions with Guyana
Caracas (AFP) Sept 22, 2015 -
Venezuela said Tuesday it is conducting military exercises in the eastern part of the country, a move neighboring Guyana denounced as an "extraordinary escalation" of an ongoing border dispute.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said the troop buildup, which Guyana had noticed with concern, was an "operational deployment exercise."
He said Venezuelans could rest assured "because we ...
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Notre Dame to do away with coal
Norte Dame, Ind. (UPI) Sep 22, 2015 -
With Pope Francis headed to the United States, one of the nation's largest Catholic universities, Notre Dame, said it was moving away from coal.
"In recognition of both Pope Francis' encyclical and his visit this week to the United States, Notre Dame is recommitting to make the world a greener place, beginning in our own backyard," Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins said in a statem ...
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ADB revises down regional growth as China and India slow
Hong Kong (AFP) Sept 22, 2015 -
Weaker growth in China this year is expected to cause a slowdown in the rest of Asia, the Asian Development Bank said Tuesday as it became the latest major body to revise down its forecasts for the world's number two economy.
It also warned central banks to prepare for an expected Federal Reserve interest rate rise, with many nations already seeing huge capital outflows as dealers look for s ...
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Boeing 'planning China factory': report
Shanghai (AFP) Sept 22, 2015 -
Plans for a Boeing factory in China have been submitted to the government in Beijing, state-run media reported Tuesday ahead of President Xi Jinping's US visit, where he will tour one of its plants.
A Boeing factory in China would represent an about-turn in the US giant's strategy in the crucial market, where European rival Airbus has a final assembly operation for medium-range Airbus 320 ai ...
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Sure as the wind blows
Winston-Salem, NC (SPX) Sep 23, 2015 -
Mother Nature will be delivering a future gift of 2 percent more wind energy in the Midwest if regional climate models are correct, according to research from Wake Forest University.
In a study recently published online by the journal Renewable Energy, Robert Erhardt, assistant professor of mathematics and statistics, and 2015 Wake Forest graduate Dana Johnson, used data to project impact ...
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