ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

---

• Natural gas saves water, even when factoring in water lost to hydraulic fracturing
• Optical rogue waves: The storm in a test tube
• Producing electricity on the Moon at night
• Dual catalysts help synthesize alpha-olefins into new organic compounds
• Is space-time smooth or grainy? Testing Einstein's laws of Special Relativity
• New method for reconstructing long-gone historic buildings in 3-D
• Diamonds in Earth's oldest zircons are nothing but laboratory contamination
• 'Macrocells' influence corrosion rate of submerged marine concrete structures
• First plant-based 'microswimmers' could propel drugs to the right location
• Toward lowering titanium's cost and environmental footprint for lightweight products
• Polymer coatings based on molecular structures
• Companion's comets the key to curious exoplanet system?

Natural gas saves water, even when factoring in water lost to hydraulic fracturing Posted: 20 Dec 2013 09:08 AM PST A new study finds that in Texas, the US state that annually generates the most electricity, the transition from coal to natural gas for electricity generation is saving water and making the state less vulnerable to drought.

Optical rogue waves: The storm in a test tube Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:36 AM PST Random processes in nature often underlie a so-called normal distribution that enables reliable estimation for the appearance of extreme statistical events. Meteorological systems are an exception to this rule, with extreme events appearing at a much higher rate than could be predicted from long-term observation at much lower magnitude. One such example is the appearance of unexpectedly strong storms, yet another are rare reports of waves of extreme height in the ocean, which are also known as rogue waves or monster waves.

Producing electricity on the Moon at night Posted: 20 Dec 2013 08:34 AM PST Scientists have proposed a system of mirrors, processed lunar soil and a heat engine to provide energy to vehicles and crew during the lunar night. This would preclude the need for batteries and nuclear power sources such as those used by the Chinese rover that recently landed on the moon. The lunar night lasts approximately 14 days, during which temperatures as low as -150 ºC have been recorded. This complicates vehicle movement and equipment functioning on the lunar surface, requiring the transport of heavy batteries from Earth or the use of nuclear energy, as exemplified by the Chinese rover Yutu.

Dual catalysts help synthesize alpha-olefins into new organic compounds Posted: 19 Dec 2013 05:01 PM PST Chemists have developed a method to convert chemicals known as alpha-olefins into new organic compounds. Combining a pair of catalytic reactions in sequence converted inexpensive chemicals into new organic compounds that are highly sought after by researchers in medicine and the life sciences.

Is space-time smooth or grainy? Testing Einstein's laws of Special Relativity Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:01 AM PST A new article is a systematic review of the methods devised by scientists since the 90s to test Einstein's laws of Special Relativity, up to the highest observable energies. These types of tests are important: deviations from Special Relativity could in fact indicate that space-time is not continuous but grainy.

New method for reconstructing long-gone historic buildings in 3-D Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:01 AM PST Researchers have recreated the palace that belonged to Ambassador Vich, a Gothic-Renaissance jewel that was demolished in the 19th Century. The technique, which uses historical and archaeological data of the building, can be utilized to learn more about other architectural monuments that have been destroyed.

Diamonds in Earth's oldest zircons are nothing but laboratory contamination Posted: 18 Dec 2013 02:12 PM PST In 2007 and 2008, two research papers reported in the journal Nature that a suite of zircons from the Jack Hills included diamonds. Now geologists have discovered using electron microscopy that the diamonds in the Jack Hills of western Australia are not diamonds but broken fragments of a diamond-polishing compound that got embedded when the zircon specimen was prepared for analysis by the authors of the Nature papers.

'Macrocells' influence corrosion rate of submerged marine concrete structures Posted: 18 Dec 2013 08:30 AM PST Using numerical modeling, an Italian research team has discovered the role 'macrocells' play in the corrosion of hollow submerged marine concrete structures such as tunnels and parking structures.

First plant-based 'microswimmers' could propel drugs to the right location Posted: 18 Dec 2013 08:29 AM PST In the quest to shrink motors so they can maneuver in tiny spaces like inside and between human cells, scientists have taken inspiration from millions of years of plant evolution and incorporated, for the first time, corkscrew structures from plants into a new kind of helical "microswimmer." The low-cost development could be used on a large scale in targeted drug delivery and other applications.

Toward lowering titanium's cost and environmental footprint for lightweight products Posted: 18 Dec 2013 08:29 AM PST A novel method for extracting titanium, a metal highly valued for its light weight, high strength, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility, could lower its cost and make it more widely accessible, for example, for producing lighter car parts to improve fuel efficiency. The method significantly reduces the energy required to separate it from its tightly bound companion, oxygen.

Polymer coatings based on molecular structures Posted: 18 Dec 2013 06:58 AM PST A novel method enables manufacturing of polymer layers with tailor-made properties and multiple functions: A stable porous gel for biological and medical applications is obtained from a metal-organic framework grown on a substrate.

Companion's comets the key to curious exoplanet system? Posted: 18 Dec 2013 06:58 AM PST The nearby star Fomalhaut A hosts the most famous planetary system outside our own Solar System, containing both an exoplanet and a spectacular ring of comets. Astronomers have just announced a new discovery with the Herschel Space Observatory that has made this system even more intriguing; the least massive star of the three in the Fomalhaut system, Fomalhaut C, has now been found to host its own comet belt.

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