ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Measuring the cosmic dust swept up by Earth
• Oscillating gel acts like artificial skin, giving robots potential ability to 'feel'
• Electricity and carbon dioxide used to generate alternative fuel
• Physicists explain the collective motion of particles called fermions
• New material cuts energy costs of separating gas for plastics and fuels
• First the smart phone, now the smart home: Technology anticipates, meets our needs for health, efficiency
• Ultrafast laser pulses shed light on elusive superconducting mechanism
• Physicists find patterns in new state of matter
• Star explodes and turns inside out
• Titanium paternity test fingers Earth as moon's sole parent
• Why are we made of matter? Supercomputing the difference between matter and antimatter
• New understanding of how materials change when rapidly heated
• Met office to provide space weather warnings for planet Earth and forecasts for exoplanets
• Mathematician publishes 2012 Major League Baseball projections
• Gas mass role in creating fireworks versus beacons of star formation revealed

Measuring the cosmic dust swept up by Earth Posted: 29 Mar 2012 07:51 PM PDT Although we think of space as being empty, there is more out there than meets the eye – dust, for example, is everywhere. If all the material between the Sun and Jupiter were compressed together it would form a moon 25 km across. Now a new research program will try to see how much of this dust enters the Earth's atmosphere. Metals from the cosmic dust play a part in various phenomena that affect our climate. An accurate estimate of dust would also help us understand how particles are transported through different layers of the Earth's atmosphere.

Oscillating gel acts like artificial skin, giving robots potential ability to 'feel' Posted: 29 Mar 2012 02:16 PM PDT Sooner than later, robots may have the ability to "feel." Scientists have now demonstrated that a non-oscillating gel can be resuscitated in a fashion similar to a medical cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Electricity and carbon dioxide used to generate alternative fuel Posted: 29 Mar 2012 02:16 PM PDT Imagine being able to use electricity to power your car and it's not an electric vehicle. Researchers have for the first time demonstrated a method for converting carbon dioxide into liquid fuel isobutanol using electricity.

Physicists explain the collective motion of particles called fermions Posted: 29 Mar 2012 02:16 PM PDT Scientists generally believed that certain collective behavior appeared in fermions only when they moved in unison at very long wavelengths. Now, however, collective behavior has been discovered at short wavelengths in one Fermi system, helium-3.

New material cuts energy costs of separating gas for plastics and fuels Posted: 29 Mar 2012 02:04 PM PDT In producing hydrocarbons for the chemical industry, refiners must first crack oil at high temperatures and then cool the mixture to liquefy the gases for separation. This energy-intensive chilling step could be eliminated thanks to a new material that can do the gas separation at the high temperatures of cracked petroleum. The material is an iron-based metal-organic framework.

First the smart phone, now the smart home: Technology anticipates, meets our needs for health, efficiency Posted: 29 Mar 2012 02:04 PM PDT We have all heard of the smartphone and any day now, most of us will have one. Not far behind: The smart home. Scientists say it won't be long before our homes act as "intelligent agents" that use sensors and software to anticipate our needs and tend to tasks that improve our health, energy efficiency, even social media.

Ultrafast laser pulses shed light on elusive superconducting mechanism Posted: 29 Mar 2012 11:20 AM PDT Physicists have used ultra-fast laser pulses to identify the microscopic interactions that drive high-temperature superconductivity. The researchers were able to capture very fine grained data on the speed of the relaxation process and its influence on the properties of the superconducting system, showing that the high-critical temperature of these compounds can be accounted for by purely electronic (magnetic) processes.

Physicists find patterns in new state of matter Posted: 29 Mar 2012 11:15 AM PDT Physicists have discovered patterns which underlie the properties of a new state of matter. In a new study, the scientists describe the emergence of "spontaneous coherence," "spin textures" and "phase singularities" when excitons -- the bound pairs of electrons and holes that determine the optical properties of semiconductors and enable them to function as novel optoelectronic devices -- are cooled to near absolute zero.

Star explodes and turns inside out Posted: 29 Mar 2012 09:47 AM PDT A new X-ray study of the remains of an exploded star indicates that the supernova that disrupted the massive star may have turned it inside out in the process. Using very long observations of Cassiopeia A, a team of scientists has mapped the distribution elements in the supernova remnant in unprecedented detail. This information shows where the different layers of the pre-supernova star are located three hundred years after the explosion, and provides insight into the nature of the supernova.

Titanium paternity test fingers Earth as moon's sole parent Posted: 29 Mar 2012 09:47 AM PDT A new chemical analysis of lunar material collected by Apollo astronauts in the 1970s conflicts with the widely held theory that a giant collision between Earth and a Mars-sized object gave birth to the moon 4.5 billion years ago.

Why are we made of matter? Supercomputing the difference between matter and antimatter Posted: 29 Mar 2012 08:22 AM PDT Using breakthrough techniques on some of the world's fastest supercomputers -- scientists have reported a landmark calculation of a kind of subatomic particle decay that's important to understanding matter/antimatter asymmetry. The research helps nail down the exact process of kaon decay, and is also inspiring the development of a new generation of supercomputers.

New understanding of how materials change when rapidly heated Posted: 29 Mar 2012 08:21 AM PDT Scientists have made ground-breaking advances in our understanding of the changes that materials undergo when rapidly heated.

Met office to provide space weather warnings for planet Earth and forecasts for exoplanets Posted: 28 Mar 2012 05:37 PM PDT The UK Met Office's weather and climate model is being adapted to help understand space weather at Earth and the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars.

Mathematician publishes 2012 Major League Baseball projections Posted: 28 Mar 2012 12:47 PM PDT The Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks should win their divisions, while the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds will make it to Major League Baseball's post-season as wild card teams in the National League in 2012, according to a baseball guru.

Gas mass role in creating fireworks versus beacons of star formation revealed Posted: 27 Mar 2012 06:31 AM PDT A study of galaxies in the deepest far-infrared image of the sky highlights the two contrasting ways that stars formed in galaxies up to 12 billion years ago.

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