ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

---

• Evidence of life on Mars could come from Martian moon Phobos
• First-ever changes in an exoplanet atmosphere detected
• Has the speediest pulsar been found?
• Improving efficiencies in fuel, chemical and pharmaceutical industries
• Plasma startup creates high-energy light to make smaller microchips
• Programmable DNA scissors found for bacterial immune system
• Cassini finds likely subsurface ocean on Saturn's moon Titan
• Milky Way struck 100 million years ago, still rings like a bell
• With mind-reading speller, free-for-all conversations that are silent and still
• Global migration trends discovered in email data
• Paint-on lithium battery can be applied to virtually any surface
• Acoustic tweezers capture and manipulate tiny creatures with ultrasound
• Space tornadoes power the atmosphere of the Sun
• Dramatic change spotted on a faraway planet
• Pressure testing of new Alvin Personnel Sphere successful

Evidence of life on Mars could come from Martian moon Phobos Posted: 28 Jun 2012 10:54 PM PDT A mission to a Martian moon could return with alien life, according to experts, but don't expect the invasion scenario presented by summer blockbusters like "Men in Black 3" or "Prometheus." A sample from the moon Phobos, scientists believe, would almost surely contain Martian material blasted off from large asteroid impacts. If life on Mars exists or existed within the last 10 million years, a mission to Phobos could yield our first evidence of life beyond Earth.

First-ever changes in an exoplanet atmosphere detected Posted: 28 Jun 2012 09:55 PM PDT Astronomers have using data made an unparalleled observation, detecting significant changes in the atmosphere of a planet located beyond our solar system.

Has the speediest pulsar been found? Posted: 28 Jun 2012 09:54 PM PDT The fastest moving pulsar may have been found about 30,000 light years from Earth. This object is known as IGR J1104-6103 and may be racing away from a supernova remnant at about 6 million miles per hour. If confirmed, this would challenge theorists to create models that explain such super speeds out of supernova explosions.

Improving efficiencies in fuel, chemical and pharmaceutical industries Posted: 28 Jun 2012 04:30 PM PDT Engineering researchers have made a major breakthrough in developing a catalyst used during chemical reactions in the production of gasoline, plastics, biofuels, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals. The discovery could lead to major efficiencies and cost-savings in these multibillion-dollar industries.

Plasma startup creates high-energy light to make smaller microchips Posted: 28 Jun 2012 04:30 PM PDT A pair of aeronautical engineers working on fusion energy -- harnessing the energy-generating mechanism of the sun -- may have found a way to etch the next generation of microchips.

Programmable DNA scissors found for bacterial immune system Posted: 28 Jun 2012 04:30 PM PDT Scientists have discovered a programmable RNA complex in the bacterial immune system that guides the cleaving of DNA at targeted sites. This discovery opens a new door to genome editing with implications for the green chemistry microbial-based production of advanced biofuels, therapeutic drugs and other valuable chemical products.

Cassini finds likely subsurface ocean on Saturn's moon Titan Posted: 28 Jun 2012 04:00 PM PDT Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have revealed Saturn's moon Titan likely harbors a layer of liquid water under its ice shell. Researchers saw a large amount of squeezing and stretching as the moon orbited Saturn. They deduced that if Titan were composed entirely of stiff rock, the gravitational attraction of Saturn would cause bulges, or solid "tides," on the moon only 3 feet (1 meter) in height. Spacecraft data show Saturn creates solid tides approximately 30 feet (10 meters) in height, which suggests Titan is not made entirely of solid rocky material.

Milky Way struck 100 million years ago, still rings like a bell Posted: 28 Jun 2012 02:45 PM PDT Astronomers have discovered evidence that our Milky Way had an encounter with a small galaxy or massive dark matter structure perhaps as recently as 100 million years ago, and as a result of that encounter it is still ringing like a bell.

With mind-reading speller, free-for-all conversations that are silent and still Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:44 PM PDT Researchers have come up with a device that may enable people who are completely unable to speak or move at all to nevertheless manage unscripted back-and-forth conversation. The key to such silent and still communication is the first real-time, brain-scanning speller.

Global migration trends discovered in email data Posted: 28 Jun 2012 01:43 PM PDT For the first time comparable migration data is available for almost every country of the world. To date, records were incompatible between nations and especially by gender and age, nonexistent. New research for the first time provides a rich migration database by compiling the global flow of millions of emails.

Paint-on lithium battery can be applied to virtually any surface Posted: 28 Jun 2012 11:56 AM PDT Researchers have developed a paint-on lithium-ion battery that can be applied to virtually any surface. The materials were airbrushed onto ceramic bathroom tiles, flexible polymers, glass, stainless steel and even a mug to see how well they would bond with each substrate.

Acoustic tweezers capture and manipulate tiny creatures with ultrasound Posted: 28 Jun 2012 11:55 AM PDT Bioengineers and biochemists are using a miniaturized ultrasound device to capture and manipulate biological materials, such as the tiny roundworm, C. elegans.

Space tornadoes power the atmosphere of the Sun Posted: 28 Jun 2012 10:14 AM PDT Mathematicians have discovered tornadoes in space which could hold the key to power the atmosphere of the Sun to millions of kelvin.

Dramatic change spotted on a faraway planet Posted: 28 Jun 2012 10:09 AM PDT Astronomers have seen dramatic changes in the upper atmosphere of a faraway planet. Just after a violent flare on its parent star bathed it in intense X-ray radiation, the planet's atmosphere gave off a powerful burst of evaporation. The observations give a tantalizing glimpse of the changing climates and weather on planets outside our Solar System.

Pressure testing of new Alvin Personnel Sphere successful Posted: 27 Jun 2012 10:21 AM PDT The human-occupied submersible Alvin reached a major milestone in its upgrade project on June 22 when its new titanium personnel sphere successfully completed pressure testing, reports the vehicle's operator.

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Top Technology News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610