Science

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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.

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Cobalt Replacements Make Solar Cells More Sustainable

Researchers at the University of Basel have successfully replaced the rare element iodine in copper-based dye-sensitized solar cells by the more abundant element cobalt, taking a step forward in the development of environmentally friendly energy production.

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The dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) converts light to electricity. A coloured copper complex absorbs light and injects an electron into a semiconductor. This electron then passes around a circuit, does work, and is eventually returned to the copper to regenerate the dye by a transport system. In this new work, the cobalt complex acts as an electron transport agent between the cathode and the dye molecules allowing the photocurrent to flow.

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When galaxies switch off

Some galaxies hit a point in their lives when their star formation is snuffed out, and they become "quenched". Quenched galaxies in the distant past appear to be much smaller than the quenched galaxies in the Universe today. This has always puzzled astronomers — how can these galaxies grow if they are no longer forming stars? A team of astronomers has now used a huge set of Hubble observations to give a surprisingly simple answer to this long-standing cosmic riddle.

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Galaxies Fed by Funnels of Fuel

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Created with the help of supercomputers, this still from a simulation shows the formation of a massive galaxy during the first 2 billion years of the universe. Hydrogen gas is gray, young stars appear blue, and older stars are red. The simulation reveals that gas flows into galaxies along filaments akin to cosmic bendy, or swirly, straws.

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Auto lubricant could rev up speed of medical imaging

Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have built a device that could speed up medical imaging without breaking the bank.

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Shown is an experimental photodetector made out of amorphous silicon and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). The two semiconductors together form a high speed photodetector.

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Faster Treatment of Third-Degree Burns by Nanofibrous Coatings

Taking into consideration the biological and high antimicrobial properties of chitosan and the characteristics of nanofibers, including porosity and 3-dimensional structure, Iranian researchers succeeded in the production of antibacterial nanofibrous coatings with the ability to cure the wounds of third-degree burns.

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VCU Physicists Discover Theoretical Possibility of Large, Hollow Magnetic Cage Molecules: New molecules could be larger than the original Buckminster fullerene with potential applications in technology and health care

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have discovered, in theory, the possibility of creating large, hollow magnetic cage molecules that could one day be used in medicine as a drug delivery system to non-invasively treat tumors, and in other emerging technologies.

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Illustration depicts a Mn24C18 cluster carrying a magnetic moment of 70 Bohr magnetons.

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Tiny, brightly shining silicon crystals could be safe for deep-tissue imaging: In a new study, the crystals had no toxic effects in non-human primates

Tiny silicon crystals caused no health problems in monkeys three months after large doses were injected, marking a step forward in the quest to bring such materials into clinics as biomedical imaging agents, according to a new study.

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Bright light emission from silicon quantum dots in a cuvette. The image is from a camera that captures the near-infrared light that the quantum dots emit. The light emission shown is a psuedo color, as near-infrared light does not fall in the visible spectrum.