ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• 'Gravity'-style space debris threat from giant satellite explored
• Diamonds in the tail of the scorpion: Star cluster Messier 7
• Better way to make sense of 'Big Data?'
• Regenerating orthopedic tissues within the human body
• Synthetic molecular oscillator discoveries may help create artificial cells
• Rife with hype, exoplanet study needs patience and refinement
• Scientists successfully simulate 'neutronics' — the behavior of neutrons in a reactor core
• Researchers home in on Alzheimer's disease: Supercomputer helps guide new drug designs
• Smartphone app aids college-age women in abusive relationships, study shows
• Controlling magnetism with an electric field
• Battery small enough to be injected, energetic enough to track salmon
• When a black hole shreds a star, a bright flare tells the story
• Hubble watches stars' clockwork motion in nearby galaxy
• Progress in the automatic detection of water contaminants

'Gravity'-style space debris threat from giant satellite explored Posted: 19 Feb 2014 04:54 AM PST Physics students have pointed out that the huge observational satellite Envisat – which lost contact with Earth in 2012 – could potentially pose a threat similar to the events which plague Sandra Bullock in the Oscar-nominated sci-fi thriller Gravity.

Diamonds in the tail of the scorpion: Star cluster Messier 7 Posted: 19 Feb 2014 04:52 AM PST A new image shows the bright star cluster Messier 7. Easily spotted with the naked eye close to the tail of the constellation of Scorpius, it is one of the most prominent open clusters of stars in the sky — making it an important astronomical research target.

Better way to make sense of 'Big Data?' Posted: 18 Feb 2014 03:51 PM PST Big data is everywhere, and we are constantly told that it holds the answers to almost any problem we want to solve. But simply having lots of data is not the same as understanding it. New mathematical tools are needed to extract meaning from enormous data sets. Researchers now challenge the most recent advances in this field, using a classic mathematical concept to tackle the outstanding problems in big data analysis.

Regenerating orthopedic tissues within the human body Posted: 18 Feb 2014 03:51 PM PST Performing tissue repair with stem cells typically requires applying copious amounts of growth factor proteins -- a task that is very expensive and becomes challenging once the developing material is implanted within a body. A team of biomedical engineers has developed a polymer scaffold for growing cartilage that includes gene therapy vectors to induce stem cells to produce the growth factors they need. The new technique -- biomaterial-mediated gene delivery -- is shown to produce cartilage at least as good biochemically and biomechanically as if the growth factors were introduced in the laboratory.

Synthetic molecular oscillator discoveries may help create artificial cells Posted: 18 Feb 2014 01:34 PM PST Researchers have made important discoveries regarding the behavior of a synthetic molecular oscillator, which could serve as a timekeeping device to control artificial cells. The team developed methods to screen thousands of copies of this oscillator using small droplets, and found, surprisingly, that the oscillators inside these small droplets behave in a very diverse way in terms of period, amplitude and phase.

Rife with hype, exoplanet study needs patience and refinement Posted: 18 Feb 2014 12:38 PM PST Despite many trumpeted results, few 'hard facts' about exoplanet atmospheres have actually been collected, and most of these data are of 'marginal utility,' according to a review of exoplanet research by an astrophysicist. The dominant methods for studying exoplanet atmospheres are not intended for planets trillions of miles from Earth. Instead, the future of exoplanet study should focus on the more difficult but comprehensive method of spectrometry.

Scientists successfully simulate 'neutronics' — the behavior of neutrons in a reactor core Posted: 18 Feb 2014 12:37 PM PST Scientists and engineers developing more accurate approaches to analyzing nuclear power reactors have successfully tested a new suite of computer codes that closely model "neutronics" — the behavior of neutrons in a reactor core.

Researchers home in on Alzheimer's disease: Supercomputer helps guide new drug designs Posted: 18 Feb 2014 12:37 PM PST Researchers studying peptides using a supercomputer have found new ways to elucidate the creation of the toxic oligomers associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Smartphone app aids college-age women in abusive relationships, study shows Posted: 18 Feb 2014 11:34 AM PST In an effort to connect more young women with safety information, researchers have developed the 'One Love My Plan' smartphone application, an interactive tool that helps college-age women in abusive relationships clarify their priorities and customize personal safety plans. The app is aimed at younger women who are most likely to be in abusive relationships, and are less likely than older adults to seek formal safety resources, instead looking to peers or technology for help and advice.

Controlling magnetism with an electric field Posted: 18 Feb 2014 11:33 AM PST Scientists are now proposing a novel approach to achieve greater memory density while producing less heat: by using an electric field instead of a current to turn magnetism on and off, thereby encoding the electrical devices.

Battery small enough to be injected, energetic enough to track salmon Posted: 18 Feb 2014 11:33 AM PST Scientists have created a microbattery that packs twice the energy compared to current microbatteries used to monitor the movements of salmon. The battery is just slightly larger than a long grain of rice, however is not the world's smallest battery. Engineers have created batteries far tinier than the width of a human hair, but those smaller batteries don't hold enough energy to power acoustic fish tags. The new battery is small enough to be injected into an organism and holds much more energy than similar-sized batteries.

When a black hole shreds a star, a bright flare tells the story Posted: 18 Feb 2014 11:32 AM PST A new study explains what happens during the disruption of a normal sun-like star by a supermassive black hole. The study shows why observers might fail to see evidence of the hydrogen in the star, casting doubt on a 2012 report of the disruption of an exotic helium star.

Hubble watches stars' clockwork motion in nearby galaxy Posted: 18 Feb 2014 11:22 AM PST Using the sharp-eyed NASA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have for the first time precisely measured the rotation rate of a galaxy based on the clock-like movement of its stars. According to their analysis, the central part of the neighboring galaxy, called the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), completes a rotation every 250 million years.

Progress in the automatic detection of water contaminants Posted: 18 Feb 2014 07:06 AM PST Researchers are working in the development of hydrocarbons early detection devices for rivers in order to prevent contamination that could seriously affect the environment. The new devices use ultraviolet LED as light source that detects contaminant substances thanks to a fluorescence method. This can result in many benefits compared to the current systems due to the development of faster, robust and affordable detection systems. These new devices will be useful for the search of potential dangerous substances present in continental waters.

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