Science

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Deep Impact Spacecraft Completes Rocket Burn

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Artist's concept of NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-313&rn=news.xml&rst=3541

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More efficient all-organic catalysts in fuel cells

Organic catalysts are a breakthrough in the quest for inexpensive and efficient materials for environmentally friendly production of energy in fuel cells. A new study by physicists at Umeå University in Sweden, published in ACS Nano, provides better knowledge about key processes in producing these catalysts.

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The world's needs for energy and raw materials are constantly growing, and the search for readily accessible and inexpensive material for energy applications is driving research teams all around the world. Fuel cells based on hydrogen and oxygen, for example, can convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy in an environmentally friendly way, as the byproduct is simply water.

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Production of Nano Adsorbent to Measure Environmental Poisons

Iranian researchers from University of Mohaqqeq Ardebili succeeded in the measurement of fenitrothion in various samples of soil, water, plasma, etc. by producing hydrophobic nano adsorbents and reducing fenitrothion.

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Fenitrothion is an insecticide and anti-rodent material which is widely used in farms and fields.

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Imec, Holst Centre and Panasonic Present Wireless Low-power Active-Electrode EEG Headset

Imec, Holst Centre and Panasonic have developed a new prototype of a wireless EEG (electroencephalogram) headset. The system combines ease-of-use with ultra-low power electronics. Continuous impedance monitoring and the use of active electrodes increases the quality of EEG signal recording compared to former versions of the system. The data are transmitted in real-time to a receiver located up to 10m from the system. The realization of this prototype is a next step towards reliable high-quality wearable EEG monitoring systems.

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The system integrates circuit level components including imec's active electrodes and EEG amplifier together with a microcontroller and a low power radio. It is capable of continuously recording 8 channel EEG signals while concurrently recording electrode-tissue contact impedance (ETI).

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Britain Unveils Major Effort to Fight Global Online Crime

Britain has launched a multi-million-dollar global initiative to help fight organized criminals and terrorists using the Internet. The plan was rolled out at an international gathering in Budapest aimed at making the Internet more secure.

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NASA Sends Yeast to Space on SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket

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NASA's Swift Satellite Discovers A New Black Hole In Our Galaxy

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Nanoparticles against aging

A team of Spanish scientists has developed an intelligent nanodevice that lays the foundations for the future development of new therapies against aging. The device consists of nanoparticles that can selectively release drugs in aged human cells. Its potential future use ranges from the treatment of diseases involving tissue or cellular degeneration such as cancer, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, among others, to accelerated aging disorders (progeria).

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Internalization and controlled release of the fluorescent molecule rhodamine in senescent fibroblasts of patients with dyskeratosis congenita, by MSN-S1 nanodevice.

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More certainty on uncertainty's quantum mechanical role: Researchers present findings at Frontiers in Optics 2012 that observation need not disturb systems as much as once thought, severing the act of measurement from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

Scientists who study the ultra-small world of atoms know it is impossible to make certain simultaneous measurements, for example finding out both the location and momentum of an electron, with an arbitrarily high level of precision. Because measurements disturb the system, increased certainty in the first measurement leads to increased uncertainty in the second. The mathematics of this unintuitive concept - a hallmark of quantum mechanics - were first formulated by the famous physicist Werner Heisenberg at the beginning of the 20th century and became known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Heisenberg and other scientists later generalized the equations to capture an intrinsic uncertainty in the properties of quantum systems, regardless of measurements, but the uncertainty principle is sometimes still loosely applied to Heisenberg's original measurement-disturbance relationship. Now researchers from the University of Toronto have gathered the most direct experimental evidence that Heisenberg's original formulation is wrong.

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A general method for measuring the precision and disturbance of any system. The system is weakly measured before the measurement apparatus and then strongly measured afterwards.

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NASA Mars Curiosity Rover Prepares to Study Martian Soil

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NASA's Mars rover Curiosity cut a wheel scuff mark into a wind-formed ripple at the "Rocknest" site to give researchers a better opportunity to examine the particle-size distribution of the material forming the ripple.