ScienceDaily Technology Headlines
for Thursday, December 30, 2010
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Catching video pirates: Invisible DNA-like fingerprint on video assist law enforcement (December 30, 2010) -- Scientists are applying an invisible DNA-like fingerprint to film, turning the footage into a series of numbers. When the film is then bootlegged onto the Internet, the invisible fingerprint goes with it, so that it can be traced over the Web -- back to the original video pirate, who can then be tracked and arrested. ... > full story
Vertical search across the educational horizon: New search tools could facilitate access to online educational resources (December 30, 2010) -- General search engines, while very effective at tracking down information, are nevertheless unstructured, which limits the user's ability to further automate the processing of the search results, researchers point out in a new article. ... > full story
'Breathalyzers' may be useful for medical diagnostics (December 29, 2010) -- Researchers have overcome a fundamental obstacle in developing breath-analysis technology to rapidly diagnose patients by detecting chemical compounds called "biomarkers" in a person's respiration in real time. ... > full story
New chemical-free, anti-bacterial plastic 'skins' inspired by dolphin skin (December 29, 2010) -- Taking inspiration from animals like dolphins and pilot whales that are known to have anti-fouling skins, researchers are using nanotechnology to create synthetic, chemical-free, anti-bacterial surfaces. ... > full story
Doctors on Facebook risk compromising doctor-patient relationship, study suggests (December 29, 2010) -- Doctors with a profile on the social networking site Facebook may be compromising the doctor-patient relationship, because they don't deploy sufficient privacy settings, new research suggests. ... > full story
SOHO spots 2,000th comet (December 29, 2010) -- As people on Earth celebrate the holidays and prepare to ring in the New Year, an ESA/NASA spacecraft has quietly reached its own milestone: on Dec. 26, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) discovered its 2,000th comet. ... > full story
Hot embossing glass -- to the nearest micrometer (December 29, 2010) -- The lens is what matters: if lens arrays could be made of glass, it would be possible to make more conveniently sized projectors. Researchers have now developed a process that allows this key component to be mass produced with extreme accuracy. ... > full story
When the black hole was born: Astronomers identify the epoch of the first fast growth of black holes (December 28, 2010) -- A team of astronomers has determined that the era of first fast growth of the most massive black holes occurred when the universe was only about 1.2 billion years old -- not two to four billion years old, as was previously believed -- and they're growing at a very fast rate. ... > full story
Major obstacles to cellulosic biofuel production overcome with new yeast strain (December 28, 2010) -- A newly engineered yeast strain can simultaneously consume two types of sugar from plants to produce ethanol, researchers report. The sugars are glucose, a six-carbon sugar that is relatively easy to ferment; and xylose, a five-carbon sugar that has been much more difficult to utilize in ethanol production. The new strain, made by combining, optimizing and adding to earlier advances, reduces or eliminates several major inefficiencies associated with current biofuel production methods. ... > full story
Choose a movie's plot -- while you watch it (December 28, 2010) -- Turbulence, a new film, uses complicated video coding procedures that allow the viewer to change the course of a movie in mid-plot. In theory, that means each new theater audience can see its very own version of a film. ... > full story
How often do giant black holes become hyperactive? (December 27, 2010) -- A new study from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory tells scientists how often the biggest black holes have been active over the last few billion years. This discovery clarifies how supermassive black holes grow and could have implications for how the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way will behave in the future. ... > full story
New kind of blast-resistant glass (December 27, 2010) -- Engineers are working to develop a blast-resistant glass that is lighter, thinner, and colorless, yet tough enough to withstand the force of an explosion, earthquake or hurricane winds. Today's blast-resistant windows are made of pure polymer layers. This new design is a plastic composite with an interlayer of polymer reinforced with glass fibers. It's only a quarter-inch thick. ... > full story
Supercomputing research opens doors for drug discovery (December 27, 2010) -- A quicker and cheaper technique to scan molecular databases could put scientists on the fast track to developing new drug treatments. ... > full story
Electronic medical records not always linked to better care in hospitals, study finds (December 27, 2010) -- Use of electronic health records by hospitals across the United States has had only a limited effect on improving the quality of medical care, according to a new study. ... > full story
Breakthrough towards lab-on-chip system for fast detection of single nucleotide variations in DNA (December 27, 2010) -- Scientists have developed critical components of a biomedical lab-on-chip sensor enabling fast detection of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in DNA, such as a miniaturized pump for on-chip generation of high pressures, a micropillar filter optimized for DNA separation achieving world-record resolution, and a SNP detector allowing on-chip detection using very small sample volumes. ... > full story
Ever-sharp urchin teeth may yield tools that never need honing (December 26, 2010) -- To survive in a tumultuous environment, sea urchins literally eat through stone, using their teeth to carve out nooks where the spiny creatures hide from predators and protect themselves from the crashing surf on the rocky shores and tide pools where they live. The rock-boring behavior is astonishing, scientists agree, but what is truly remarkable is that, despite constant grinding and scraping on stone, urchin teeth never, ever get dull. The secret of their ever-sharp qualities has puzzled scientists for decades, but now a new report by scientists has peeled back the toothy mystery. ... > full story
Affordable alternative to mega-laser X-FEL (December 26, 2010) -- Stanford University has an X-FEL (X-ray free electron laser) with a price tag of hundreds of millions. It provides images of "molecules in action," using a kilometer-long electron accelerator. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology have developed an alternative that can do many of the same things. However, this alternative fits on a tabletop, and costs around half a million euros. The researchers have jokingly called it "the poor man's X-FEL." ... > full story
Robotic surgery for head and neck cancer shows promise (December 26, 2010) -- Less-invasive robotic surgery for upper airway and digestive track malignant tumors is as effective as other minimally invasive surgical techniques based on patient function and survival, according to researchers. ... > full story
Stellar success for unprecedented close-up image of the Sun's fiery atmosphere (December 26, 2010) -- Astrophysicists have captured an unprecedented close-up image of the Sun's fiery atmosphere -- and, in doing so, have won a major new global award. ... > full story
NASA's next Mars rover to zap rocks with laser (December 24, 2010) -- A rock-zapping laser instrument on NASA's next Mars rover has roots in a demonstration that Roger Wiens saw 13 years ago in a colleague's room at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on the rover Curiosity can hit rocks with a laser powerful enough to excite a pinhead-size spot into a glowing, ionized gas. ChemCam then observes the flash through a telescope and analyzes the spectrum of light to identify the chemical elements in the target. ... > full story
Most challenging Christmas plastic wrapping could be recycled with new technology (December 24, 2010) -- On average we each consume 120 grams of plastic wrapping on Christmas gifts most of which is of a type which almost impossible to recycle. Now researchers have devised a new technique which could process 100% of Christmas and other household plastic instead of the tiny fraction that currently actually gets processed. ... > full story
Fast sepsis test can save lives (December 24, 2010) -- Blood poisoning can be fatal. If you suffer from sepsis, you used to have to wait as much as 48 hours for laboratory findings. A new diagnostic platform as big as a credit card will now supply the analysis after as little as an hour. This system is based on nanoparticles that are automatically guided by magnetic forces. ... > full story
Six years after the 2004 tsunami disaster, technical setup of the early warning sysem completed (December 24, 2010) -- Six years after the tsunami disaster of Dec. 26, 2004, the set-up of the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System for the Indian Ocean (GITEWS) has been completed. ... > full story
First high-temp spin-field-effect transistor created (December 24, 2010) -- Physicists have announced a breakthrough that gives a new spin to semiconductor nanoelectronics and the world of information technology. ... > full story
Mars movie: I'm dreaming of a blue sunset (December 24, 2010) -- A new Mars movie clip gives us a rover's-eye view of a bluish Martian sunset, while another clip shows the silhouette of the moon Phobos passing in front of the sun. ... > full story
How cells running on empty trigger fuel recycling (December 23, 2010) -- Researchers have discovered how AMPK, a metabolic master switch that springs into gear when cells run low on energy, revs up a cellular recycling program to free up essential molecular building blocks in times of need. ... > full story
Contract marks new generation for Deep Space Network (December 23, 2010) -- NASA has taken the next step toward a new generation of Deep Space Network antennas. A .7 million contract with General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies, San Jose, Calif., covers implementation of two additional 34-meter (112-foot) antennas at Canberra, Australia. This is part of Phase I of a plan to eventually retire the network's aging 70-meter-wide (230-foot-wide) antennas. ... > full story
Better control of building blocks for quantum computer (December 23, 2010) -- Scientists in the Netherlands have succeeded in controlling the building blocks of a future super-fast quantum computer. They are now able to manipulate these building blocks (qubits) with electrical rather than magnetic fields, as has been the common practice up till now. They have also been able to embed these qubits into semiconductor nanowires. ... > full story
A methane-metal marriage: Scientists insert metal atoms into methane gas molecules (December 23, 2010) -- Scientists have inserted metal atoms into methane gas molecules and obtained a detailed structure of the resulting molecule. The discovery could be a key step in making hydrocarbons available to chemical production and broadening our understanding of how nature uses metals in the molecules of living organisms. ... > full story
Researchers train software to help monitor climate change (December 23, 2010) -- A computer program that automatically analyzes mounds of satellite images and other data could help climate scientists keep track of complex, constantly changing environmental conditions. ... > full story
Cornstarch might have ended the Gulf spill agony sooner (December 23, 2010) -- The attempt to kill the Macondo well in the US Gulf by pouring heavy mud down the well bore may have been defeated by an instability that led to turbulent mixing of the oil and the mud. Physicist Jonathan Katz had suggested a simple solution to the problem: cornstarch. Experiments described in a new article suggest his solution might have worked. ... > full story
Cassini marks holidays with dramatic views of Saturn's moon Rhea (December 23, 2010) -- Newly released for the holidays, images of Saturn's second largest moon Rhea obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft show dramatic views of fractures cutting through craters on the moon's surface, revealing a history of tectonic rumbling. The images are among the highest-resolution views ever obtained of Rhea. ... > full story
Cassini finishes sleigh ride by Saturn's icy moons (December 23, 2010) -- On the heels of a successful close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus, NASA's Cassini spacecraft is returning images of Enceladus and the nearby moon Dione. ... > full story
New annotated database sifts through mountains of sequencing data to find gene promoters (December 23, 2010) -- Researchers announce the release of an online tool that will help scientists find "gene promoters" -- regions along a DNA strand that tell a cell's transcription machinery where to start reading in order to create a particular protein. The Mammalian Promoter Database (MPromDb) integrates sequencing data generated at Wistar with publicly available data on human and mouse genomics. MPromDb pinpoints known promoters and predicts where new ones are likely to be found. ... > full story
New single-pixel photo camera developed (December 22, 2010) -- Researchers have developed a new tool for the field of scientific imaging. A sensor of just one pixel can record high-quality images and distribute them securely, that is, without allowing unauthorized people access to information. ... > full story
Muscle filaments make mechanical strain visible (December 22, 2010) -- Plastics manufacturers face a serious hurdle in their quest for new developments: Substantial influences of the microscopic material structure on mechanical material properties cannot be observed directly. Synthetic polymer molecules are too small for microscopic observation in mechanical experiments. Physicists have now developed a method that allows just these kinds of measurements. ... > full story
A robot with finger-tip sensitivity (December 22, 2010) -- Two arms, three cameras, finger-tip sensitivity and a variety of facial expressions -- these are the distinguishing features of the pi4-workerbot. Similar in size to a human being, it can be employed at any modern workstation in an industrial manufacturing environment. Its purpose is to help keep European production competitive. ... > full story
New ideas enhance efficiency of wind turbines (December 22, 2010) -- One issue confronting the efficiency of wind as a promising renewable energy source is the wind itself -- specifically, its changeability. While the aerodynamic performance of a wind turbine is best under steady wind flow, the efficiency of the blades degrades when exposed to conditions such as wind gusts, turbulent flow, upstream turbine wakes and wind shear. Now, a new type of air-flow technology may soon increase the efficiency of large wind turbines under many different wind conditions. ... > full story
Discovery of new molecule could lead to more efficient rocket fuel (December 22, 2010) -- Trinitramid is the name of the new molecule that may be a component in future rocket fuel. This fuel could be 20 to 30 percent more efficient in comparison with the best rocket fuels available today, according to researchers in Sweden. ... > full story
Laser twinkles in rare color (December 22, 2010) -- December is a time for twinkling lights, and scientists are delivering. They've just produced a long-sought, rare color of laser light 100 times brighter than that generated anywhere else. The Free-Electron Laser delivered vacuum ultraviolet light in the form of 10 eV photons (124 nanometers). This color is called vacuum ultraviolet because it's absorbed by molecules in air, requiring its use in a vacuum. ... > full story
Pen to measure and reduce stress (December 22, 2010) -- In the future, more and more products will be able to interpret what users are feeling and use that information in a smart way. To illustrate the power of this theory, researchers have developed a pen which can measure the stress levels of the person using it, and can actually help to reduce that stress. In experiments, the heart rate of people who used the anti-stress pen fell by an average of five percent. ... > full story
Universe's most massive stars can form in near isolation, new study finds (December 22, 2010) -- New observations by astronomers add weight to the theory that the most massive stars in the universe could form essentially anywhere, including in near isolation; they don't need a large stellar cluster nursery. ... > full story
New Miscanthus hybrid discovery in Japan could open doors for biofuel industry (December 22, 2010) -- In the minds of many, Miscanthus x giganteus is the forerunner in the race of viable feedstock options for lignocellulosic bioenergy production. But researchers believe "putting all their eggs in one basket" could be a big mistake. Scientists recently reported the first natural occurrence in several decades of Miscanthus hybrid plants in Japan. ... > full story
Smarter systems help busy doctors remember (December 22, 2010) -- Busy doctors can miss important details about a patient's care during an office exam. To prevent that, researchers have created a whip smart-assistant for physicians -- a new system using electronic health records that alerts doctors during an exam when a patient's care is amiss. A yellow light on their computer alerts them to problems. The new system, tied to doctor performance reviews, improved patient care and boosted preventive screenings. ... > full story
Scientific balloon launches from Antarctica to study effects of cosmic rays on Earth (December 22, 2010) -- NASA and the National Science Foundation launched a scientific balloon on Dec. 20, Eastern Standard time, to study the effects of cosmic rays on Earth. It was the first of five scientific balloons scheduled to launch from Antarctica in December. ... > full story
Biomagnification of nanomaterials in simple food chain demonstrated (December 21, 2010) -- Researchers have produced a groundbreaking study of how nanoparticles are able to biomagnify in a simple microbial food chain. ... > full story
Engineers take plasmon lasers out of deep freeze (December 21, 2010) -- Researchers have developed a new technique that allows plasmon lasers to operate at room temperature, overcoming a major barrier to practical utilization of the technology. Previous plasmon lasers required temperatures as low as minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit to function properly. ... > full story
New collage of nearby galaxies from WISE space telescope (December 21, 2010) -- A new collage of galaxies from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, showcases the many "flavors" that galaxies come in, from star-studded spirals to bulging ellipticals to those paired with other companion galaxies. ... > full story
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