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Molecules form 2-D patterns never before observed: Nanoscience experiments produce elusive 5-vertex tilings

Tessellation patterns that have fascinated mathematicians since Johannes Kepler worked out their systematics 400 years ago - and that more recently have caught the eye of both artists and crystallographers - can now be seen in the laboratory. They first took shape on a surface more perfectly two-dimensional than any sheet of writing paper, a single layer of atoms and molecules atop an atomically smooth substrate. Physicists coaxed these so-called Kepler tilings "onto the page" through guided self-assembly of nanostructures.

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The 2-D tessellation pattern known as the "semiregular snub square tiling" stands out clearly in this image, which combines scanning tunneling microscopy with computer graphics. The pattern, observed in a surface architecture just one molecule thick, was formed by self-assembly of linear organic linkers, imaged as rods, and lanthanide cerium centers, visualized as bright protrusions. The area shown measures less than 25 nanometers across.

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Hubble finds source of Magellanic Stream

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Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have solved the 40-year-old mystery of the origin of the Magellanic Stream, a long ribbon of gas stretching nearly halfway around the Milky Way. New Hubble observations reveal that most of this stream was stripped from the Small Magellanic Cloud some two billion years ago, with a smaller portion originating more recently from its larger neighbour.

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First Hundred Thousand Years of Our Universe

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The microwave sky as seen by Planck. Mottled structure of the CMB, the oldest light in the universe, is displayed in the high-latitude regions of the map. The central band is the plane of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

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Cientifica Releases the Graphene Opportunity Report: New report takes a rational view of graphene and identifies key opportunities

Cientifica today announced the availability of the Graphene Opportunity Report, authored by Tim Harper and Dexter Johnson, two of the best respected names in the nanotechnology world, with a history of being both rational and accurate.

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The Odd Couple

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ESO’s Very Large Telescope has captured an intriguing star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud — one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies. This sharp image reveals two distinctive glowing clouds of gas: red-hued NGC 2014, and its blue neighbour NGC 2020. While they are very different, they were both sculpted by powerful stellar winds from extremely hot newborn stars that also radiate into the gas, causing it to glow brightly.

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DNA nanorobots find and tag cellular targets

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center, working with their collaborators at the Hospital for Special Surgery, have created a fleet of molecular "robots" that can home in on specific human cells and mark them for drug therapy or destruction.

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This graphic shows a molecular robot (automaton) in action. To tag cells (grey circle) that display the Mi, Mj, and Mk receptors, five different components of a molecular robot are deployed. Each of the first three components consists of DNA and an antibody; one antibody binds to each receptor, bringing its DNA (represented by the colored lines) close together on the cell. The fourth DNA component, represented by the single red line, then initiates a chain reaction by pulling the red DNA strand away from the first antibody. That causes the blue DNA strand to change position, followed by the green DNA strand. In the final step, the last antibody pulls a fluorescent DNA strand (labeled F) from the fifth component, completing the action of the robot.

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Sunset in Mordor

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A star is born

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The Sun's Magnetic Field is about to Flip

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A new ScienceCast video anticipates the reversal of the sun's global magnetic field.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/05aug_fieldflip/

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Making a Mini Mona Lisa: Nanotechnique creates image 30 microns in width

The world's most famous painting has now been created on the world's smallest canvas. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have "painted" the Mona Lisa on a substrate surface approximately 30 microns in width - or one-third the width of a human hair.

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Gray Scale Mona Lisa

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Alternative materials could bring 'plasmonic' technologies

Materials research plays a vital role in transforming breakthrough scientific ideas into next-generation technology. Similar to the way silicon revolutionized the microelectronics industry, the proper materials can greatly impact the field of plasmonics and metamaterials. Currently, research in plasmonics and metamaterials lacks good material building blocks in order to realize useful devices. Such devices suffer from many drawbacks arising from the undesirable properties of their material building blocks, especially metals. There are many materials, other than conventional metallic components such as gold and silver, that exhibit metallic properties and provide advantages in device performance, design flexibility, fabrication, integration, and tenability.

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This graphic depicts a device created using "negatively refracting metamaterials" that could bring advances in applications including sensing, imaging, data storage, solar energy and optics. Purdue researchers are working on a range of options to overcome a fundamental obstacle in commercializing the materials. The small spheres at right represent a lattice of "meta-atoms" carefully designed and fabricated to produce a high-performance device.