since the landing It has never been done on Mars said Mars Science Laboratory project manager Richard Cook of NASA's Jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena Calif. The drill hardware interacts energetically with Martian material we don't control.
and bud-like shape that have brought it Internet buzz as a Martian flower. Other rocks nearby are siltstone with grains finer than powdered sugar.
#New insight into graphene grain boundariesusing graphene--either as an alternative to or most likely as a complementary material with--silicon offers the promise of much faster future electronics along with several other advantages over the commonly used semiconductor.
However creating the one-atom thick sheets of carbon known as graphene in a way that could be integrated easily into mass production methods has proven difficult.
When graphene is grown lattices of the carbon grains are formed randomly linked together at different angles of orientation in a hexagonal network.
These boundaries scatter the flow of electrons in graphene a fact that is detrimental to its successful electronic performance.
Beckman Institute researchers Joe Lyding and Eric Pop and their research groups have given now new insight into the electronics behavior of graphene with grain boundaries that could guide fabrication methods toward lessening
The researchers grew polycrystalline graphene by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy for analysis to examine at the atomic scale grain boundaries on a silicon wafer.
We obtained information about electron scattering at the boundaries that shows it significantly limits the electronic performance compared to grain boundary free graphene Lyding said.
Grain boundaries form during graphene growth by CVD and while there is much worldwide effort to minimize the occurrence of grain boundaries they are a fact of life for now.
Boundary free graphene is a key goal. In the interim we have to live with the grain boundaries
Lyding compared graphene lattices made with the CVD method to pieces of a cyclone fence.
The research involved Pop's group led by Beckman Fellow Josh Wood growing the graphene at the Micro
In the paper the researchers were able to report on their analysis of the orientation angles between pieces of graphene as they grew together
and the GBS are continuous across graphene wrinkles and Si02 topography. They reported that analysis of those patterns indicates that backscattering
and intervalley scattering are the dominant mechanisms responsible for the mobility reduction in the presence of GBS in CVD-grown graphene.
Lyding said that the relationship between the orientation angle of the pieces of graphene and the wavelength of an electron impinges on the electron's movement at the grain boundary leading to variations in their scattering.
The more difficult you make that the lower the quality of the electronic performance of any device made from that graphene.
#Landsat senses a disturbance in the foresta new way of studying and visualizing Earth science data from a NASA
Called Landtrendr this computer program is able to find patterns previously buried within vast amounts of scientific data.
Comparing satellite data to ground data scientists uncovered the cause. It was as it turns out bugs says Robert Kennedy a remote sensing specialist at Boston University who consulted with U s. Forest Service experts to confirm his observations.
Kennedy created the Landtrendr program specifically to work with data from the NASA and U s. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat program.
Kennedy's new way of viewing Landsat imagery has changed already how the Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest operates its yearly forest monitoring program that uses ground stations satellite imagery
Kennedy says that Landtrendr works because of the unique nature of Landsat data. The data embedded in images are a scientific record of Earth's surface that goes back 40 years.
what people think of as crummier images says Curtis Woodcock a remote sensing specialist at Boston University who employs a similar method to Kennedy to build an image of the landscape out of Landsat data pixel by pixel.
Computers are finally powerful enough to process vast amounts of data and Landsat data is now available free of charge.
The Oregon Data Trailthe Landsat program has been observing Earth's land surfaces consistently since 1972 when the first Landsat satellite
what became known as Landsat 1 went into orbit. Since then it has compiled the longest continuous satellite record of change across our planet.
But a left over pay for-data policy from the commercialization of the program in the 1980s
When the USGS began providing Landsat data for no charge in 2008 looking at twenty-five years
Not that long ago the size of an individual Landsat scene would have crippled most desk top computers says Doug Morton a physical scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md. who uses Landsat
When Kennedy first saw a yearly succession of moderate resolution Landsat satellite images of a 13000 square mile area near Portland Ore. it was a revelation.
and Kennedy's new technique for creating single visualizations out of millions of bits of data from hundreds of Landsat images has revealed not just the patchwork of fire scars and clear cuts
Kennedy says to confirm the satellite data they hiked into areas with recent known budworm outbreaks near Mount Rainier With the decline
That ability to read the story of the landscape is something that the Landsat archive allows us to do like none other says Doug Morton of NASA Goddard.
NASA and the USGS will continue providing the means to see it with the next satellite in the Landsat series to be called Landsat 8 scheduled to launch in early 2013.
and the rail network to calculate the equivalent costs for the tobacco regulator--Ofsmoke --and came up with estimates of between £15 million (best case) and £45 million (worst case scenario) for both 2009 and 2010.
The researchers used computer modeling to show that in western forests such a compensatory response provides potent water quality protection against the adverse effects of nitrates
The researchers measured stream nitrate concentrations at more than 100 sites in western Colorado containing lodgepole pines with a range of beetle-induced tree damage.
At study baseline the team assessed the participants'dietary patterns by calling each of them by telephone four or five times during a 10-month period and asking them about their diets over the previous 24 hours.
Indigenous groups who lived near this site include the Ngã¤be Bugl Bribri Cab car and the now-extinct Dorasque peoples.
Dickau returned to the site to expand excavations from December 2006 to January 2007. Dickau's group radiocarbon dated charcoal from the base levels of the shelter
Blueberries and strawberries can easily be incorporated into what women eat every week said Eric Rimm D. Sc. senior author and Associate professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public health in Boston Mass.
It has developed resistance to against more than 50 insecticides including DDT Bt toxins among others making the use of chemicals as a control measurement become ineffective.
and have the first publicly accessible database of diamondback moth genome. I expect we could translate our achievements into real actions for sustainable pest management in the near future.
The complete genome sequence of diamondback moth is publicly available via visit http://www. iae. fafu. edu. cn/DBM.
And this led them to the core of the mystery. After 10 years of examining every inch of the San Lorenzo forest in Panama from the forest floor to the top of the forest canopy the researchers have collected
and computer engineering said The research showed that the electrical conductivity of the fibers could be tuned
and Joseph Pickrell a former University of Chicago researcher now at Harvard described a software model they developed that can infer the history of population splits and mixtures within a species based on modern DNA.
'Pritchard and Pickrell developed software called Treemix that compares how often variants of a particular gene from different populations appear in the same species. It then calculates how closely groups are related
Another group of researchers has used already Pritchard's software to show a link between Denisovans an extinct relative of Neanderthals found in Siberia and Papuans in the South Pacific.
The mantle is the planet's middle layer a buffer of rock between the crust--the top 5 miles or so--and the core.
#Graphene oxide soaks up radioactive waste: U s.,Russian researchers collaborate on solution to toxic groundwater woesgraphene oxide has a remarkable ability to quickly remove radioactive material from contaminated water researchers at Rice university
A collaborative effort by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour and the Moscow lab of chemist Stepan Kalmykov determined that microscopic atom-thick flakes of graphene oxide bind quickly to natural and human-made radionuclides
The discovery Tour said could be a boon in the cleanup of contaminated sites like the Fukushima nuclear plants damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Graphene oxide's large surface area defines its capacity to adsorb toxins Kalmykov said. So the high retention properties are not surprising to us he said.
which it can react there is a greater likelihood that the'magic'will happen with graphene oxide than with a big old hunk of bentonite said Steven Winston a former vice president of Lockheed martin
The lab tested graphene oxide synthesized at Rice with simulated nuclear wastes containing uranium plutonium
Even so graphene oxide proved far better than the bentonite clays and granulated activated carbon commonly used in nuclear cleanup.
Graphene oxide introduced to simulated wastes coagulated within minutes quickly clumping the worst toxins Kalmykov said.
Companies have to ship contaminated water to repository sites around the country at very large expense.
which are needed for cell phones Tour said. China owns the market because they're not subject to the same environmental standards.
Where you have huge pools of radioactive material like at Fukushima you add graphene oxide
Graphene oxide burns very rapidly and leaves a cake of radioactive material you can then reuse.
The low cost and biodegradable qualities of graphene oxide should make it appropriate for use in permeable reactive barriers a fairly new technology for in situ groundwater remediation he said.
Tour is the T. T. and W. F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science at Rice.
but even tweets that person's Twitter account to publicly shame them if they stray uses a Raspberry Pi--a tiny single-board computer.
Raspberry Pi and Piface an add-on which powers real-life applications are the simplest and most user-friendly ways for computers to interface with the world
and are being used by University of Manchester scientists to inspire the next generation of computer whizzkids.
The credit-card sized computers have a vast range of potential applications that will get young people fired up for computing.
The academics from the University's School of Computer science have run a series of workshops for schoolteachers aiming to transform the teaching of computing in schools.
Raspberry Pi and Piface put the fun back into computing and academics hope to be a major influence on changing the way the schools
The Government is keen on improving how computing is taught in schools using a scientific approach to the subject.
Raspberry Pi was developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the aim of improving teaching of basic computer science in schools.
With the Pi they have all the capabilities of a computer but are more flexible and can be embedded in the real world--costing as little as £40 per kit.
Dr David Rydeheard from the School of Computer science said: This is an exciting development taking computing out of its box
and allowing schoolchildren to play with the science of computing. Schools have physics chemistry and biology laboratories to teach these subjects.
The combination of Raspberry Pi and Piface creates a cheap personal laboratory for computer science that every child can own.
The future wealth of our country depends crucially on our expertise in the science and technology of computing.
At the moment schools fail to teach their students computing: how to design and build computing systems. Raspberry Pi and Piface are ideal for schools to use to teach this key subject.
Workshops for teachers using Raspberry Pi and Piface have attracted more than 50 teachers from schools in the North West per session
and more recently The University has run workshops with children. Dr Andrew Robinson was amazed by the response of children.
and hobbyists challenging entrants to create useful gadgets to change the world using Raspberry Pi computers.
The five teams used different computer models that had been developed independently. Their computer models included not just energy use and production but also the broader economy and the climate system.
These integrated assessment models accounted for energy use the economy and climate and the way these different systems interact with one another.
Our research focuses on understanding complex network interactions in grasses with a goal of engineering C4 traits into C3 grasses
Todd Mockler Ph d. Geraldine and Robert Virgil Distinguished Investigator and Doug Bryant Ph d. director of the bioinformatics core facility have developed algorithms
What is required is to pay attention during the subsequent data analysis. Greenwood's doctoral student Kyriakos Tsangaras discovered the additional value of hybridisation capture by chance.
The location on the spike protein where a protease activates this process is called a cleavage site.
The researchers found there were two cleavage sites for MERS-Cov each activated by furin at different times:
This is the first characterization of a natural coronavirus with a spike protein containing two furin cleavage sites said Millet the paper's first author.
It might be a situation where that extra cleavage site is allowing more spread in the animal
of which shows this super accuracy adds Associate professor Andrea Morello from UNSW's School of Electrical engineering and Telecommunications.
Now the team led by Dzurak has discovered a way to create an artificial atom qubit with a device remarkably similar to the silicon transistors used in consumer electronics known as MOSFETS.
Postdoctoral researcher Menno Veldhorst lead author on the paper reporting the artificial atom qubit says It is really amazing that we can make such an accurate qubit using pretty much the same devices as we have in our laptops and phones.
what is modified basically a version of a normal transistor is something that almost nobody believed possible until today Morello says.
and Bed bug Patrol and how they can be incorporated into a bed bug management program. Curiously some of the active ingredients in Ecoraider and Bed bug Patrol are also found in some of the other tested products that exhibited very low rates of efficacy an indication that the products'inactive ingredients are also important.
when UW-Madison's Carol Williams coordinator of the Wisconsin Grasslands Bioenergy Network and the DNR's David Sample approached Turner
The team found that the presence of grasslands within one kilometer of the study sites also helped boost bird species diversity and bird density in the area.
#Sculpting costumes with 3-D printers is the way theater is headed, say theater education expertsthree-dimensional printers which already have churned out jewelry prosthetic limbs
and one fully functioning car are taking the stage--literally--in another arena: live theater.
And that's only the beginning for the new printer says former Disneyland costume designer/wardrobe coordinator Joe Kucharski assistant professor of theatre arts at Baylor.
Using his computer mouse and some free software Kucharski tugged flattened and pinched a digital ball of clay into the desired shapes:
rotting vegetables including two dozen beans and a dozen mushrooms. That done the 3d printer heated and spun plastic cord into the delicate thread to create the costume elements for the witchy wardrobe.
The printers have been used in film and fashion and it's a great application for scenic design in theater too he said.
You can use miniatures created on a small-scale model and save time instead of carving little details.
Find the DANMAP report on DANMAP's website: http://www. danmap. org/Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Technical University of Denmark (DTU.
The technique believed to be the first of its kind uses advanced computer technology to analyze photographs taken of root systems in the field.
The imaging and software are designed to give scientists the statistical information they need to evaluate crop improvement efforts.
We've produced an imaging system to evaluate the root systems of plants in field conditions said Alexander Bucksch a postdoctoral fellow in the Georgia Tech School of Biology and School of Interactive Computing.
The roots are photographed then against a black background using a standard digital camera pointed down from a tripod.
The resulting images are uploaded then to a server running software that analyzes the root systems for more than 30 different parameters--including the diameter of tap roots root density the angles of brace roots and detailed measures
and have spreadsheets of results ready for study the next day. In the lab you are just seeing part of the process of root growth said Bucksch who works in the group of Associate professor Joshua Weitz in the School of Biology and School of Physics at Georgia Tech.
Developing the digital photography technique required iterative refinements to produce consistent images that could be analyzed using computer programs.
and brackish water habitats have networks of prop roots that extend down toward the seafloor and corals are growing on and under these roots.
Computer-assisted self-interviews were used to ascertain self-reported tobacco use and sexual behaviors. Selfâ reported tobacco use for the past 5 days included any nicotineâ containing product.
Working with the Western Heads East organization Dr. Reid had established already a network of community kitchens in Mwanza Tanzania to produce a probiotic yogurt for the local population.
The team utilized this network to produce and distribute a new type of yogurt containing L. rhamnosus.
Tree mortality increases so that they can't store as much carbon as healthy trees in the centre of the forest the core area says Dr. Sandro PÃ tz the main author of the study.
but we wanted more cookies in the jar for breeders to pick from he said.
#Global database: Cattle genome cracked in detailby creating a global database an international consortium of scientists has increased the detailed knowledge of the variation in the cattle genome by several orders of magnitude.
The first generation of the new data resource which will be open access forms an essential tool for scientists working with cattle genetics and livestock history.
Ancestral bulls The data used in the huge database are derived from key ancestor bulls. These bulls have produced millions of descendants
For example Holstein bulls in the database have fathered at least 6. 3 million daughters worldwide. The data consist of sequenced genomes for a number of bulls
Currently the database contains genomes of more than 1200 animals of different cattle breeds but as more scientists from other countries gradually join the project there is a continual inflow of data.
so it is a considerable strength of the project that such data are connected into one database.
High level of detail What makes the database so special is the level of detail of the data.
With the new and detailed database we have over 30 million markers to work with.
New basis for genetic work The scientists explain that the database will become the standard reference within bovine genetics.
and combined the genetic variations with computer modeling techniques to map how important genes differ within balsam poplar
Only 8. 5 percent to 16.2 percent of the organisms discovered in the park soils depending on their type had been entered previously into existing databases that describe microbial life according to the study results published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society
and vertical transistors he adds. Briseno explains For decades scientists and engineers have placed great effort in trying to control the morphology of p-n junction interfaces in organic solar cells.
and packing at electrode surfaces the team combined knowledge about graphene and organic crystals. Though it was difficult Briseno says they managed to get the necessary compounds to stack like coins.
We had exploited essentially every substrate possible until we finally succeeded with graphene he adds which happened by accident
In a new study a team led by Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh used a novel combination of computer simulations
and the flowering plants visited by the bees at a large number of sites across southern Norfolk including both urban and rural sites over a three month period.
Forest research network reveals global change effectspermafrost thaw drives forest loss in Canada while drought has killed trees in Panama southern India and Borneo.
Some of the best information about these global-scale changes comes from CTFS-Forestgeo the only network of standardized forest-monitoring sites that span the globe.
Since the censuses began at the first site on Barro Colorado Island in Panama in 1981 atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 16 percent The forest sites in the network have warmed by an average of over 1 degree F (0. 6
Landscapes around protected sites experience deforestation. The plot network now includes forests from Brazil to northern Canada from Gabon to England and from Papua new guinea to China.
In addition to identifying mapping measuring and monitoring trees researchers describe the relatedness of trees track flower
Climate change scenarios predict that most of these sites will face warmer and often drier conditions in the future--some experiencing novel climates with no modern analogs.
Biomass increased at many tropical sites across the network. It is incredibly rewarding to work with a team of forest scientists from 78 research institutions around the world including four Smithsonian units Anderson-Teixeira said.
We look forward to using the CTFS-Forestgeo network to continue to understand how and why forests respond to change and
what this means for the climate biodiversity conservation and human well-being said Stuart Davies network director.
We have a host of excellent software applications and production technology at our disposal but it is the stockperson who knows its cattle
Like his colleague Daniel Giddings Vassã£o Felipe Wouters is from Brazil where fall armyworm caused major losses of the maize yield before Bt maize was introduced.
According to a Reuters report this summer Brazilian farmers are complaining that Bt is not protecting the plants against the fall armyworm any longer.
The increasing resistance of pest insects to Bt is another reason to look deeper into the natural insect adaptations against plant defenses.
and nearly 8000 samples of tree ages at 232 forest sample sites from Teller County to Larimer County.
When fully established in late 2014 the LA network will consist of 15 monitoring stations around the LA basin Most will use commercially available high-precision greenhouse gas analyzers to continuously sample local air.
The LA network encompasses the portions of the South Coast Air Basin that produce the most intense greenhouse gas emissions in California.
The LA megacity sprawls across five counties 150 municipalities many freeways landfills oil wells gas pipelines America's largest seaport mountains and even dairies all within an area
This involves establishing surface measurement networks in representative areas while taking advantage of the broader coverage of satellite observations.
In addition to hosting the gas analyzers these super-sites also use natural sunlight to track carbon dioxide methane carbon monoxide and other gases in columns of the atmosphere over LA.
These super-sites will provide a link between measurements from the surface instrumentation network and from satellites overhead.
Wilson super-site is JPL's California Laboratory for Atmospheric Remote Sensing (CLARS) located 5700 feet (1737 meters) above the Los angeles basin.
While weather satellites tell us about winds storms and atmospheric moisture future satellites will also use'chemical cameras'to map the distributions of greenhouse gases
Earth Networks Inc. Germantown Maryland; and NASA's Ames Research center Moffett Field California. Other collaborators include Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette France;
When searching a database for similar genes in other organisms the researchers found them in microbes from the human gut.
The majority of the 49 sites currently involved in the investigation are in the United states
In the bioartificial liver under investigation blood is drawn from the patient via a central venous line
#Graphene imperfections key to creating hypersensitive electronic noseresearchers have discovered a way to create a highly sensitive chemical sensor based on the crystalline flaws in graphene sheets.
When a graphene lattice or sheet is formed its polycrystalline structure has random boundaries between the single-crystal grains.
But Salehi-Khojin and his colleagues showed that these imperfections are important to the working of graphene-based gas sensors.
They created a micron-sized individual graphene grain boundary in order to probe its electronic properties and study its role in gas sensing.
and accumulate there rather than on the graphene crystal making it the ideal spot for sensing gas molecules.
Salehi-Khojin said it should be possible to tune the electronic properties of graphene grain-boundary arrays using controlled doping to obtain a fingerprint response
resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center supported by the Office of Science of the U s. Department of energy under Contract No.
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