Science

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Confirmation of Toasty TESS Planet Leads to Surprising Find of Promising World

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This diagram shows the layout of the GJ 357 system. Planet d orbits within the star’s so-called habitable zone, the orbital region where liquid water can exist on a rocky planet’s surface. If it has a dense atmosphere, which will take future studies to determine, GJ 357 d could be warm enough to permit the presence of liquid water.

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New Recipes for Taking Salt Out of Seawater

Promising design rules for cost-effective desalination rely on just a few ingredients: ionic liquids plus low-cost geothermal or solar heat, or waste heat from machines

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The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant near U.S. Route 101 (the Pacific Coast Highway) in the northern portion of San Diego County; Carlsbad, California.

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Siberian Smoke Heading Towards U.S. and Canada

Fires in the Siberian area of Russia are usually quite severe by this time of year and 2019 is no exception. This NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP image taken on July 30, 2019 shows dozens to hundreds of fires burning across a large expanse of this mostly wilderness area of Russia. In fact, this year has been worse than most. Scientists have seen an unprecedented number of wildfires across the region since June. More than 2.7 million hectares (6,671,845 acres) of remote forest is currently burning across six Siberian and Far East regions, according to Russia’s Federal Forestry Agency. That's roughly the size of Massachusetts.

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Siberian wildfires

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Siberian wildfires.

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Washed up: Sargassum blankets beaches

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M2 Coating Completed

If shiny things get your attention, prepare to be dazzled by the newly coated LSST Secondary Mirror (M2)! The mirror received its first reflective coating on July 16, 2019, at the LSST summit facility building on Cerro Pachón. The 3.4-meter M2 mirror arrived on the summit in December 2018, after being shipped from Rochester, NY, where it was fabricated by L3Harris (formerly Harris Corporation). Since its arrival the container holding the mirror has been stored inside the LSST observatory building, on the roof of the camera clean room. Until the coating campaign, the mirror hadn't been removed from the box, although careful inspections of all parts of the mirror were conducted to make sure no damage occurred during shipping.

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A Stellar Stream in the Milky Way Provides Evidence of Dark Substructure

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A model of the stars in the GD-1 stellar stream overlaid on data collected by the Gaia spacecraft. The color of each stat represents how strongly its orbit was affected by the unknown dark matter substructure of the galaxy. White represents a significant change from normal, while red represents almost no difference.

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Transforming biology to design next-generation computers, using a surprise ingredient: Purdue University researchers turned to biology to help in the design of next-generation computers

Moore's law - which says the number of components that could be etched onto the surface of a silicon wafer would double every two years - has been the subject of recent debate. The quicker pace of computing advancements in the past decade have led some experts to say Moore's law, the brainchild of Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in the 1960s, no longer applies. Particularly of concern, next-generation computing devices require features smaller than 10 nanometers - driving unsustainable increases in fabrication costs.

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A Purdue University group has found ways of transforming structures that occur naturally in cell membranes to create other architectures, like parallel 1nm-wide line segments, more applicable to computing.

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Technologies for the Sixth Generation Cellular Network: Ultra-rapid Electro-optical Modulators Convert Terahertz into Optical Data Signals - Publication in Nature Photonics

Future wireless data networks will have to reach higher transmission rates and shorter delays, while supplying an increasing number of end devices. For this purpose, network structures consisting of many small radio cells will be required. To connect these cells, high-performance transmission lines at high frequencies up to the terahertz range will be needed. Moreover, seamless connection to glass fiber networks must be ensured, if possible. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) use ultra-rapid electro-optical modulators to convert terahertz data signals into optical signals.

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Seamless integration of wireless transmission lines into glass-fiber networks results in high-performance data networks. A detailed description of the figure is given at the end of the text.

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TESS discovers three new planets nearby, including temperate “sub-Neptune”

Planetary system orbiting an unusually quiet star is ideal for future habitability searches.

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This infographic illustrates key features of the TOI 270 system, located about 73 light-years away in the southern constellation Pictor. The three known planets were discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite through periodic dips in starlight caused by each orbiting world. Insets shows information about the planets, including their correct relative sizes, and how they compare to Earth. Temperatures given for TOI 270 planets are equilibrium temperatures, calculated without the warming effects of any possible atmospheres.