ScienceDaily Technology Headlines -- for Sunday, April 3, 2011

ScienceDaily Technology Headlines

for Sunday, April 3, 2011

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Optical transistor advance: Physicists rotate beams of light with semiconductor (April 2, 2011) -- Physicists have managed to control the rotation of light by means of a ultra thin semiconductor. The advance could potentially be used to create a transistor that works with light instead of electrical current. ... > full story

New nanomaterial can detect and neutralize explosives (April 2, 2011) -- Scientists have described the development and successful initial tests of a spray-on material that both detects and renders harmless the genre of terrorist explosives responsible for government restrictions on liquids that can be carried onboard airliners. It is an ink-like explosive detector/neutralizer. ... > full story

Novel nanowires boost fuel cell efficiency (April 1, 2011) -- Engineers have created a new fuel cell catalyst system using nanowires made of a novel material that boosts long-term performance by 2.4 times compared to today's technology. The nanowires are made of a metal alloy known as a bulk metallic glass and have high surface areas, thereby exposing more of the catalyst. They also maintain their activity longer than traditional fuel cell catalyst systems. ... > full story

World first: Calculations with 14 quantum bits (April 1, 2011) -- Quantum physicists have now achieved controlled entanglement of 14 quantum bits (qubits) and, thus, realized the largest quantum register that has ever been produced. With this experiment the scientists have not only come closer to the realization of a quantum computer but they also show surprising results for the quantum mechanical phenomenon of entanglement. ... > full story

Sugar-grain sized meteorites rocked the climates of early Earth and Mars, according to new study (April 1, 2011) -- Bombardments of 'micro-meteorites' on Earth and Mars four billion years ago may have caused the planets' climates to cool dramatically, hampering their ability to support life, according to new research. ... > full story

Getting to know the strong force: One of the four fundamental forces of the universe (April 1, 2011) -- In new work, high-energy physicists have observed two long-sought quantum states in the bottomonium family of sub-atomic particles. The result will help researchers better understand one of the four fundamental forces of the universe -- the strong force -- that helps govern the interactions of matter. ... > full story

Mysteries of Jupiter and Saturn rings: Forensic sleuthing ties ring ripples to impacts (April 1, 2011) -- Like forensic scientists examining fingerprints at a cosmic crime scene, scientists working with data from NASA's Cassini, Galileo and New Horizons missions have traced telltale ripples in the rings of Saturn and Jupiter back to collisions with cometary fragments dating back more than 10 years ago. ... > full story

Professor uses math analytics to project 2011 Major League Baseball winners (April 1, 2011) -- For over a decade, a math professor has applied mathematical analysis to compute winning games for each Major League Baseball Team. ... > full story

Scientists reach beyond the clouds with a mobile phone app to explore the outer atmosphere (April 1, 2011) -- Engineering scientists have reached above the clouds in a first-of-its-kind experiment to develop new technologies that probe the stratosphere using an unmanned vehicle. ... > full story

Advance toward making biodegradable plastics from waste chicken feathers (April 1, 2011) -- In a scientific advance literally plucked from the waste heap, scientists have described a key step toward using the billions of pounds of waste chicken feathers produced each year to make one of the more important kinds of plastic. ... > full story

First non-trivial atom circuit: Progress toward an atom SQUID (March 31, 2011) -- Researchers have created the first non-trivial "atom circuit," a donut-shaped loop of ultracold gas atoms circulating in a current analogous to a ring of electrons in a superconducting wire. ... > full story

Astronomers take a look inside red giant stars (March 31, 2011) -- Astronomers have used data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft to see into the core of red giant stars. The scientists said the discovery will help astronomers learn more about red giants. Our sun will evolve into a red giant in about 5 billion years. ... > full story