Science

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NASA Mars Orbiter Spies Rover Near Martian Butte

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NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and tracks from its driving are visible in this view from orbit, acquired on April 11, 2014, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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Nanocrystalline cellulose modified into an efficient viral inhibitor

Researchers have succeeded in creating a surface on nano-sized cellulose crystals that imitates a biological structure. The surface adsorbs viruses and disables them. The results can prove useful in the development of antiviral ointments and surfaces, for instance.

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Ari Hinkkanen and Janne Ruotsalainen, University of Eastern Finland, and Aalto University

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Engineers develop new materials for hydrogen storage

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have created new ceramic materials that could be used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently.

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The researchers have created for the first time compounds made from mixtures of calcium hexaboride, strontium and barium hexaboride. The resulting ceramics are essentially crystalline structures in a cage of boron. To store hydrogen, the researchers would swap the calcium, strontium and boron with hydrogen atoms within the cage.

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Scientists open door to better solar cells, superconductors and hard-drives: Research enhances understanding of materials interfaces

Using DESY's bright research light sources, scientists have opened a new door to better solar cells, novel superconductors and smaller hard-drives. The research reported in the scientific journal Nature Communications this week enhances the understanding of the interface of two materials, where completely new properties can arise. With their work, the team of Prof. Andrivo Rusydi from the National University of Singapore and Prof. Michael Rübhausen from the Hamburg Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) have solved a long standing mystery in the physics of condensed matter. CFEL is a cooperation of DESY, the University of Hamburg and the Max Planck Society.

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Left: If the lanthanum aluminate layer (blue) is less than three unit cells, the electrons redistribute in sub-layers. Right: If the layer has four unit cells or more, some electrons migrate to the interface.

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Quantum manipulation: Filling the gap between quantum and classical world

Quantum superposition is a fundamental and also intriguing property of the quantum world. Because of superposition, a quantum system can be in two different states simultaneously, like a cat that can be both "dead" and "alive" at the same time. However, this anti-intuitive phenomenon cannot be observed directly, because whenever a classical measuring tool touches a quantum system, it immediately collapse into a classical state. On the other hand, quantum superposition is also the core of quantum computer's enormous computational power. A quantum computer can easily break the widely used RSA (Rivest, Shamir and Adleman) security system with Shor's algorithm. But for now, quantum computation still suffers from the decoherence induced by environment. Obviously, the key to manipulate a quantum system is to make it stay coherent as long as possible, to achieve this, one need to isolate the system from its environment. "For ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems", Serge Haroche and David Wineland won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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This graphic shows the relationships between fundamental quantum mechanics and the technology of the classical world.

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The Tadpole and the Wriggler

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NASA Cassini Images May Reveal Birth of a Saturn Moon

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The disturbance visible at the outer edge of Saturn's A ring in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft could be caused by an object replaying the birth process of icy moons.

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Better solar cells, better LED light and vast optical possibilities

Changes at the atom level in nanowires offer vast possibilities for improvement of solar cells and LED light. NTNU-researchers have discovered that by tuning a small strain on single nanowires they can become more effective in LEDs and solar cells.

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Electron microscope picture of wurtzite GaA/AIGaAs core-shell nanowires.

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Effects of Carbon Nanotubes Studied on Pregnant Mothers

Iranian researchers from Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in association with researchers from Veterinary Medicine, Razi University of Kermanshah, studied the effects of the use of carbon nanotubes on pregnant mothers.

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Salt marsh, Kazakhstan

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