ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Cats and athletes teach robots how to fall
• Software to automatically outline bones in x-rays
• Mars, too, has macroweather: But weather forecasting on the Red Planet is likely to be even trickier than on Earth
• Is there organic matter on Mars? Chloromethane not due to contamination from Earth, research suggests
• New way to move atomically thin semiconductors for use in flexible devices
• Use of private social media affects work performance
• Rosetta: What happens next?
• Philae, the ‘Happy Lander’: Instruments delivering images and data from comet's surface
• Atomic timekeeping, on the go: New approach may enable more stable and accurate portable atomic clocks
• NASA’s Orion spacecraft arrives at launch pad, hoisted onto rocket ahead of its first spaceflight
• A piece of the quantum puzzle
• Latest supercomputers enable high-resolution climate models, truer simulation of extreme weather
• Amateur, professional astronomers alike thrilled by extreme storms on Uranus
• Moving cameras talk to each other to identify, track pedestrians
• Major class of fracking chemicals no more toxic than common household substances, analysis finds
• Software models more detailed evolutionary networks from genetic data
• Electrical efficiency by engineering warmer superconductors with atom-by-atom control
• From video camera to driverless shuttle vehicle
• Electric cars without drivers
• Mapping reveals targets for preserving tropical carbon stocks
• PET, MRI imaging combined to observe Alzheimer's development

Cats and athletes teach robots how to fall Posted: 13 Nov 2014 09:32 AM PST Scientists are studying mid-air orientation and impact behavior in both cats and humans as it applies to reduced impact in falling robots, especially those that one day may be used for search-and-rescue missions in hazardous conditions.

Software to automatically outline bones in x-rays Posted: 13 Nov 2014 08:00 AM PST Research into disorders such as arthritis will be helped by new software that automatically outlines bones – saving thousands of hours of manual work. "The idea of this software is to take the routine tasks out of human hands, so scientists can focus on drawing conclusions and developing treatments," developers said.

Mars, too, has macroweather: But weather forecasting on the Red Planet is likely to be even trickier than on Earth Posted: 13 Nov 2014 08:00 AM PST Weather, which changes day-to-day due to constant fluctuations in the atmosphere, and climate, which varies over decades, are familiar. More recently, a third regime called "macroweather," has been used to describe the relatively stable regime between weather and climate.

Is there organic matter on Mars? Chloromethane not due to contamination from Earth, research suggests Posted: 13 Nov 2014 08:00 AM PST Organic matter recently detected by NASA's robotic rover Curiosity is probably not due to contamination brought from Earth as researchers originally thought. A team of German and British scientists now suggests that the gaseous chlorinated organic compound -- chloromethane -- recently found on the Red Planet most likely comes from the soil of Mars, with its carbon and hydrogen probably deriving from meteorites that fell on the planet's surface.

New way to move atomically thin semiconductors for use in flexible devices Posted: 13 Nov 2014 05:52 AM PST Researchers have developed a new way to transfer thin semiconductor films, which are only one atom thick, onto arbitrary substrates, paving the way for flexible computing or photonic devices.

Use of private social media affects work performance Posted: 13 Nov 2014 05:51 AM PST The use of online social media for personal purposes during working hours can have a negative effect on work performance and the well-being of organizations, research indicates. Every day, more than one billion people worldwide use social media. This habit has also invaded the workplace, as some research reports that four out of five employees use social media for private purpose during working hours, authors note.

Rosetta: What happens next? Posted: 13 Nov 2014 04:50 AM PST Planetary scientist involved in early stages of mission says early data could provide information on formation of the solar system.

Philae, the ‘Happy Lander’: Instruments delivering images and data from comet's surface Posted: 13 Nov 2014 04:39 AM PST Rosetta's lander Philae is safely on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. First analysis of the touchdown data suggests that the lander bounced twice before settling on the surface of the comet. The lander remains unanchored to the surface, but the instruments are running and are delivering images and data.

Atomic timekeeping, on the go: New approach may enable more stable and accurate portable atomic clocks Posted: 12 Nov 2014 05:33 PM PST What time is it? The answer, no matter what your initial reference may be -- a wristwatch, a smartphone, or an alarm clock -- will always trace back to the atomic clock. Now researchers have come up with a new approach to atomic timekeeping that may enable more stable and accurate portable atomic clocks, potentially the size of a Rubik's cube.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft arrives at launch pad, hoisted onto rocket ahead of its first spaceflight Posted: 12 Nov 2014 03:36 PM PST NASA's new Orion spacecraft now is at its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida after completing its penultimate journey in the early hours of Nov. 12. Orion will travel almost 60,000 miles into space Thursday, Dec. 4 during an uncrewed flight designed to test many of the spacecraft's systems before it begins carrying astronauts on missions to deep space destinations.

A piece of the quantum puzzle Posted: 12 Nov 2014 11:48 AM PST Scientists have been exploring qubits (quantum bits) for quantum simulation. In this work, researchers have demonstrated a quantum version of Gauss's law. The novelty of the experiment is how the curvature was measured.

Latest supercomputers enable high-resolution climate models, truer simulation of extreme weather Posted: 12 Nov 2014 11:48 AM PST Not long ago, it would have taken several years to run a high-resolution simulation on a global climate model. But using some of the most powerful supercomputers now available, scientists were able to complete a run in just three months. What they found was that not only were the simulations much closer to actual observations, but the high-resolution models were far better at reproducing intense storms, such as hurricanes and cyclones.

Amateur, professional astronomers alike thrilled by extreme storms on Uranus Posted: 12 Nov 2014 11:48 AM PST The normally bland face of Uranus has become increasingly stormy, with enormous cloud systems so bright that for the first time, amateur astronomers are able to see details in the planet's hazy blue-green atmosphere. Astronomers first observed the storms in the infrared using the Keck telescope. When amateurs learned of the storms, they turned their optical telescopes on the planet and saw different but equally impressive storms.

Moving cameras talk to each other to identify, track pedestrians Posted: 12 Nov 2014 11:47 AM PST Electrical engineers have developed a way to automatically track people across moving and still cameras by using an algorithm that trains the networked cameras to learn one another's differences.

Major class of fracking chemicals no more toxic than common household substances, analysis finds Posted: 12 Nov 2014 10:21 AM PST The 'surfactant' chemicals found in samples of fracking fluid collected in five states were no more toxic than substances commonly found in homes, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis.

Software models more detailed evolutionary networks from genetic data Posted: 12 Nov 2014 10:21 AM PST Computer scientists have developed software to build more accurate evolutionary networks from genomic data sets. A "maximum likelihood" method allows PhyloNet to infer network models that better describe the evolution of certain groups of species than do tree models.

Electrical efficiency by engineering warmer superconductors with atom-by-atom control Posted: 12 Nov 2014 10:20 AM PST New research suggests for the first time how scientists might deliberately engineer superconductors that work at higher temperatures. These findings open a new chapter in the 30-year quest to develop superconductors that operate at room temperature, which could revolutionize society by making virtually everything that runs on electricity much more efficient.

From video camera to driverless shuttle vehicle Posted: 12 Nov 2014 05:42 AM PST A new type of driverless shuttle vehicle has been developed thanks to innovative computer vision guidance technology that enables the vehicle to locate itself on a roadway reliably and inexpensively.

Electric cars without drivers Posted: 12 Nov 2014 05:41 AM PST E-Mobile will park independently in the future and will also be able to find the next charging station without a driver. Researchers are working on electric cars that can travel short distances autonomously. On the basis of cost-effective sensors, they are developing a dynamic model that perceives the environmental situation.

Mapping reveals targets for preserving tropical carbon stocks Posted: 10 Nov 2014 01:11 PM PST A new high-resolution mapping strategy has revealed billions of tons of carbon in Peruvian forests that can be preserved as part of an effort to sequester carbon stocks in the fight against climate change. A research team has developed an approach for prioritizing carbon conservation efforts throughout tropical countries that can be rapidly implemented anywhere.

PET, MRI imaging combined to observe Alzheimer's development Posted: 10 Nov 2014 09:40 AM PST Neuroscientists are urgently seeking new strategies for a causative treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Yet it is just as important to find reliable procedures to evaluate the likelihood of new treatments succeeding. Researchers have combined two non-invasive imaging techniques, positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), enabling them to examine the proteinaceous deposits typical of Alzheimer's Disease in transgenic mice.

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