Particles, Waves and Ants
Vienna, Austria (SPX) Nov 27, 2014 -
A drunken sailor staggers onto a square with lots of streetlamps on it. Sometimes he will run into one of the lamps, change his direction and keep moving. Does the time he spends on this square depend on the number of streetlamps? The surprising answer is: no.
No matter whether there is a streetlamp on every square meter or whether the distance between the lamps is large: on average, the d ...
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Van der Waals force re-measured
Julich, Germany (SPX) Nov 27, 2014 -
Although the van der Waals force was discovered around 150 years ago, it is still difficult to quantify when predicting the behaviour of solids, liquids, and molecules. Precise measurements were only possible up to now for single atoms or macroscopic objects.
However, the van der Waals forces are particularly important at intermediate size, where they crucially co-determine the behaviour o ...
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Scientists Use Remote Satellite Imaging to Monitor Endangered Species
Moscow (Sputnik News) Dec 01, 2014 -
Researchers from the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution and the ScanEx Research and Development Center have been using satellite imagery to study the population and movement patterns of the critically endangered saiga antelope. A researcher from the Severtsov Institute gave Sputnik the details.
Using the satellite imagery, taken between 2009 and 2014 by a variety of commercial ob ...
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Researchers develop building material that cools by reflecting heat into space
Stanford, Calif. (UPI) Dec 1, 2014 -
Researchers at Stanford say they've developed a material that cools itself by beaming excess heat into space; they hope it can one day be used to keep buildings cool on hot, sunny days.
Traditional ideas about thermodynamics suggest an object like a building can't be cooled below the temperature of the surrounding ambient air without the assistance of a something like air conditioning. ...
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'Eye of Sauron' provides new way of measuring distances to galaxies
Southampton, UK (SPX) Nov 28, 2014 -
A team of scientists, led by Dr Sebastian Hoenig from the University of Southampton, have developed a new way of measuring precise distances to galaxies tens of millions of light years away, using the W. M. Keck Observatory near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
The method is similar to what land surveyors use on earth, by measuring the physical and angular, or 'apparent', size of a stand ...
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Boeing Completes First Milestone for CCT
Washington DC (SPX) Dec 02, 2014 -
NASA has approved the completion of Boeing's first milestone in the company's path toward launching crews to the International Space Station from the United States under a groundbreaking Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract.
The Certification Baseline Review is the first of many more milestones, including flight tests from Florida's Space Coast that will establish th ...
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Ground-Based Detection Paves Way to Remote Sensing of Small Exoplanets
Boston MA (SPX) Dec 02, 2014 -
Astronomers have measured the passing of a super-Earth in front of a bright, nearby Sun-like star using a ground-based telescope for the first time. The transit of the exoplanet 55 Cancri e is the shallowest detected from the ground yet.
Since detecting a transit is the first step in analyzing a planet's atmosphere, this success bodes well for characterizing the many small planets that upc ...
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