Science

Tags:

Five Things About NASA's ISS-RapidScat

earth20140918-640_0.jpg
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.

Tags:

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.

50131_0.jpg
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.

Tags:

'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).

50130.jpg
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.

Tags:

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.

50113.jpg
A chip, which contains nanoscale structures that enable electron cooling at room temperature, is pictured.

Tags:

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.

50114.jpg
Ptychographic image using soft X-rays of lithium iron phosphate nanocrystal after partial dilithiation. The delithiated region is shown in red.

Tags:

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover Arrives at Martian Mountain

pia18473-440_0.jpg

Tags:

First Map of Rosetta's Comet

pia18429-640_0.jpg
This view of the "belly" and part of the "head" of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko indicates several morphologically different regions.

Tags:

How skin falls apart: The pathology of autoimmune skin disease is revealed at the nanoscale

University at Buffalo researchers and colleagues studying a rare, blistering disease have discovered new details of how autoantibodies destroy healthy cells in skin. This information provides new insights into autoimmune mechanisms in general and could help develop and screen treatments for patients suffering from all autoimmune diseases, estimated to affect 5-10 percent of the U.S. population.

50103.jpg
UB researchers have pinpointed important changes in cellular behavior that occur in Pemphigus Vulgaris, the rare, blistering skin disease shown in this microscopic image.

Tags:

Molecular self-assembly controls graphene-edge configuration

A research team headed by Prof. Patrick Han and Prof. Taro Hitosugi at the Advanced Institute of Materials Research (AIMR), Tohoku University discovered a new bottom-up fabrication method that produces defect-free graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with periodic zigzag-edge regions. This method, which controls GNR growth direction and length distribution, is a stepping stone towards future graphene-device fabrication by self-assembly.

50104.jpg
Graphene nanoribbons are fabricated by molecular assembly on a Cu(111) substrate. On this surface system, GNRs on grow in six azimuthal directions exclusively. White lines in the inset highlight the zigzag edges of a ribbon.

Tags:

This Star Cluster Is Not What It Seems

eso1428a_0.jpg
This new image from the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in northern Chile shows a vast collection of stars, the globular cluster Messier 54. This cluster looks very similar to many others but it has a secret. Messier 54 doesn’t belong to the Milky Way, but is part of a small satellite galaxy, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. This unusual parentage has now allowed astronomers to use the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to test whether there are also unexpectedly low levels of the element lithium in stars outside the Milky Way.