#We judge trustworthy faces in a snap New york University rightoriginal Studyposted by James Devitt-NYU on August 8 2014.
The study also suggests butterflies are the ancestral group to the tens of thousands of moth species on the planet
when bats spread across the planet as a means of escaping these and other nocturnal predators Kawahara says.
#Spinach leaves vibrate to kick off photosynthesis Vibrations deep within spinach leaves enhance the efficiency of photosynthesishe energy conversion process that powers life on our planet.
Through photosynthesis, plants and some bacteria turn sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into food for themselves and into oxygen for animals to breathe.
Solar panels can only generate power when the sun shining, and wind turbines can only generate power when the wind blows.
#Solar cell spikes let in 99%of sunlight The more light absorbed by a solar panel active elements,
A new one-step process to etch nanoscale spikes into silicon lets the maximum amount of sunlight reach a solar cell,
Collecting sunlight using these tiny colloidal quantum dots depends on two types of semiconductors: n-type which are rich in electrons and p-type
For the average person this means more sophisticated weather satellites remote controllers satellite communication or pollution detectors. his is a material innovation that s the first part
#Material snags CO2 from natural gas Rice university rightoriginal Studyposted by Mike Williams-Rice on June 9 2014scientists have created an Earth-friendly way to separate carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas from natural gas right
. or example, wee able to capture a large percentage of the ammonia that would otherwise be lost in the atmosphere,
and particles says lead author Hrvoje Petek professor in the physics and astronomy department at the University of Pittsburgh.
or aerospace vehicle if you have to replace them every few years because they go dead. estover s wafers consist of electrodes made from silicon that have been treated chemically so they have nanoscale pores on their inner surfaces
and industrial processes are increasing the amount of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. he warming impact of methane
the team installed it on a mobile laboratory used during NASA DISCOVER-AQ campaign, which analyzed pollution on the ground and from the air last September.
#Exoplanet weather forecast calls for clouds University of Chicago rightoriginal Studyposted by Steve Koppes-Chicago on December 31 2013a team of scientists report they have characterized definitively the atmosphere of a super-Earth class
planet orbiting another star for the first time. Today s forecast: cloudy. Tomorrow: overcast. Extended outlook: more clouds.
The scrutinized planet which is known as GJ1214B is classified as a super-Earth type planet because its mass is intermediate between those of Earth and Neptune.
Recent searches for planets around other stars (xoplanets have shown that super-Earths like GJ 1214b are among the most common type of planets in the Milky way galaxy.
Because no such planets exist in our solar system the physical nature of super-Earths is largely unknown.
Previous studies of GJ 1214b yielded two possible interpretations of the planet s atmosphere. Its atmosphere could consist entirely of water vapor
or some other type of heavy molecule or it could contain high-altitude clouds that prevent the observation of what lies underneath.
But now a team of astronomers led by Laura Kreidberg and Jacob Bean of the University of Chicago has detected clear evidence of clouds in the atmosphere of GJ 1214b from data collected with the Hubble space telescope.
The Hubble observations used 96 hours of telescope time spread over 11 months. This was the largest Hubble program ever devoted to studying a single exoplanet.
An artist s rendering of extrasolar planet GJ 1214b. Credit: NASA ESA and G. Bacon (STSCL) via U. Chicago) The researchers describe their work as an important milestone on the road to identifying potentially habitable Earthlike planets beyond our Solar system.
The results appear in the January 2 issue of the journal Nature. e really pushed the limits of
what is possible with Hubble to make this measurementsays Kreidberg a third-year graduate student and first author of the new paper. his advance lays the foundation for characterizing other Earths with similar techniques.?
I think it s very exciting that we can use a telescope like Hubble that was designed never with this in mind do these kinds of observations with such exquisite precision
and really nail down some property of a small planet orbiting a distant starexplains Bean an assistant professor and the project s principal investigator.
GJ 1214b is located just 40 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus.
Because of its proximity to our solar system and the small size of its host star GJ 1214b is the most easily observed super-Earth.
It transits or passes in front of its parent star every 38 hours which gives scientists an opportunity to study its atmosphere as starlight filters through it.
Kreidberg Bean and their colleagues used Hubble to precisely measure the spectrum of GJ 1214b in near-infrared light finding what they consider definitive evidence of high clouds blanketing the planet.
These clouds hide any information about the composition and behavior of the lower atmosphere and surface.
The planet was discovered in 2009 by the MEARTH Project which monitors two thousand red dwarf stars for transiting planets.
The planet was targeted next for follow-up observations to characterize its atmosphere. The first spectra which Bean obtained in 2010 using a ground-based telescope suggested that the planet s atmosphere either was predominantly water vapor
or hydrogen-dominated with high-altitude clouds. More precise Hubble observations made in 2012 and 2013 allowed the team to distinguish between these two scenarios.
The news is about what they didn t find. The Hubble spectra revealed no chemical fingerprints whatsoever in the planet s atmosphere.
This allowed the astronomers to rule out cloud-free atmospheres made of water vapor methane nitrogen carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide.
The best explanation for the new data is that there are high-altitude clouds in the atmosphere of the planet
though their composition is unknown. Models of super-Earth atmospheres predict clouds could be made out of potassium chloride
or zinc sulfide at the scorching temperatures of 450 degrees Fahrenheit found on GJ 1214b. ou would expect very different kinds of clouds to form than you would expect say on Earthkreidberg says.
The launch of NASA s next major space telescope the 6. 5m James webb space telescope (JWST) later this decade should reveal more about such worlds Kreidberg says. ooking forward JWST will be transformativeshe says. he new capabilities
of this telescope will allow us to peer through the clouds on planets like GJ 1214b.
But more than that it may open the door to studies of Earthlike planets around nearby stars. he NASA the National Science Foundation the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
and the European Research Council supported the research. Source: University of Chicagoyou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license e
#This gene helps some of us never forget a face Emory University rightoriginal Studyposted by Lisa Newbern-Emory on December 24 2013the oxytocin receptor a gene known to influence mother-infant bonding also plays a role in the ability to remember faces.
The finding has important implications for disorders in which social information processing is disruptedâ##like autism spectrum disorderâ
##and may lead to new strategies for improving social cognition in several psychiatric disorders. According to study author Larry Young of the department of psychiatry at Emory University this is the first study to demonstrate that variation in the oxytocin receptor gene influences face recognition skills.
and medical devices to structural components for the automotive civil and aerospace industries. he cellulose nanocrystals represent a potential green alternative to carbon nanotubes for reinforcing materials such as polymers and concrete.
which they were extractedsays Robert J. Moon a researcher from the US Forest Service s Forest Products Laboratory
#Big bang swirls hint at universe s birth Mcgill University University of Chicago rightoriginal Studyposted by Steve Koppes-Chicago on December 17 2013a subtle distortion in the oldest
light in the universe may help reveal secrets about the earliest moments in its formation.
Using the South pole Telescope scientists observed twisting patterns in the polarization of the cosmic microwave backgroundâ##light that last interacted with matter very early in the history of the universe less than 400000 years after the big bang. These patterns
For the study published in Physical Review Letters researchers used the first data from SPTPOL a polarization-sensitive camera installed on the telescope in January 2012. he detection of B-mode polarization by South pole Telescope
is a major milestone a technical achievement that indicates exciting physics to comesays John Carlstrom distinguished service professor in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago.
The cosmic microwave background is a sea of photons (light particles) left over from the big bang that pervades all of space at a temperature of minus 270 degrees Celsiusâ##a mere 3 degrees above absolute zero.
Measurements of this ancient light have given already physicists a wealth of knowledge about the properties of the universe.
Light from the cosmic microwave background is polarized mainly due to the scattering of photons off of electrons in the early universe through the same process by
Gravitational lensing it has long been predicted can twist E modes into B modes as photons pass by galaxies and other massive objects on their way toward earth.
To tease out the B modes in their data the scientists used a previously measured map of the distribution of mass in the universe to determine where the gravitational lensing should occur.
The careful study of such B modes will help physicists better understand the universe. The patterns can be used to map out the distribution of mass thereby more accurately defining cosmologically important properties like the masses of neutrinos tiny elementary particles prevalent throughout the cosmos.
Similar more elusive B modes would provide dramatic evidence of inflation the theorized turbulent period in the moments after the big bang
when the universe expanded extremely rapidly. Inflation is regarded a well theory among cosmologists because its predictions agree with observations
but thus far there is not a definitive confirmation of the theory. Measuring B modes generated by inflation is a possible way to alleviate lingering doubt. he detection of a primordial B-mode polarization signal in the microwave background would amount to finding the first tremors of the big bangsays
lead author Duncan Hanson a postdoctoral scientist at Mcgill University. B modes from inflation are caused by gravitational waves.
and squeezing the fabric of the universe would give rise to the telltale twisted polarization patterns of B modes.
and hopefully measure the inflationary B modes underneathhanson says. he lensing signal itself can also be used by itself to learn about the distribution of mass in the universe. ource:
#Noble gas molecule found in remains of exploded star Astronomers have discovered a molecule in space that contains a noble gas.
The find was made using an instrument aboard Europe s Herschel Space observatory. The molecule argon hydride was seen in the crab nebula the remains of a star that exploded 1000 years agothe noble gases
which include helium argon radon and krypton usually do not react easily with other chemical elements
Such chemical compounds have only ever been studied in laboratories On earth leading astronomers to assume the right conditions simply do not occur in space. he crab nebula was formed only 1000 years ago
when a massive star explodedsays Haley Gomez of Cardiff University s School of Physics and Astronomy. ot only is it very young in astronomical terms
but also relatively close at just 6500 light years away providing an excellent way to study what happens in these stellar explosions. ast year we used the European space agency s Herschel Space observatory to study the intricate network of gas filaments to show how exploding stars are creating huge amounts of space dust. urther measurements
of the crab nebula were made using Herschel s SPIRE instrument. Its development and operation was led by Professor Matt Griffin from the School of Physics and Astronomy.
As molecules spin in space they emit light of very specific wavelengths or colors called mission lines. he precise wavelength is dictated by the composition and structure of the molecule.
Studying the emission lines observed by the SPIRE instrument allows astronomers to study the chemistry of outer space.
The team led by Professor Mike Barlow from University college London did not set out to make the discovery
With hot gas still expanding at high speeds after the explosion a supernova remnant is a harsh hot and hostile environment
and one of the places where we least expected to find a noble-gas based molecule. t now seems the crab nebula provides exactly the right conditions to form such molecules.
(or isotope) of argon we discovered in the crab nebulasays Gomez. e now know that it is different from argon we see in rocks on the Earth.
#Craters within crater hint at moonâ#diversity Brown University right Original Studyposted by Kevin Stacey-Brown on December 9 2013 Small craters on the moon that are within one of the largest
craters in the solar system may offer clues as to how the moon formed. A massive impact on the moon about 4 billion years ago left the 2500-mile crater.
Comparing the spectra of light reflected from the peaks of those later craters may yield clues to the composition of the Moon'#lower crust
Data from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper that flew aboard India'#Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter shows a diverse mineralogy in the subsurface of the giant South pole Aitken basin.
If that'#true then the South pole Aitken (SPA) basin could hold important information about the Moon'#interior and the evolution of its crust and mantle.
At 2500 kilometers across the SPA is the largest impact basin on the Moon and perhaps the largest in the solar system.
Planets the study looked at smaller craters within the larger SPA basin made by impacts that happened millions of years after the giant impact that formed the basin.
Using Moon Mineralogy Mapper data the researchers looked at the light reflected from each of the four central peaks.
and found significant compositional differences between these central peaks The Moon Mineralogy Mapper has very high spatial and spectral resolution.
We haven'##t really been able to look at the moon in this kind of detail before. he next step is figuring out where that diversity comes from.
If indeed the diversity reflects preexisting material the SPA could hold important clues about the composition of the Moon'#lower crust
and it doesn'##t contain olivine that would have substantial implications for models of how the Moon was formed Moriarty says.
NASA'#Lunar Advanced Science and Exploration Research (LASER) program and the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) supported the research.
#Russian meteor was a wake-up call University of California Davis rightoriginal Studyposted by Andy Fell-UC Davis on November 18 2013consumer video cameras
and advanced laboratory techniques gave scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk Russia in February. f humanity does not want to go the way of the dinosaurs we need to study an event like this in detailsays Qing-zhu Yin professor
in the department of earth and planetary sciences at University of California Davis. Saying it was a ake-up callyin says the Chelyabinsk meteorite the largest strike
since the Tunguska event of 1908 belongs to the most common type of meteorite an rdinary chondrite. f a catastrophic meteorite strike were to occur in the future it would most likely be
an object of this type. ur goal was to understand all circumstances that resulted in the damaging shock wave that sent over 1200 people to hospitals in the Chelyabinsk Oblast area that daysays Peter Jenniskens meteor astronomer at SETI Institute.
Their findings are published in the journal Science. The explosion was equivalent to about 600 thousand tons of TNT 150 times bigger than the 2012 Sutter s Mill meteorite in California.
Based on viewing angles from videos of the fireball researchers calculated that the meteoroid entered Earth s atmosphere at just over 19 kilometers per second slightly faster than had previously been reported. ur meteoroid entry modeling showed that the impact was caused by a 20-meter sized
single chunk of rock that efficiently fragmented at 30 km altitudesays Olga Popova of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
A meteoroid is the original object; a meteor is the hooting starin the sky; and a meteorite is the object that reaches the ground.
The meteor s brightness peaked at an altitude of 29.7 km (18.5 miles) as the object exploded.
For nearby observers it briefly appeared brighter than the sun and caused some severe sunburns.
The team estimated that about three-quarters of the meteoroid evaporated at that point. Most of the rest converted to dust
and only a small fraction (4000 to 6000 kilograms or less than 0. 05 percent) fell to the ground as meteorites.
The dust cloud was so hot it glowed orange. The largest single piece weighing about 650 kilograms was recovered from the bed of Lake Chebarkul in October by a team from Ural Federal University led by Professor Viktor Grokhovsky.
Shockwaves from the airburst broke windows rattled buildings and even knocked people from their feet.
Popova and Jenniskens visited over 50 villages in the area and found that the shockwave caused damage about 90 kilometers (50 miles) on either side of the trajectory.
The object broke up 30 kilometers up under the enormous stress of entering the atmosphere at high speed.
These veins would have weakened the original meteoroid. Yin s laboratory carried out chemical and isotopic analysis of the meteorites and Ken Verosub professor in the department of earth and planetary sciences measured the magnetic properties of metallic grains in the meteorite.
Doug Rowland project scientist in the Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging in the department of biomedical engineering contributed X-ray computed tomography scanning of the rock.
and that it last went through a significant shock event about 115 million years after the formation of the solar system 4567 million years ago.
Jenniskens calculates the object may have come from the Flora asteroid family in the asteroid belt but the chunk that hit the Chelyabinsk area was broken apparently not up in the asteroid belt itself.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo and Waseda University in Japan found that the rock had been exposed to cosmic rays for only about 1. 2 million years unusually short for rocks originating in the Flora family.
Chelyabinsk belonged to a bigger ubble pileasteroid that broke apart 1. 2 million years ago possibly in an earlier close encounter with Earth Jenniskens speculates.
The rest of that rubble could still be around as part of the near-earth asteroid population.
Major meteorite strikes like Tunguska or Chelyabinsk occur more frequently than we tend to think Yin says.
For example four tons of material were recovered from a meteor shower in Jilin China in 1976. helyabinsk serves as unique calibration point for high energy meteorite impact events for our future studies. he work was supported by the Russian Academy of Sciences the Office
of the Governor of Chelyabinsk Oblast NASA and the Academy of Finland. Source: University of California Davisyou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license i
#Tiny Lego blocks build two-faced nanotubes University of Warwick rightoriginal Studyposted by Anna Blackaby-Warwick on November 14 2013using a process similar to molecular Lego scientists
and more efficient at harvesting energy from the sun. For solar panels wringing every drop of energy from as many photons as possible is imperative.
and most of the energy from the sun is in the visible and infrared spectrum. â#Finding a material that exhibits the bulk photovoltaic effect for visible light would greatly simplify solar cell construction.
Moreover it would be a way around an inefficiency intrinsic to interfacial solar cells known as the Shockley-Queisser limit where some of the energy from photons is lost as electrons wait to make the jump from one material to the other. hink of photons coming from the sun
and earth-abundant elements unlike compound semiconductor materials currently used in efficient thin-film solar cell technology. he research was supported by the Energy Commercialization Institute of Ben Franklin Technology Partners the Department of energy's Office of Basic Sciences
MKIDS were developed first a decade ago by Mazin his Ph d. adviser Jonas Zmuidzinas professor of physics at the California Institute of technology and Henry Leduc at NASA s Jet propulsion laboratory.
MKIDS are used in astronomy for taking measurements across the electromagnetic spectrum. In his lab at UC Santa barbara Mazin has adapted these detectors for the ultraviolet optical and near-IR parts of the spectrum.
MKIDS which operate at cryogenic temperatures (typically 0. 1 Kelvin) allow astronomers to determine the energy
and arrival time of individual photons. orty years ago we were doing optical astronomy with photographic plates
but not all applications. or observations of rare objects like optical pulsars and high redshift galaxies ARCONS small field of view (20 arc seconds by 20 arc seconds
This allows astronomers to see rapidly changing events a great advantage for many observations. MKIDS have inherent frequency domain multiplexing capabilities
Mazin and his team lens-coupled a 2024-pixel array to the Palomar 200-inch and the Lick 120-inch telescopes in Southern California and Northern California respectively.
ARCONS was on these telescopes for 24 observing nights during which data was collected on optical pulsars compact binaries high redshift galaxies and planetary transits.
RCONS is very sensitive but it s been coupled with 5-meter telescopesmazin says. he 8-to 10-meter telescopes such as Keck are at better sites with four times the collecting area. e hope to deploy MKID instruments in the next several
years at Keck and other telescopes to make fascinating new observations including using MKIDS coupled to a coronagraph to directly discover
and take spectra of planets around nearby stars. Source: UC Santa Barbar
#Wireless device grabs lost energy from Wi-fi Using inexpensive materials configured and tuned to capture microwave signals researchers have designed a power harvesting device with efficiency similar to that of modern solar panels.
The device wirelessly converts the microwave signal to direct current voltage capable of recharging a cell phone battery or other small electronic device according to a report appearing in Applied Physics Letters.
or example a series of power harvesting blocks could be assembled to capture the signal from a known set of satellites passing overhead the researchers explain.
The component converts heat from the sun into infrared light which can be absorbed by solar cells to make electricity a technology known as thermophotovoltaics.
A typical solar cell has a silicon semiconductor that absorbs sunlight directly and converts it into electrical energy.
Instead of sending sunlight directly to the solar cell thermophotovoltaic systems have an intermediate component that consists of two parts:
an absorber that heats up when exposed to sunlight and an emitter that converts the heat to infrared light
Land-based wireless networks rely on radio waves that transmit data via satellites and antennae. Unfortunately radio waves work poorly underwaterâ
The buoys convert the acoustic waves into radio waves to send the data to a satellite which then redirects the radio waves back to land-based computers.
#Signs of water detected in exoplanet s debris University of Warwick rightoriginal Studyposted by Anna Blackaby-Warwick on October 11 2013the remains of a water-rich rocky exoplanet have been discovered outside
our solar system orbiting a white dwarf star 170 light years away. Using observations obtained with the Hubble Space Telescopeâ
and the large telescopes of the W. M. Keck Observatory researchers found an excess of oxygenâ##a chemical signature that indicates that the debris had once been part of a bigger body originally composed of 26 percent water by mass.
By contrast only approximately 0. 023 percent of the Earth s mass is water. Evidence for water outside our solar system has previously been found in the atmosphere of gas giants
but this is the first time it has been pinpointed in a rocky body making it of significant interest in understanding of the formation and evolution of habitable planets and life.
The dwarf planet Ceres contains ice buried beneath an outer crust and researchers have drawn a parallel between the two bodies.
Itâ#believed that bodies like Ceres were the source of the bulk of our own water On earth.
In the study published in Science researchers suggest it is most likely that the water detected around the white dwarf GD 61 came from a minor planet at least 90 kilometers (56 miles) in diameterâ
##but potentially much biggerâ##that once orbited the parent star before it became a white dwarf.
Like Ceres the water was most likely in the form of ice below the planet s surface.
From the amount of rocks and water detected in the outer envelope of the white dwarf the researchers estimate that the disrupted planetary body had a diameter of at least 90 kilometers.
However because their observations can only detect what is being accreted in recent history the estimate of its mass is on the conservative side.
It is likely that the object was as large as Vesta the largest minor planet in the solar system.
In its former life GD 61 was a star somewhat bigger than our Sun and host to a planetary system.
and became a white dwarf yet parts of its planetary system survived. The water-rich minor planet was knocked out of its regular orbit
and plunged into a very close orbit where it was shredded by the starâ#gravitational force. Researchers believe that destabilizing the orbit of the minor planet requires a so far unseen much larger planet going around the white dwarf. t this stage in its existence all that remains of this rocky body is simply dust
and debris that has been pulled into the orbit of its dying parent starâ#says Boris Gänsicke professor of physics at the University of Warwick. owever this planetary graveyard swirling around the embers of its parent star is a rich source
of information about its former life. Â In these remnants lie chemical clues which point towards a previous existence as a water-rich terrestrial body. hose two ingredientsâ##a rocky surface
and waterâ##are key in the hunt for habitable planets outside our solar system so itâ#very exciting to find them together for the first time outside our solar system.?
The finding of water in a large asteroid means the building blocks of habitable planets existedâ ##and maybe still existâ##in the GD 61 system and likely also around substantial number of similar parent starssays lead author Jay Farihi from the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. hese water-rich building blocks
and the terrestrial planets they build may in fact be commonâ##a system cannot create things as big as asteroids
and avoid building planets and GD 61 had the ingredients to deliver lots of water to their surfaces. ur results demonstrate that there was definitely potential for habitable planets in this exoplanetary system
. or their analysis the researchers used ultraviolet spectroscopy data obtained with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on board the Hubble space telescope of the white dwarf GD 61.
As the atmosphere of the Earth blocks the ultraviolet light such study can only be carried out from space.
Additional observations were obtained with both of the 10m telescopes of the W. M. Keck Observatory on the summit of Mauna kea Hawaii.
The Hubble and Keck data allows the researchers to identify the different chemical elements that are polluting the outer layers white dwarf.
Using a sophisticated computer model of the white dwarf atmosphere developed by Detlev Koester at the University of Kiel they were able to infer the chemical composition of the shredded minor planet.
To date observations of 12 destroyed exoplanets orbiting white dwarves have been carried out but this is the first time the signature of water has been found.
Source: University of Warwickyou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivs 3. 0 Unported license h
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