ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• First cloud map of a planet beyond our solar system
• Ingredient of household plastic found in space
• New metabolic pathway to more efficiently convert sugars into biofuels
• Improving lithium-ion batteries with nanoscale research
• Optical sensors improve railway safety
• Engineers invent programming language to build synthetic DNA
• Quantum computers: Trust is good, proof is better
• The world's sharpest X-ray beam
• A cosmic weather balloon at the center of the Milky Way
• Astronauts practice launching in NASA's new Orion spacecraft
• First-of-its-kind portable radar device: NASA, Homeland Security test disaster recovery tool
• Computer program lets users learn keyboard shortcuts with minimal effort
• Do black holes have 'hair'? New hypothesis challenges 'clean' model
• How engineers revamped Spitzer to probe exoplanets
• NASA rover inspects pebbly rocks at Martian waypoint
• Dawn spacecraft reality-checks telescope studies of asteroids
• New paradigm for nanoscale resolution MRI experimentally achieved

First cloud map of a planet beyond our solar system Posted: 30 Sep 2013 06:08 PM PDT Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have created the first cloud map of a planet beyond our solar system, a sizzling, Jupiter-like world known as Kepler-7b. The planet is marked by high clouds in the west and clear skies in the east. Previous studies from Spitzer have resulted in temperature maps of planets orbiting other stars, but this is the first look at cloud structures on a distant world.

Ingredient of household plastic found in space Posted: 30 Sep 2013 05:08 PM PDT NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected propylene, a chemical used to make food-storage containers, car bumpers and other consumer products, on Saturn's moon Titan. This is the first definitive detection of the plastic ingredient on any moon or planet, other than Earth.

New metabolic pathway to more efficiently convert sugars into biofuels Posted: 30 Sep 2013 01:24 PM PDT Chemical engineering researchers have created a new synthetic metabolic pathway for breaking down glucose that could lead to a 50 percent increase in the production of biofuels.

Improving lithium-ion batteries with nanoscale research Posted: 30 Sep 2013 11:05 AM PDT New research led by an electrical engineer is aimed at improving lithium-ion batteries through possible new electrode architectures with precise nano-scale designs. The researchers created nanowires that block diffusion of lithium across their silicon surface and promote layer-by-layer axial lithiation of the nanowire's germanium core.

Optical sensors improve railway safety Posted: 30 Sep 2013 09:18 AM PDT A string of fiber-optic sensors running along a 36-km stretch of high-speed commuter railroad lines connecting Hong Kong to mainland China has taken more than 10 million measurements over the past few years in a demonstration that the system can help safeguard commuter trains and freight cars against accidents. Attuned to the contact between trains and tracks, the sensors can detect potential problems like excessive vibrations, mechanical defects or speed and temperature anomalies.

Engineers invent programming language to build synthetic DNA Posted: 30 Sep 2013 09:16 AM PDT Scientists have developed a programming language for chemistry that they hope will streamline efforts to design a network that can guide the behavior of chemical-reaction mixtures in the same way that embedded electronic controllers guide cars, robots and other devices.

Quantum computers: Trust is good, proof is better Posted: 30 Sep 2013 08:39 AM PDT A quantum computer can solve tasks where a classical computer fails. The question how one can, nevertheless, verify the reliability of a quantum computer was recently answered in a new experiment.

The world's sharpest X-ray beam Posted: 30 Sep 2013 08:39 AM PDT At the X-ray light source PETRA III, scientists have generated a beam with a diameter of barely 5 nanometers -- this is ten thousand times thinner than a human hair. This fine beam of X-ray light allows focusing on smallest details.

A cosmic weather balloon at the center of the Milky Way Posted: 30 Sep 2013 07:17 AM PDT The radiation field at the center of the Milky Way must be 1,000 times stronger than in the area surrounding our sun. Astrophysicists used computer simulations to reach this conclusion. The calculations are based on the data from a type of "cosmic weather balloon" -- the temperature data of an especially dense gas cloud near the center of the galaxy. Their research provides a new insight into the process of star formation, which is believed to take a different form at the centre of the Milky Way than it does at the galaxy's edges.

Astronauts practice launching in NASA's new Orion spacecraft Posted: 30 Sep 2013 06:51 AM PDT NASA astronauts recently experienced what it will be like to launch into space aboard the new Orion spacecraft during the first ascent simulations since the space shuttles and their simulators were retired. Ascent simulations are precise rehearsals of the steps a spacecraft's crew will be responsible for -- including things that could go wrong -- during their climb into space. They can be generic and apply to any future deep space mission, or very specific to a launch that's been planned down to the second. For now, Orion's simulations fall into the first category, but practicing now helps ensure the team will have the systems perfected for the astronauts in any future mission scenario.

First-of-its-kind portable radar device: NASA, Homeland Security test disaster recovery tool Posted: 30 Sep 2013 06:38 AM PDT NASA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are collaborating on a first-of-its-kind portable radar device to detect the heartbeats and breathing patterns of victims trapped in large piles of rubble resulting from a disaster. The prototype technology, called Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER) can locate individuals buried as deep as 30 feet (about 9 meters) in crushed materials, hidden behind 20 feet (about 6 meters) of solid concrete, and from a distance of 100 feet (about 30 meters) in open spaces.

Computer program lets users learn keyboard shortcuts with minimal effort Posted: 30 Sep 2013 06:37 AM PDT A computer scientist has developed software which assists users in identifying and learning shortcuts so that they can become as fast as expert users. This new interface mechanism is easy to integrate in programs using a toolbar, a menu or ribbons as a graphical user interface.

Do black holes have 'hair'? New hypothesis challenges 'clean' model Posted: 30 Sep 2013 06:37 AM PDT A black hole. A simple and clear concept, at least according to the hypothesis by Roy Kerr, who in 1963 proposed a "clean" black hole model, which is the current theoretical paradigm. From theory to reality things may be quite different. According to a new research black holes may be much "dirtier" than what Kerr believed.

How engineers revamped Spitzer to probe exoplanets Posted: 30 Sep 2013 06:31 AM PDT Now approaching its 10th anniversary, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has evolved into a premier observatory for an endeavor not envisioned in its original design: the study of worlds around other stars, called exoplanets. While the engineers and scientists who built Spitzer did not have this goal in mind, their visionary work made this unexpected capability possible. Thanks to the extraordinary stability of its design and a series of subsequent engineering reworks, the space telescope now has observational powers far beyond its original limits and expectations.

NASA rover inspects pebbly rocks at Martian waypoint Posted: 30 Sep 2013 06:28 AM PDT NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has resumed a trek of many months toward its mountain-slope destination, Mount Sharp. The rover used instruments on its arm last week to inspect rocks at its first waypoint along the route inside Gale Crater. The location, originally chosen on the basis of images taken from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, paid off with investigation of targets that bear evidence of ancient wet environments.

Dawn spacecraft reality-checks telescope studies of asteroids Posted: 30 Sep 2013 06:21 AM PDT Tantalized by images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based data, scientists thought the giant asteroid Vesta deserved a closer look. They got a chance to do that in 2011 and 2012, when NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbited the giant asteroid, and they were able to check earlier conclusions. A new study involving Dawn's observations during that time period demonstrates how this relationship works with Hubble and ground-based telescopes to clarify our understanding of a solar system object.

New paradigm for nanoscale resolution MRI experimentally achieved Posted: 27 Sep 2013 09:35 AM PDT A team of researchers has devised a novel nuclear magnetic resonance imaging technique that delivers a roughly 10-nanometer spatial resolution. This represents a significant advance in MRI sensitivity -- modern MRI techniques commonly used in medical imaging yield spatial resolutions on the millimeter length scale, with the highest-resolution experimental instruments giving spatial resolution of a few micrometers.

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