ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Sun's almost perfectly round shape baffles scientists
• 'Soft robots' could camouflage themselves one minute, and stand out, the next
• New form of carbon can put a dent in a diamond
• Mineral can reduce pollution from diesel engines by almost half
• NASA is tracking electron beams from the sun
• Hubble watches star clusters on a collision course
• 3-D movies in your living room, without the glasses
• Exoplanet-hosting stars give further insights on planet formation
• Sunflowers inspire more efficient solar power system
• Finding the nano-needle in the haystack: Radioactivity used to trace nanoparticles in the environment
• Search technology that can gauge opinion and predict the future
• Electronic read-out of quantum bits
• MASER power comes out of the cold: Solid-state MASER can operate at room temperature

Sun's almost perfectly round shape baffles scientists Posted: 16 Aug 2012 12:08 PM PDT The sun is nearly the roundest object ever measured. If scaled to the size of a beach ball, it would be so round that the difference between the widest and narrow diameters would be much less than the width of a human hair.

'Soft robots' could camouflage themselves one minute, and stand out, the next Posted: 16 Aug 2012 11:15 AM PDT Researchers have developed a system -- inspired by nature -- that allows soft robots to either camouflage themselves against a background, or to make bold color displays. Such a "dynamic coloration" system could one day have a host of uses, ranging from helping doctors plan complex surgeries to acting as a visual marker to help search crews following a disaster.

New form of carbon can put a dent in a diamond Posted: 16 Aug 2012 11:15 AM PDT Scientists have observed a new form of very hard carbon clusters, which are unusual in their mix of crystalline and disordered structure. The material is capable of indenting diamond. This finding has potential applications for a range of mechanical, electronic, and electrochemical uses.

Mineral can reduce pollution from diesel engines by almost half Posted: 16 Aug 2012 11:14 AM PDT A catalyst that can replace platinum in diesel engines has been shown to reduce pollution by up to 45 percent. The catalyst, mullite, is from the family of minerals known as oxides. The finding opens new possibilities to create renewable, clean energy technology without precious metals.

NASA is tracking electron beams from the sun Posted: 16 Aug 2012 09:20 AM PDT In the quest to understand how the world's weather moves around the globe, scientists have had to tease apart different kinds of atmospheric movement, such as the great jet streams that can move across a whole hemisphere versus more intricate, localized flows. Much the same must currently be done to understand the various motions at work in the great space weather system that links the sun and Earth as the sun shoots material out in all directions, creating its own version of a particle sea to fill up the solar system.

Hubble watches star clusters on a collision course Posted: 16 Aug 2012 09:20 AM PDT Astronomers have caught two clusters full of massive stars that may be in the early stages of merging. The clusters are 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy to our Milky Way.

3-D movies in your living room, without the glasses Posted: 16 Aug 2012 09:18 AM PDT New television screens will make it possible for viewers to enjoy three-dimensional television programming without those bothersome 3-D glasses. Still, the content has been rather lacking – until now. A new technology will soon be adapting conventional 3-D films to the new displays in real time.

Exoplanet-hosting stars give further insights on planet formation Posted: 16 Aug 2012 09:18 AM PDT Astronomers propose that metals like magnesium might have an important role in the formation of low mass planets.

Sunflowers inspire more efficient solar power system Posted: 16 Aug 2012 07:09 AM PDT A field of young sunflowers will slowly rotate from east to west during the course of a sunny day, each leaf seeking out as much sunlight as possible as the sun moves across the sky through an adaptation called heliotropism. It's a clever bit of natural engineering that inspired imitation from an electrical and computer engineer, who has found a way to mimic the passive heliotropism seen in sunflowers for use in the next crop of solar power systems.

Finding the nano-needle in the haystack: Radioactivity used to trace nanoparticles in the environment Posted: 16 Aug 2012 06:24 AM PDT Scientists have used radioactivity to trace nanoparticles in experimental animals and the soil. Their findings have made it easier to identify any negative environmental impact of nanoparticles, which are found in an increasing number of products.

Search technology that can gauge opinion and predict the future Posted: 16 Aug 2012 04:54 AM PDT Inspired by a system for categorizing books proposed by an Indian librarian more than 50 years ago, researchers have developed a new kind of internet search that takes into account factors such as opinion, bias, context, time and location. The new technology, which could soon be in use commercially, can display trends in public opinion about a topic, company or person over time - and it can even be used to predict the future.

Electronic read-out of quantum bits Posted: 16 Aug 2012 04:54 AM PDT Quantum computers promise to reach computation speeds far beyond that of today's computers. As they would use quantum effects, however, they would also be susceptible to external interferences. Information flow into and out of the system is a critical point. Researchers have now read out the quantum state of an atom directly by using electrodes.

MASER power comes out of the cold: Solid-state MASER can operate at room temperature Posted: 15 Aug 2012 10:17 AM PDT Scientists demonstrate, for the time, a solid-state MASER capable of operating at room temperature, paving the way for its widespread adoption. MASER stands for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Instead of creating intense beams of light, as in the case of LASERs, MASERs deliver a concentrated beam of microwaves.

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