ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Fermi's motion produces a study in spirograph
• Silver nanoparticles may adversely affect environment
• NHL drafts the wrong players due to birthday bias
• Neutron scattering provides data on ion adsorption
• Workstation design improvements for drone operators may reduce costs and mishaps, researchers suggest
• White dwarf supernovae are discovered in Virgo Cluster galaxy and in sky area 'anonymous'
• NASA's NuSTAR helps solve riddle of black hole spin
• Optical materials: Light's magnetism shows its true colors
• Fluid mechanics: Bubble impacts caught on film
• Unlocking fuel cell conductivity
• Estimates reduce amount of additional land available for biofuel production by almost 80%
• New anti-frost and anti-fog coating for glass
• Camera inside spiraling football provides ball's-eye view of field
• Cryopreservation: A chance for highly endangered mammals
• New technology for animation film experts
• Faster, more efficient technique for creating high-density ceramics
• New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systems
• Invention opens the way to packaging that monitors food freshness
• New Greek observatory sheds light on old star
• Computed tomography provides real-time 3D pictures showing how oil and water flow in porous rock

Fermi's motion produces a study in spirograph Posted: 27 Feb 2013 03:35 PM PST NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbits our planet every 95 minutes, building up increasingly deeper views of the universe with every circuit. Its wide-eyed Large Area Telescope sweeps across the entire sky every three hours, capturing the highest-energy form of light -- gamma rays -- from sources across the universe. These range from supermassive black holes billions of light-years away to intriguing objects in our own galaxy, such as X-ray binaries, supernova remnants and pulsars.

Silver nanoparticles may adversely affect environment Posted: 27 Feb 2013 03:35 PM PST In experiments mimicking a natural environment, researchers have demonstrated that the silver nanoparticles used in many consumer products can have an adverse effect on plants and microorganisms.

NHL drafts the wrong players due to birthday bias Posted: 27 Feb 2013 03:35 PM PST A hockey player's birthday strongly biases how professional teams assess his talent, according to a new study.

Neutron scattering provides data on ion adsorption Posted: 27 Feb 2013 03:33 PM PST Researchers have demonstrated the use of a technique known as small angle neutron scattering (SANS) to study the effects of ions moving into nanoscale pores. The study is believed to be the first application of the SANS technique for studying ion surface adsorption in-situ.

Workstation design improvements for drone operators may reduce costs and mishaps, researchers suggest Posted: 27 Feb 2013 01:20 PM PST The US Department of Defense reports that drone accidents in which personnel or aircraft are damaged or destroyed occur 50 times more often than mishaps involving human-operated aircraft. Researchers suggest multimillion-dollar drone loses might be prevented by applying commercial workstation design standards to drone workstations.

White dwarf supernovae are discovered in Virgo Cluster galaxy and in sky area 'anonymous' Posted: 27 Feb 2013 10:44 AM PST Observation of two bright exploding stars has improved the astronomical "tape measure" that scientists use to calculate the acceleration of the expansion of the universe.

NASA's NuSTAR helps solve riddle of black hole spin Posted: 27 Feb 2013 10:25 AM PST Two X-ray space observatories, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton, have teamed up to measure definitively, for the first time, the spin rate of a black hole with a mass 2 million times that of our sun.

Optical materials: Light's magnetism shows its true colors Posted: 27 Feb 2013 09:46 AM PST Researchers in Singapore have created tiny spheres of silicon that can strongly interact with the magnetic field of visible-wavelength light. These engineered 'magnetic materials' enable new ways of controlling light at the nanoscale.

Fluid mechanics: Bubble impacts caught on film Posted: 27 Feb 2013 09:46 AM PST When a bubble of air rising through water hits a sheet of glass, it doesn't simply stop -- it squishes, rebounds, and rises again, before slowly moving to the barrier. An international research team with high-speed cameras reveal the complex physics at work as air meets water and glass.

Unlocking fuel cell conductivity Posted: 27 Feb 2013 08:30 AM PST Work on a high-conductivity material demonstrates the role of oxygen ions in enhancing their capabilities.

Estimates reduce amount of additional land available for biofuel production by almost 80% Posted: 27 Feb 2013 07:20 AM PST Amid efforts to expand production of biofuels, scientists are reporting new estimates that downgrade the amount of additional land available for growing fuel crops by almost 80 percent.

New anti-frost and anti-fog coating for glass Posted: 27 Feb 2013 07:20 AM PST In an advance toward glass that remains clear under the harshest of conditions, scientists are reporting development of a new water-repellant coating that resists both fogging and frosting. Their research on the coating could have uses ranging from automobile windshields to camera lenses.

Camera inside spiraling football provides ball's-eye view of field Posted: 27 Feb 2013 07:20 AM PST Researchers have shown that a camera embedded in the side of a rubber-sheathed plastic foam football can record video while the ball is in flight that could give spectators a unique, ball's-eye view of the playing field. They developed a computer algorithm that converts the unwatchable, raw video into a stable, wide-angle view.

Cryopreservation: A chance for highly endangered mammals Posted: 27 Feb 2013 07:19 AM PST Oocytes of lions, tigers and other cat species survive the preservation in liquid nitrogen. Scientists have now succeeded in carrying out cryopreservation of felid ovary cortex.

New technology for animation film experts Posted: 27 Feb 2013 07:19 AM PST Hollywood devotes great effort to chasing monsters through realistic-looking environments. Researchers have now developed a technology that greatly simplifies the production of such scenes. Actors' movements are captured with a few cameras in a real scene and then transferred extremely realistically to virtual characters. This will not only simplify the work of cartoon makers, but also assist doctors and sportsmen with motion analysis.

Faster, more efficient technique for creating high-density ceramics Posted: 27 Feb 2013 05:59 AM PST Scientists have developed a technique for creating high-density ceramic materials that requires far lower temperatures than current techniques -- and takes less than a second, as opposed to hours. Ceramics are used in a wide variety of technologies, including body armor, fuel cells, spark plugs, nuclear rods and superconductors.

New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systems Posted: 27 Feb 2013 05:59 AM PST Scientists are using a novel fabrication process to create ultra-efficient solar energy rectennas capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.

Invention opens the way to packaging that monitors food freshness Posted: 27 Feb 2013 05:59 AM PST Millions of tons of food are thrown away each year because the 'best before' date has passed. But this date is always a cautious estimate, which means a lot of still-edible food is thrown away. Wouldn't it be handy if the packaging could 'test' whether the contents are still safe to eat? Researchers have invented a circuit that makes this possible: a plastic analog-digital converter. This development brings plastic sensor circuits costing less than one euro cent within reach. Beyond food, these ultra-low-cost plastic circuits have numerous potential uses, including, pharmaceuticals.

New Greek observatory sheds light on old star Posted: 27 Feb 2013 05:58 AM PST Continuing a tradition stretching back more than 25 centuries, astronomers have used the new 2.3-meter 'Aristarchos' telescope, sited at Helmos Observatory (2340m high) in the Pelοponnese Mountains in Greece, to determine the distance to and history of an enigmatic stellar system, discovering it to likely be a binary star cocooned within an exotic nebula.

Computed tomography provides real-time 3D pictures showing how oil and water flow in porous rock Posted: 27 Feb 2013 05:58 AM PST For the first time, experiments using computed tomography have allowed scientists to observe in 3-D the flow of oil and water in real rock on an unprecedented scale. The new approach trailed and the information gathered by the experiments contribute to an improved understanding of multiphase flow and transport in porous media.

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