ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Comet Garradd departs
• 'Sounds of silence' proving a hit: World's fastest random number generator
• On the border between matter and anti-matter: Nanoscientists find long-sought Majorana particle
• Electron microscopy inspires flexoelectric theory behind 'material on the brink'
• Uranus auroras glimpsed from Earth
• Water, water everywhere – but is it essential to life? New findings could lead to better industrial enzymes
• Magnetic test technique helps ensure reliability of microelectronics, PV cells & MEMS
• Probing hydrogen under extreme conditions
• Designing the interplanetary web
• Innovative glove-within-a-mitten lets users stay ‘touchscreen friendly’ in cold winter
• 3D planning tool for the city of tomorrow

Comet Garradd departs Posted: 13 Apr 2012 01:24 PM PDT An outbound comet that provided a nice show for skywatchers late last year is the target of an ongoing investigation by NASA's Swift satellite. Formally designated C/2009 P1 (Garradd), the unusually dust-rich comet provides a novel opportunity to characterize how cometary activity changes at ever greater distance from the sun.

'Sounds of silence' proving a hit: World's fastest random number generator Posted: 13 Apr 2012 01:12 PM PDT Researchers in Australia have developed the fastest random number generator in the world by listening to the 'sounds of silence'. The researchers have tuned their very sensitive light detectors to listen to vacuum -- a region of space that is empty.

On the border between matter and anti-matter: Nanoscientists find long-sought Majorana particle Posted: 13 Apr 2012 01:00 PM PDT Scientists in the Netherlands have succeeded for the first time in detecting a Majorana particle. In the 1930s, Italian physicist Ettore Majorana deduced from quantum theory the possibility of the existence of a very special particle, a particle that is its own anti-particle: the Majorana fermion. That 'Majorana' would be right on the border between matter and anti-matter.

Electron microscopy inspires flexoelectric theory behind 'material on the brink' Posted: 13 Apr 2012 11:53 AM PDT Electron microscopy has led to a new theory to explain intriguing properties in a material with potential applications in capacitors and actuators.

Uranus auroras glimpsed from Earth Posted: 13 Apr 2012 09:22 AM PDT For the first time, scientists have captured images of auroras above the giant ice planet Uranus, finding further evidence of just how peculiar a world that distant planet is. Detected by means of carefully scheduled observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, the newly witnessed Uranian light show consisted of short-lived, faint, glowing dots - a world of difference from the colorful curtains of light that often ring Earth's poles.

Water, water everywhere – but is it essential to life? New findings could lead to better industrial enzymes Posted: 13 Apr 2012 09:22 AM PDT Scientists have now challenged one of the key beliefs in chemistry: that proteins are dependent on water to survive and function. The findings could eventually lead to the development of new industrial enzymes.

Magnetic test technique helps ensure reliability of microelectronics, PV cells & MEMS Posted: 13 Apr 2012 07:13 AM PDT Taking advantage of the force generated by magnetic repulsion, researchers have developed a new technique for measuring the adhesion strength between thin films of materials used in microelectronic devices, photovoltaic cells and microelectromechanical systems.

Probing hydrogen under extreme conditions Posted: 13 Apr 2012 07:13 AM PDT How hydrogen -- the most abundant element in the cosmos -- responds to extremes of pressure and temperature is one of the major challenges in modern physical science. Moreover, knowledge gleaned from experiments using hydrogen as a testing ground on the nature of chemical bonding can fundamentally expand our understanding of matter. New work has enabled researchers to examine hydrogen under pressures never before possible.

Designing the interplanetary web Posted: 13 Apr 2012 07:11 AM PDT Reliable Internet access on the Moon, near Mars or for astronauts on a space station? How about controlling a planetary rover from a spacecraft in deep space? These are just some of the pioneering technologies that ESA is working on for future exploration missions.

Innovative glove-within-a-mitten lets users stay ‘touchscreen friendly’ in cold winter Posted: 13 Apr 2012 07:11 AM PDT It is snowing, it is cold and you are in full winter gear. How are you going to answer your phone or use a tablet outdoors with bulky gloves on? This was the question running through the mind of an undergraduate exchange student in Stockholm. With temperatures as cold as -20°C, she was not able to find gloves that would allow her use a touch screen phone, while keeping warm. So, she invented one – hybrid touch screen gloves that double up as mittens.

3D planning tool for the city of tomorrow Posted: 13 Apr 2012 07:11 AM PDT Noise levels, fine particulate matter, traffic volumes – these data are of interest to urban planners and residents alike. A three-dimensional presentation will soon make it easier to handle them: as the user virtually moves through his city, the corresponding data are displayed as green, yellow or red dots.

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