ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft embarks on historic journey into interstellar space
• Dali gets a health check: Using medical devices to diagnose art
• Insights into evolution of life on Earth from one of Saturn's moons
• Hubble uncovers largest known population of star clusters
• Dogs' behavior could help design social robots
• Cilantro, that favorite salsa ingredient, purifies drinking water
• Guinness record: World’s thinnest glass is just two atoms thick
• Pea-shooter for molecules: Molecules pass through nanotubes at size-dependent speeds
• Probing methane's secrets: From diamonds to Neptune
• Could life have survived a fall to Earth?
• Take a virtual tour of Vesta with new high resolution atlases
• The inside of the Milky Way Galaxy in 3-D
• Pulsating dust cloud dynamics modeled

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft embarks on historic journey into interstellar space Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:55 AM PDT NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun. New and unexpected data indicate Voyager 1 has been traveling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. Voyager is in a transitional region immediately outside the solar bubble, where some effects from our sun are still evident.

Dali gets a health check: Using medical devices to diagnose art Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:18 AM PDT Scientists and conservators have developed a new method to diagnose painting canvases from the back, without disturbing a single fibre, to see if they can withstand the stress of handling and travel.

Insights into evolution of life on Earth from one of Saturn's moons Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:27 AM PDT Glimpses of the nursery of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago are coming from an unlikely venue almost 1 billion miles away, according to the leader of an effort to understand Titan, one of the most unusual moons in the solar system.

Hubble uncovers largest known population of star clusters Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:27 AM PDT NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered the largest known population of globular star clusters, an estimated 160,000, swarming like bees inside the crowded core of the giant grouping of galaxies Abell 1689. By comparison, our Milky Way galaxy hosts about 150 such clusters.

Dogs' behavior could help design social robots Posted: 12 Sep 2013 07:48 AM PDT Designers of social robots, take note. Bring your dog to the lab next time you test a prototype, and watch how your pet interacts with it. You might just learn a thing or two that could help you fine-tune future designs. So says researchers who found that 'man's best friend' reacts sociably to robots that behave socially towards them, even if the devices look nothing like a human.

Cilantro, that favorite salsa ingredient, purifies drinking water Posted: 12 Sep 2013 07:48 AM PDT New research hints that a favorite ingredient in Mexican, Southeast Asian and other spicy cuisine may be an inexpensive new way of purifying drinking water.

Guinness record: World’s thinnest glass is just two atoms thick Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:52 AM PDT At just a molecule thick, it's a new record: The world's thinnest sheet of glass, a serendipitous discovery by scientists in the U.S. and Germany, is recorded for posterity in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Pea-shooter for molecules: Molecules pass through nanotubes at size-dependent speeds Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:37 AM PDT Researchers find that tiny molecules passing through nanotubes can be propelled or slowed depending on their size.

Probing methane's secrets: From diamonds to Neptune Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:37 AM PDT Hydrocarbons from the Earth make up the oil and gas that heat our homes and fuel our cars. The study of the various phases of molecules formed from carbon and hydrogen under high pressures and temperatures, like those found in the Earth's interior, helps scientists understand the chemical processes occurring deep within planets, including Earth. New research hones in on the hydrocarbon methane (CH4), because its behavior under the conditions found in planetary interiors is poorly understood.

Could life have survived a fall to Earth? Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:27 AM PDT It sounds like science fiction, but the theory of panspermia, in which life can naturally transfer between planets, is considered a serious hypothesis by planetary scientists. The suggestion that life did not originate on Earth but came from elsewhere in the universe (for instance, Mars), is one possible variant of panspermia. Planets and moons were heavily bombarded by meteorites when the Solar System was young, throwing lots of material back into space. Meteorites made of Mars rock are occasionally found on Earth to this day, so it is quite plausible that simple life forms like yeasts or bacteria could have been carried on them.

Take a virtual tour of Vesta with new high resolution atlases Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:27 AM PDT An atlas of the asteroid, Vesta, created from images taken during the Dawn Mission's Low Altitude Mapping Orbit, is now accessible for the public to explore online. The set of maps has been created from mosaics of 10,000 images from Dawn's framing camera instrument, taken at an average altitude of about 210 kilometers.

The inside of the Milky Way Galaxy in 3-D Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:27 AM PDT Scientists have produced the first detailed three-dimensional map of the stars that form the inner regions of our Milky Way, using publicly available VVV survey data. They find a box/peanut shaped bulge with an elongated bar and a prominent X-structure, which had been hinted at in previous studies. This indicates that the Milky Way was originally a pure disk of stars, which then formed a thin bar, before buckling into the box/peanut shape seen today. The new map can be used for more detailed studies of the dynamics and evolution of our Milky Way.

Pulsating dust cloud dynamics modeled Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:25 AM PDT New research outlines a new design of spatio-temporal models of astrophysical plasmas. The birth of stars is an event that eludes intuitive understanding. It is the collapse of dense molecular clouds under their own weight that offers the best sites of star formation. Now, astronomers have proposed a new model for investigating molecular cloud fluctuations at sites of star formation and thus are able to study their pulsational dynamics.

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