Science | WPN World People News

US Defense Department officials are reaching out to academia and the energy industry to strike a balance between its support for alternative energy sources and its need to protect national security.

For the first time, physicists at Harvard University have tracked individual atoms in a gas cooled to extreme temperatures as the particles reorganized into a crystal, a process driven by quantum mechanics. The research, described in the journal Science, opens new possibilities for particle-by-particle study and engineering of artificial quantum materials.

Boeing (NYSE: BA) today announced the completion of firm configuration for the 787-9 Dreamliner. Boeing reached this milestone after years of collaboration with airline customers and partners to determine the optimal configuration for the new stretch version of the Dreamliner.

NASA's Curiosity rover, coming together for a late 2011 launch to Mars, has a newly installed component: a key onboard X-ray instrument for helping the mission achieve its goals. Researchers will use Curiosity in an intriguing area of Mars to search for modern or ancient habitable environments, including any that may have also been favorable for preserving clues about life and environment.

As part of the ongoing effort to reduce national energy consumption through high-efficiency building technologies, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the availability of up to $15 million in funding to advance research, development, and market adoption of Solid-State Lighting (SSL) technologies. The department will select two to eight projects that will help accelerate the adoption of high-quality Light Emitting Diode (LED) and Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) products, which have the potential to significantly reduce energy use and limit carbon emissions.

Despite the frenzy surrounding the launch of the iPhone 4, Apple found time to file a second suit against competitor HTC.

In a June 21 document, filed in a Federal District Court in Delaware, Apple alleged that HTC infringes on two additional patents not mentioned in its first suit, filed in early March, which accused HTC of violating 20 patents related to the iPhone's interface, architecture and hardware. The two patents mentioned in the second suit relate to the same type of technology, which Apple described as a "system for real-time adaptation to changes in display configuration."

NASA's Deep Impact/EPOXI spacecraft will fly past Earth this Sunday (June 27). Mission navigators have tailored this trajectory so the spacecraft can "hitch a ride" on Earth's gravity field, which will help propel the mission toward its appointment with comet Hartley 2 this fall. At time of closest approach to Earth, the spacecraft will be about 30,400 kilometers (18,900 miles) above the South Atlantic.

Astronomers have uncovered what appear to be 14 of the coldest stars known in our universe. These failed stars, called brown dwarfs, are so cold and faint that they'd be impossible to see with current visible-light telescopes. Spitzer's infrared vision was able to pick out their feeble glow, much as a firefighter uses infrared goggles to find hot spots buried underneath a dark forest floor.

PASADENA, Calif. - A NASA-led research team has successfully demonstrated for the first time elements of a prototype tsunami prediction system that quickly and accurately assesses large earthquakes and estimates the size of resulting tsunamis.

Facebook privacy settings will become easier to change and users will be able to hide all of their information from third parties if they wish, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday.