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Thursday, October 10, 2013

ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

ScienceDaily: Top Technology News


Want ripples on your icicles? Scientists suggest adding salt

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 06:39 PM PDT

Though it's barely the beginning of autumn, scientists are one step closer to explaining why winter's icicles form with Michelin Man-like ripples on their elongated shapes. It has been theorized that the ripples are the result of surface tension effects in the thin water film that flows over the ice as it forms. Their investigation revealed that the actual culprit is salt.

Carbon's new champion: Carbyne, a simple chain of carbon atoms, strongest material of all?

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 01:27 PM PDT

Calculations show carbyne, a simple chain of carbon atoms, may be the strongest material of all. Carbyne will be the strongest of a new class of microscopic materials if and when anyone can make it in bulk. If they do, they'll find carbyne nanorods or nanoropes have a host of remarkable and useful properties.

Compact, high-power terahertz source at room temperature

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 01:27 PM PDT

Researchers have tripled the output power of a compact, room-temperature terahertz source, a breakthrough that could lead to advances in homeland security, industrial applications, and space research.

A strange lonely planet found without a star

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 12:34 PM PDT

An international team of astronomers has discovered an exotic young planet that is not orbiting a star. This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. The planet formed a mere 12 million years ago -- a newborn in planet lifetimes.

Chemistry: Evidence for a new nuclear 'magic number'

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 10:30 AM PDT

Researchers have come one step closer to understanding unstable atomic nuclei. Scientists have now provided evidence for a new nuclear magic number in the unstable, radioactive calcium isotope 54Ca. They show that 54Ca is the first known nucleus with 34 neutrons (N) where N = 34 is a magic number. 

Self-healing materials could arise from finding that tension can fuse metal

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 10:01 AM PDT

An unexpected result shows that in some cases, pulling apart makes cracks in metal fuse together.

An experiment puts auditing under scrutiny

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 09:59 AM PDT

Researchers conducted a two-year study that finds randomly assigning auditors to plants, paying auditors from central funds, double-checking their work, and rewarding the auditors for accuracy had large effects.

Peer pressure's influence calculated by mathematician

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 08:10 AM PDT

A mathematician has calculated how peer pressure influences society.

Crystal mysteries spiral deeper, chemists find

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 07:05 AM PDT

Chemists have discovered crystal growth complexities, which at first glance appeared to confound 50 years of theory and deepened the mystery of how organic crystals form. But, appearances can be deceiving.

Bat vision system could help protect buildings they roost in

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 06:59 AM PDT

Vital data on bat behavior is being analyzed by a computer vision system.

A close look at the Toby Jug Nebula

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 06:59 AM PDT

Located about 1200 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Carina (The Ship's Keel), the Toby Jug Nebula, more formally known as IC 2220, is an example of a reflection nebula. It is a cloud of gas and dust illuminated from within by a star called HD 65750. This star, a type known as a red giant, has five times the mass of our Sun but it is in a much more advanced stage of its life, despite its comparatively young age of around 50 million years.

New type of impact crater discovered on Mars

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 06:57 AM PDT

Lessons from underground nuclear tests and explosive volcanoes may hold the answer to how a category of unusual impact craters formed on Mars.

2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Multiscale models for complex chemical systems

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 05:21 AM PDT

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2013 to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel "for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems."

Math-based projections for MLB postseason

Posted: 07 Oct 2013 11:33 AM PDT

Now that Major League Baseball's regular season has ended with the exciting one-game tiebreaker that got the Rays to the next round, and with the Rays and the Pirates winning the one game playoff for the wild card team, a math professor has once again begun analyzing the probability of each team advancing through each round of baseball's postseason.

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