ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• NASA investigates the 'FaINT' side of sonic booms
• NASA'S Fermi measures cosmic 'fog' produced by ancient starlight
• Next-generation X-ray telescope ready to fly
• Super-rare, super-luminous supernovae are likely explosion of universe's earliest stars
• Particle and wave-like behavior of light measured simultaneously
• Asteroid belts of just the right size are friendly to life
• Computational medicine enhances way doctors detect, treat disease
• Predicting what topics will trend on Twitter: Algorithm offers new technique for analyzing data that fluctuate over time
• Cellular landscaping: Predicting how, and how fast, cells will change
• New silicon-based batteries outperform current batteries: 'Crushed' porous silicon anodes show dramatic increase in charge-discharge cycles
• Nereidum Montes helps unlock Mars' glacial past
• Virtual reality puts human in rat world: 'Beaming' technology transforms human-animal interaction
• When people worry about math, the brain feels the pain
• Heady discovery for beer fans: The first gene for beer foam could improve froth
• Physicists study fast-moving electrons in graphene as a model laboratory for massless particles
• CALIFA survey publishes intimate details of 100 galaxies

NASA investigates the 'FaINT' side of sonic booms Posted: 01 Nov 2012 01:52 PM PDT Sonic booms created by aircraft flying faster than the speed of sound certainly aren't known for being faint, but rather for their loud, make-you-jump startle effect for those who experience them. However, sonic booms have a quieter, fainter side, too.

NASA'S Fermi measures cosmic 'fog' produced by ancient starlight Posted: 01 Nov 2012 01:47 PM PDT Astronomers using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have made the most accurate measurement of starlight in the universe and used it to establish the total amount of light from all of the stars that have ever shone, accomplishing a primary mission goal.

Next-generation X-ray telescope ready to fly Posted: 01 Nov 2012 01:45 PM PDT Those who watch the sun are regularly treated to brilliant shows -- dancing loops of solar material rise up, dark magnetic regions called sunspots twist across the surface, and dazzling flares of light and radiation explode into space. But there are smaller, barely visible events, too: much smaller and more frequent eruptions called nanoflares. Depending on how many and how energetic these are, nanoflares may be the missing piece of the puzzle to help understand what seeds the cascade that causes a much bigger flare, or to explain how the sun transfers so much energy to its atmosphere that it's actually hotter than the surface.

Super-rare, super-luminous supernovae are likely explosion of universe's earliest stars Posted: 01 Nov 2012 11:12 AM PDT The most-distant, super-luminous supernovae found to date have been observed by an international team of astronomers. The stellar explosions would have occurred at a time when the universe was much younger and probably soon after the Big Bang.

Particle and wave-like behavior of light measured simultaneously Posted: 01 Nov 2012 11:11 AM PDT What is light made of: waves or particles? This basic question has fascinated physicists since the early days of science. Quantum mechanics predicts that photons, particles of light, are both particles and waves simultaneously. Physicists now give a new demonstration of this wave-particle duality of photons, dubbed the "one real mystery of quantum mechanics" by Nobel Prize laureate Richard Feynman.

Asteroid belts of just the right size are friendly to life Posted: 01 Nov 2012 10:12 AM PDT Solar systems with life-bearing planets may be rare if they are dependent on the presence of asteroid belts of just the right mass, according to a new study. Researchers suggest that the size and location of an asteroid belt, shaped by the evolution of the Sun's protoplanetary disk and by the gravitational influence of a nearby giant Jupiter-like planet, may determine whether complex life will evolve on an Earth-like planet.

Computational medicine enhances way doctors detect, treat disease Posted: 01 Nov 2012 08:10 AM PDT Computational medicine, a fast-growing method of using computer models and sophisticated software to figure out how disease develops -- and how to thwart it -- has begun to leap off the drawing board and land in the hands of doctors who treat patients for heart ailments, cancer and other illnesses.

Predicting what topics will trend on Twitter: Algorithm offers new technique for analyzing data that fluctuate over time Posted: 01 Nov 2012 08:06 AM PDT Twitter's home page features a regularly updated list of topics that are "trending," meaning that tweets about them have suddenly exploded in volume. A position on the list is highly coveted as a source of free publicity, but the selection of topics is automatic, based on a proprietary algorithm that factors in both the number of tweets and recent increases in that number. Researchers have developed a new algorithm that can, with 95 percent accuracy, predict which topics will trend an average of an hour and a half before Twitter's algorithm puts them on the list -- and sometimes as much as four or five hours before.

Cellular landscaping: Predicting how, and how fast, cells will change Posted: 01 Nov 2012 07:02 AM PDT A research team has developed a model for making quantifiable predictions of how a group of cells will react and change in response to a given environment or stimulus -- and how quickly. The model, in principle, makes it possible to assign reliable numbers to the complex evolution of a population of cells, a critical capability for efficient biomanufacturing as well as for the safety of stem cell-based therapies, among other applications.

New silicon-based batteries outperform current batteries: 'Crushed' porous silicon anodes show dramatic increase in charge-discharge cycles Posted: 01 Nov 2012 04:31 AM PDT Rice researchers crush their custom silicon sponges to make battery anodes that outperform those in current batteries and should easily scale up for manufacturing.

Nereidum Montes helps unlock Mars' glacial past Posted: 01 Nov 2012 04:30 AM PDT The European Space Agency's Mars Express revisited the Argyre basin aiming cameras at Nereidum Montes, some 380 km northeast of Hooke crater. The stunning rugged terrain of Nereidum Montes marks the far northern extent of Argyre, one of the largest impact basins on Mars.

Virtual reality puts human in rat world: 'Beaming' technology transforms human-animal interaction Posted: 31 Oct 2012 06:42 PM PDT Using cutting-edge virtual reality technology, researchers have "beamed" a person into a rat facility allowing the rat and human to interact with each other on the same scale.

When people worry about math, the brain feels the pain Posted: 31 Oct 2012 06:37 PM PDT Mathematics anxiety can prompt a response in the brain similar to when a person experiences physical pain. Using brain scans, scholars determined that the brain areas active when highly math-anxious people prepare to do math overlap with the same brain areas that register the threat of bodily harm—and in some cases, physical pain.

Heady discovery for beer fans: The first gene for beer foam could improve froth Posted: 31 Oct 2012 09:50 AM PDT The yeast used to make beer has yielded what may be the first gene for beer foam, scientists are reporting in a new study. The discovery opens the door to new possibilities for improving the frothy "head" so critical to the aroma and eye appeal of the world's favorite alcoholic beverage, they say.

Physicists study fast-moving electrons in graphene as a model laboratory for massless particles Posted: 31 Oct 2012 08:07 AM PDT A team of physicists from Europe and South Africa has shown that electrons moving randomly in graphene can mimic the dynamics of particles such as cosmic rays, despite travelling at a fraction of their speed.

CALIFA survey publishes intimate details of 100 galaxies Posted: 31 Oct 2012 05:15 AM PDT The Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey (CALIFA survey) has published a first set of data, offering views of one hundred galaxies in the local Universe at an unprecedented level of detail. The new data represent the first large-scale effort at "two plus one" mapping of galaxies: for every pixel within each two-dimensional image, a detailed ("spectral") analysis can be performed, providing information about dynamics and chemical composition. These, in turn, yield key information that will allow scientists to reconstruct the structure and dynamics of galaxies, as well as their evolution over time.

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