ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• An intersection of math and biology: Clams and snails inspire robotic diggers and crawlers
• New method gives accurate picture of gas storage by microscopic cages
• Biosensor could help detect brain injuries during heart surgery
• Martian moon samples will probably have bits of Mars too
• Spitzer and ALMA reveal a star's bubbly birth
• Levitating foam liquid under the spell of magnetic fields
• Warning system for all crisis situations

An intersection of math and biology: Clams and snails inspire robotic diggers and crawlers Posted: 11 Nov 2013 01:15 PM PST Engineering has always taken cues from biology. Natural organisms and systems have done well at evolving to perform tasks and achieve objectives within the limits set by nature and physics. That is one of the reasons engineers are studying snails. Snails can move in any direction -- horizontally, vertically, and upside down -- on various surfaces, be it sand, shells, tree barks or slick walls and smooth glass. One of the reasons for this is the sticky substance on their underbellies, which acts as a powerful lubricant and reduces friction during movement.

New method gives accurate picture of gas storage by microscopic cages Posted: 11 Nov 2013 01:15 PM PST Researchers accurately calculate the uptake of gas molecules by synthetic zeolites. The work may help more rapid development of materials for hydrogen storage, catalysis, environmental remediation and molecular sieves.

Biosensor could help detect brain injuries during heart surgery Posted: 11 Nov 2013 11:41 AM PST Engineers and cardiology experts have teamed up to develop a fingernail-sized biosensor that could alert doctors when serious brain injury occurs during heart surgery.

Martian moon samples will probably have bits of Mars too Posted: 11 Nov 2013 11:05 AM PST Researchers have helped to confirm the idea that the surface of Phobos contains tons of dust, soil, and rock blown off the Martian surface by large projectile impacts. That means a sample-return mission planned by the Russian space agency could sample two celestial bodies for the price of one.

Spitzer and ALMA reveal a star's bubbly birth Posted: 11 Nov 2013 09:50 AM PST Combined observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the newly completed Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile have revealed the throes of stellar birth as never before in the well-studied object known as HH 46/47.

Levitating foam liquid under the spell of magnetic fields Posted: 11 Nov 2013 06:15 AM PST No better solution to studying ever-draining foams than applying a strong magnetic field to keep the liquid in the foam at a standstill by levitating its water molecules. Foams fascinate, partly due to their short lifespan. Foams change as fluid drains out of their structure over time. It is precisely their ephemeral nature which has, until now, prevented scientists from experimentally probing their characteristic dynamics further. Instead, foams have often been studied theoretically. Now scientists have devised a method of keeping foams in shape using a magnet, which allows their dynamics to be investigated experimentally.

Warning system for all crisis situations Posted: 11 Nov 2013 06:13 AM PST Natural disasters do not respect political boundaries. To deal effectively with this kind of crisis situation, alerts need to reach the affected areas in a seamless, cross–border way. This is exactly what Alert4All does. The system allows new alert channels to be added at any time and can send out fully automated, multilingual notifications to the general public.

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