ScienceDaily Technology Headlines -- for Saturday, February 5, 2011

ScienceDaily Technology Headlines

for Saturday, February 5, 2011

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New images show cloud exploding from Sun ripples like clouds on Earth (February 4, 2011) -- Physicists studying new images of clouds of material exploding from the Sun have spotted instabilities forming in that exploding cloud that are similar to those seen in clouds in Earth's atmosphere. ... > full story

New wave: Efficient source of terahertz radiation developed (February 4, 2011) -- Researchers have developed a laser-based source of terahertz radiation that is unusually efficient and less prone to damage than similar systems. The technology might be useful in applications such as detecting trace gases or imaging weapons in security screening. ... > full story

Quantum quirk: Scientists pack atoms together to prevent collisions in atomic clock (February 4, 2011) -- In a paradox typical of the quantum world, scientists have eliminated collisions between atoms in an atomic clock by packing the atoms closer together. The surprising discovery can boost the performance of experimental atomic clocks made of thousands or tens of thousands of neutral atoms trapped by intersecting laser beams. ... > full story

Scientists use quantum mechanics to show that glass will melt near absolute zero (February 4, 2011) -- By cooling glass to a temperature near absolute zero (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit), a professor is demonstrating that, at the quantum level, glass exhibits a very different behavior than might be expected from traditional physics -- in fact, it melts. ... > full story

New model for how Nevada gold deposits formed may help in gold exploration (February 4, 2011) -- Researchers have devised a new model for how Nevada's gold deposits formed, which may help in exploration efforts for new gold deposits. ... > full story

Northern Mars landscape actively changing (February 4, 2011) -- Sand dunes in a vast area of northern Mars long thought to be frozen in time are changing with both sudden and gradual motions, as revealed by images from a high-resolution camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO. The new findings help scientists to better understand what features and landscapes on Mars can be explained by current processes and which require environmental conditions no longer present on the planet. ... > full story

Microbiologists aim to optimize bio-ethanol production (February 4, 2011) -- Researchers are working to resolve an emerging "food versus fuel" rivalry: they are investigating how to most effectively utilize residual field crop material for industrial production of bio-ethanol. Getting a handle on the full "toolbox" that soil bacteria use to transform cellulose into sugar could help to optimize combinations of enzymes for industrial use, potentially leading to development of a specialized degradation tool for every kind of plant waste containing cellulose. ... > full story

Same rules apply to some experimental systems regardless of scale (February 4, 2011) -- New experiments show that common scientific rules can apply to significantly different phenomena operating on vastly different scales. The results raise the possibility of making discoveries pertaining to phenomena that would be too large or impractical to recreate in the laboratory. ... > full story

Ionization by strong laser fields: Understanding the 'Ionization Surprise' (February 4, 2011) -- In 2009 researchers found an "ionization surprise" that defied explanation. Until that time, it had been commonly thought that the ionization of atoms by strong laser fields was well-understood, but novel experiments where rare gas atoms were ionized using relatively long (few-micrometers) wavelength laser light suddenly revealed an unexpected and universal low-energy feature that defied explanation. Now, scientists have provided an explanation. ... > full story

Effective search terms yield the right information (February 4, 2011) -- It does not matter how good a search engine is if the person doing a search does not ask for the desired information in the right way. So far, a great deal of the research on information retrieval has aimed to develop search algorithms and powerful search engines. Yet, a new doctoral thesis on natural language processing shows that it is also important to look at the terms people type into the search box. ... > full story

Missing link between young, old galaxies? Gas jet galaxy could explain how starforming galaxies become red and dead (February 3, 2011) -- Astronomers may have found the missing link between young, gas-filled, star-forming galaxies and older, gas-depleted galaxies typically characterized as "red and dead." New research finds that a long-known "early-type" galaxy, NGC 1266, is expelling molecular gas, mostly hydrogen, from its core. The unusual galaxy may help explain how gas-filled galaxies rid themselves of their molecular gas. ... > full story

Communication pathways within proteins may yield new drug targets to stop superbugs (February 3, 2011) -- A biophysicist has developed a new method to identify communication pathways connecting distant regions within proteins. With this tool, the researcher has identified a mechanism for cooperative behavior within an entire molecule, a finding that suggests that in the future it may be possible to design drugs that target anywhere along the length of a molecule's communication pathway rather than only in a single location as they do today. ... > full story