Science

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U.S. Releases Enhanced Shuttle Land Elevation Data

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Elevation data at the highest possible resolution from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission in February 2000 are now being released for the first time for most of the African continent. This color shaded relief image shows the extent of SRTM digital elevation data for Africa.

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NASA Telescopes Find Clear Skies and Water Vapor on Exoplanet

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A Neptune-size planet with a clear atmosphere is shown crossing in front of its star in this artist's depiction.

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Toward optical chips: A promising light source for optoelectronic chips can be tuned to different frequencies

Chips that use light, rather than electricity, to move data would consume much less power — and energy efficiency is a growing concern as chips' transistor counts rise.

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The MIT researchers deposited triangular layers of molybdenum disulfide on a silicon substrate. At left, regions highlighted in blue indicate where the layers overlap.

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Big Results Require Big Ambitions: Three young UCSB faculty receive CAREER awards from the National Science Foundation

Three UC Santa Barbara researchers — a computer scientist, a chemical engineer and a physicist — are among the recent recipients of the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. The NSF CAREER Program offers the NSF's most prestigious awards to young faculty who most effectively integrate research and education.

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This image depicts a nanoemulsion being used to template sophisticated materials

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NASA Mars Spacecraft Ready for Sept. 21 Orbit Insertion

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This artist concept depicts the process of orbital insertion of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft.

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Five Things About NASA's ISS-RapidScat

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ISS-RapidScat will have a close-up view of ocean winds from its perch on the International Space Station, as this 2010 astronaut photo of Hurricane Earl illustrates.

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Elusive Quantum Transformations Found Near Absolute Zero: Brookhaven Lab and Stony Brook University researchers measured the quantum fluctuations behind a novel magnetic material's ultra-cold ferromagnetic phase transition

Heat drives classical phase transitions-think solid, liquid, and gas-but much stranger things can happen when the temperature drops. If phase transitions occur at the coldest temperatures imaginable, where quantum mechanics reigns, subtle fluctuations can dramatically transform a material.

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Rendering of the near–perfect crystal structure of the yttrium–iron–aluminum compound used in the study. The two–dimensional layers of the material allowed the scientists to isolate the magnetic ordering that emerged near absolute zero.

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'Squid skin' metamaterials project yields vivid color display: Rice lab creates RGB color display technology with aluminum nanorods

The quest to create artificial "squid skin" -- camouflaging metamaterials that can "see" colors and automatically blend into the background -- is one step closer to reality, thanks to a breakthrough color-display technology unveiled this week by Rice University's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP).

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Rice researchers tune the color output of each array both by varying the length of the nanorods and by adjusting the length of the spaces between nanorods.

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UT Arlington research uses nanotechnology to help cool electrons with no external sources

A team of researchers has discovered a way to cool electrons to -228 °C without external means and at room temperature, an advancement that could enable electronic devices to function with very little energy.

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A chip, which contains nanoscale structures that enable electron cooling at room temperature, is pictured.

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Advanced Light Source Sets Microscopy Record| Berkeley Lab Researchers Achieve Highest Resolution Ever with X-ray Microscopy

A record-setting X-ray microscopy experiment may have ushered in a new era for nanoscale imaging. Working at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), a collaboration of researchers used low energy or "soft" X-rays to image structures only five nanometers in size. This resolution, obtained at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, is the highest ever achieved with X-ray microscopy.

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Ptychographic image using soft X-rays of lithium iron phosphate nanocrystal after partial dilithiation. The delithiated region is shown in red.