ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Strategies for possible survival on Mars: Scientists found differences in core proteins from a microorganism that lives in a salty lake in Antarctica
• Creating indestructible self-healing circuits
• Astronomers conduct first remote reconnaissance of another planetary system
• Lunar impacts created seas of molten rock
• How earthquake damage can impact building fire safety performance
• Pushing X-rays to the edge to draw the nanoworld into focus
• Designing interlocking building blocks to create complex tissues
• Blue bursts of hot young stars captured by Hubble
• Cassini returns images of battered Saturn's moon Rhea
• Closest star system found in a century
• Denied the chance to cheat or steal, people turn to violent video games
• Researchers solve riddle of what has been holding two unlikely materials together
• Cricket-hair sensor used in bio-inspired technology
• Cloud-computing platform for robots launched
• 'Superheated' water can corrode diamonds

Strategies for possible survival on Mars: Scientists found differences in core proteins from a microorganism that lives in a salty lake in Antarctica Posted: 11 Mar 2013 02:39 PM PDT Research has revealed key features in proteins needed for life to function on Mars and other extreme environments. Scientists studied organisms that survive in the extreme conditions of Antarctica. They found differences between the core proteins in ordinary organisms and Haloarchaea, organisms that tolerate severe conditions such as high salinity, desiccation, and extreme temperatures. The research provides a window into how life could adapt to exist on Mars.

Creating indestructible self-healing circuits Posted: 11 Mar 2013 02:39 PM PDT Engineers, for the first time ever, have developed self-healing integrated chips.

Astronomers conduct first remote reconnaissance of another planetary system Posted: 11 Mar 2013 02:37 PM PDT Researchers have conducted a remote reconnaissance of a distant planetary system with a new telescope imaging system that sifts through the blinding light of stars. Using a suite of high-tech instrumentation and software called Project 1640, the scientists collected the first chemical fingerprints, or spectra, of this system's four red exoplanets, which orbit a star 128 light years away from Earth.

Lunar impacts created seas of molten rock Posted: 11 Mar 2013 12:12 PM PDT The impact that formed the Moon's Orientale basin created a sea of melted rock 220 miles across and 6 miles deep, according to a new analysis. Similar seas of impact melt were probably present in at least 30 other large impact sites. Rocks formed as these basins cooled and solidified could mimic rocks formed very early in the Moon's history.

How earthquake damage can impact building fire safety performance Posted: 11 Mar 2013 12:12 PM PDT Damage to building structural elements, elevators, stairs, and fire protection systems caused by the shaking from a major earthquake can play a critical role in the spread of fire, hamper the ability of occupants to evacuate, and impede fire departments in their emergency response operations. These are among the conclusions of a groundbreaking study of post-earthquake building fire performance conducted in 2012 by fire protection engineering researchers.

Pushing X-rays to the edge to draw the nanoworld into focus Posted: 11 Mar 2013 12:09 PM PDT A new X-ray imaging technique yields unprecedented measurements of nanoscale structures ranging from superconductors to solar cells.

Designing interlocking building blocks to create complex tissues Posted: 11 Mar 2013 12:08 PM PDT A new "plug-and-play" method to assemble complex cell microenvironments is a scalable, highly precise way to fabricate tissues with any spatial organization or interest—like those found in the heart or skeleton or vasculature. The study reveals new ways to better mimic the enormous complexity of tissue development, regeneration, and disease.

Blue bursts of hot young stars captured by Hubble Posted: 11 Mar 2013 11:45 AM PDT A new Hubble image, speckled with blue, white and yellow light, shows part of the spiral galaxy IC 5052. Surrounded in the image by foreground stars in our own galaxy, and distant galaxies beyond, it emits a bright blue-white glow which highlights its narrow, intricate structure. It is viewed side-on in the constellation of Pavo (The Peacock), in the southern sky.

Cassini returns images of battered Saturn's moon Rhea Posted: 11 Mar 2013 11:41 AM PDT Following its last close flyby of Saturn's moon Rhea, NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured these raw, unprocessed images of the battered icy moon. They show an ancient, cratered surface bearing the scars of collisions with many space rocks. Scientists are still trying to understand some of the curious features they see in these Rhea images, including a curving, narrow fracture or a graben, which is a block of ground lower than its surroundings and bordered by cliffs on either side. This feature looks remarkably recent, cutting most of the craters it crosses, with only a few small craters superimposed.

Closest star system found in a century Posted: 11 Mar 2013 09:40 AM PDT A pair of newly discovered stars is the third-closest star system to the Sun and the closest discovered since 1916. At 6.5 light years, it is so close that Earth's television transmissions from 2006 are now arriving there. It is an excellent hunting ground for planets because it is very close to Earth and, in the distant future, it might be one of the first destinations for manned expeditions outside our solar system.

Denied the chance to cheat or steal, people turn to violent video games Posted: 11 Mar 2013 07:14 AM PDT When people are denied the chance to cheat or steal, they get frustrated -- and turn to violent video games for release.

Researchers solve riddle of what has been holding two unlikely materials together Posted: 11 Mar 2013 06:15 AM PDT For years, researchers have developed thin films of bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) -- which converts heat into electricity or electricity to cooling -- on top of gallium arsenide (GaAs) to create cooling devices for electronics. But while they knew it could be done, it was not clear how -- because the atomic structures of those unlikely pair of materials do not appear to be compatible. Now researchers have solved the mystery, opening the door to new research in the field.

Cricket-hair sensor used in bio-inspired technology Posted: 11 Mar 2013 06:11 AM PDT Crickets use sensitive hairs on their cerci (projections on the abdomen) to detect predators. For these insects, air currents carry information about the location of nearby predators and the direction in which they are moving. Researchers wondered whether they could use the same principle to create a new kind of "camera", capable of imaging entire flow patterns rather than measuring flows at a single point. They mimic the cricket hairs using microtechnology.

Cloud-computing platform for robots launched Posted: 11 Mar 2013 06:11 AM PDT Researchers have developed a cloud-computing platform for robots. The platform allows robots connected to the Internet to directly access the powerful computational, storage, and communications infrastructure of modern data centers - the giant server farms behind the likes of Google, Facebook, and Amazon - for robotics tasks and robot learning.

'Superheated' water can corrode diamonds Posted: 11 Mar 2013 06:07 AM PDT Novel discovery paves the way to improve waste degradation and laser-assisted etching of materials.

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