ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• From Cassini for the holidays: Backlit view of Saturn and its rings
• Shot away from its companion, giant star makes waves: Spitzer captures infrared portrait
• Metamaterials experts show a way to reduce electrons' effective mass to nearly zero
• From super to ultra: Just how big can black holes get?
• Liquid metal used to create wires that stretch eight times their original length
• TV and the internet: a marriage made in entertainment heaven
• 'Glitch’ in pulsar ‘glitch’ theory
• Botany experiment will try out zero gravity aboard space station
• A cosmic holiday ornament, Hubble-style
• Industrial chemicals: A new breed of stable anti-aromatic compound
• pH measurements: How to see the real face of electrochemistry and corrosion?
• A mathematical formula to decipher the geometry of surfaces like that of cauliflower
• Prehistoric ghosts revealing new details: Synchrotron helps identify previously unseen anatomy preserved in fossils
• Schrödinger's cat has a light touch: Quantum physics used to observe delicate systems

From Cassini for the holidays: Backlit view of Saturn and its rings Posted: 18 Dec 2012 12:36 PM PST Just in time for the holidays, NASA's Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn for more than eight years now, has delivered another glorious, backlit view of the planet Saturn and its rings.

Shot away from its companion, giant star makes waves: Spitzer captures infrared portrait Posted: 18 Dec 2012 12:33 PM PST Like a ship plowing through still waters, the giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is speeding through space, making waves in the dust ahead. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has captured a dramatic, infrared portrait of these glowing waves, also known as a bow shock.

Metamaterials experts show a way to reduce electrons' effective mass to nearly zero Posted: 18 Dec 2012 12:32 PM PST The field of metamaterials involves augmenting materials with specially designed patterns, enabling those materials to manipulate electromagnetic waves and fields in previously impossible ways. Now, researchers have come up with a theory for moving this phenomenon onto the quantum scale, laying out blueprints for materials where electrons have nearly zero effective mass. Such materials could make for faster circuits with novel properties.

From super to ultra: Just how big can black holes get? Posted: 18 Dec 2012 11:30 AM PST Some of the biggest black holes in the Universe may actually be even bigger than previously thought, according to a study using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Liquid metal used to create wires that stretch eight times their original length Posted: 18 Dec 2012 09:14 AM PST Researchers have created conductive wires that can be stretched up to eight times their original length while still functioning. The wires can be used for everything from headphones to phone chargers, and hold potential for use in electronic textiles.

TV and the internet: a marriage made in entertainment heaven Posted: 18 Dec 2012 08:16 AM PST If you have bought a new television lately, the chances are it is a lot smarter than your old one. Smart TVs, also known as connected or hybrid televisions, featuring integrated internet connectivity, currently account for around a third of TV sales in Europe. They are the end point in a huge and rapidly expanding value chain driven by the intensifying convergence of television and the internet.

'Glitch’ in pulsar ‘glitch’ theory Posted: 18 Dec 2012 08:15 AM PST Researchers have called in to question a 40 year-old theory explaining the periodic speeding up or 'glitching' of pulsars. A pulsar is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star formed from the remains of a supernova. It emits a rotating beam of electromagnetic radiation, which can be detected by powerful telescopes when it sweeps past the Earth, rather like observing the beam of a lighthouse from a ship at sea. Pulsars rotate at extremely stable speeds, but occasionally they speed up in brief events described as 'glitches' or 'spin-ups'. The prevailing theory is that these events arise as a rapidly spinning superfluid within the star transfers rotational energy to the star's crust, the component that is tracked by observations. However, academics have used a mathematical model to disprove this.

Botany experiment will try out zero gravity aboard space station Posted: 18 Dec 2012 06:42 AM PST Gravity: It's the law in these parts. But to reach the stars, humans may have to learn to live outside the law.

A cosmic holiday ornament, Hubble-style Posted: 18 Dec 2012 06:42 AM PST Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have photographed a festive-looking nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189. The intricate structure of this bright gaseous nebula resembles a glass-blown holiday ornament with a glowing ribbon entwined.

Industrial chemicals: A new breed of stable anti-aromatic compound Posted: 18 Dec 2012 05:19 AM PST The novel compound is a new chapter in a story that began in 1825, when English scientist Michael Faraday first isolated benzene from gas lights. Benzene would later be identified as one of a class of compounds known as aromatics, which have immense importance in both biological function and industrial production.

pH measurements: How to see the real face of electrochemistry and corrosion? Posted: 18 Dec 2012 05:18 AM PST For several decades antimony electrodes have been used to measure the acidity/basicity -- and so to determine the pH value. Unfortunately, they allow for measuring pH changes of solutions only at a certain distance from electrodes or corroding metals. Researchers have now developed a method for producing antimony microelectrodes that allow for measuring pH changes just over the metal surface, at which chemical reactions take place.

A mathematical formula to decipher the geometry of surfaces like that of cauliflower Posted: 18 Dec 2012 05:18 AM PST Scientists are describing laws that govern the development of certain complex natural patterns, such as those found on the surface of cauliflower.

Prehistoric ghosts revealing new details: Synchrotron helps identify previously unseen anatomy preserved in fossils Posted: 18 Dec 2012 05:17 AM PST Scientists have used synchrotron-based imaging techniques to identify previously unseen anatomy preserved in fossils. Their work on a 50-million-year-old lizard skin identified the presence of teeth (invisible to visible light), demonstrating for the first time that this fossil animal was more than just a skin moult. This was only possible using some of the brightest light in the universe, X-rays generated by a synchrotron.

Schrödinger's cat has a light touch: Quantum physics used to observe delicate systems Posted: 18 Dec 2012 05:17 AM PST A new paper introduces a novel way to observe very delicate bodies based on quantum physics. Researchers in Spain have shown that groups of photons organized in certain quantum states can gently explore the properties of objects in a non-invasive way. The results overcome for the first time a limit imposed by quantum mechanics, and may permit the observation of unknown properties of ultra-sensitive objects such as individual atoms or living cells.

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