Latest science news in Physics & Chemistry
Actions Taken Over Next Decade To Demonstrate And Deploy Key Technologies Will Determine US Energy Future
With a sustained national commitment, the United States could obtain substantial energy-efficiency improvements, new sources of energy, and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through the accelerated deployment of existing and...
Teeny-tiny X-ray Vision
The tubes that power X-ray machines are shrinking, improving the clarity and detail of their Superman-like vision. A team of nanomaterial scientists, medical physicists, and cancer biologists has developed new...
Hybrid Linac-MRI System: New Medical Imaging Combines Medical Linear Accelerators And Magnetic Resonance Imagers
Canadian scientists are developing a new technology that integrates two existing medical devices -- medical linear accelerators, or "linacs," which produce powerful X-rays for treating cancer, and magnetic resonance imagers...
Sabotage At Energy Department Facility
Former employee destroys 4,000 protein crystals under study at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
B.C. heat wave shows no sign of abating
Anyone hoping the heat wave blanketing B.C. will be breaking any time soon might just have to find some other way to chill out, according to CBC meteorologist Claire Martin.
Scientists Show How to Stack the Deck for Organic Solar Power
A new class of economically viable solar power cells--cheap, flexible and easy to make--has come a step closer to reality as a result of recent work at the National Institute...
'Microfluidic palette' may paint clearer picture of biological processes
The masterpieces that spring from the talents of Rembrandt, Van Gogh and other artists often begin with the creation of a gradient of colours on a palette. In a similar...
New microbe strain makes more electricity, faster
In their most recent experiments with Geobacter, the sediment-loving microbe whose hairlike filaments help it to produce electric current from mud and wastewater, Derek Lovley and colleagues at the University...
New Method Uses Electrolyzed Water For More Efficient Fuel Production
Using electrolyzed water rather than harsh chemicals could be a more effective and environmentally friendly method in the pretreatment of ethanol waste products to produce an acetone-butanol-ethanol fuel mix, according...
Nanotubes sharpen X-ray vision
Mini X-ray tubes could revolutionize radiotherapy — and airport baggage scanners.
New Electric Sedan Has Big Backers
CNET: Coda Automotive Plans to Sell All-Electric Car in California Next Year
Security on the (Eye)Ball: Hands-Free Iris Biometrics to Keep Bad Guys at Bay
Biometric security systems that can identify individuals à la Minority Report based on the unique patterns in their irises have been touted as a fast, accurate and efficient way to control access to...
CPU, Heal Thyself
The voltage and speed safety margins used in running microprocessors can be reduced if they are configured to recover from the occasional error.
Breaking barriers with nanoscale lasers
We could soon see the potential of laser technology expand dramatically. Ways to make lasers smaller are being discovered through collaborative efforts of researchers at Arizona State University and Technical...
Icy exposure creates armoured polymer high tech foams
Chemists and engineers at the University of Warwick have found that exposing particular mixtures of polymer particles and other materials to sudden freeze-drying can create a high-tech armoured foam that...
SRI and SDK announce breakthrough performance in OLED devices for solid-state lighting applications
MENLO PARK, Calif. and TOKYO, Japan -- July 28, 2009 -- SRI International, an independent nonprofit research institute, and Showa Denko K.K. (SDK), a Japan-based chemical industry company...
New, cheaper method for extracting clean water
Countries wanting to test whether available water can be used for desalination may benefit from a new system that cuts both costs and time.
Game utilizes human intuition to help computers solve complex problems
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A new computer game prototype combines work and play to help solve a fundamental problem underlying many computer hardware design tasks. The online logic puzzle is called FunSAT,...
Tiny early-stage ovarian tumours define early detection challenge
A new study by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers shows that most early-stage ovarian tumours exist for years at a size that is a thousand times smaller than existing tests...
Argonne's Midwest Centre for Structural Genomics determines 1000th protein structure
For nearly a decade, researchers at the Midwest Centre for Structural Genomics (MCSG), an international consortium led by Andrzej Joachimiak at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory,...
Rethinking Brownian motion with the 'Emperor's New Clothes'
In the classic fairy tale, 'The Emperor's New Clothes,' Hans Christian Andersen uses the eyes of a child to challenge conventional wisdom and help others to see more clearly. In...
All-in-one nanoparticle: A Swiss Army knife for nanomedicine
Nanoparticles are being developed to perform a wide range of medical uses - imaging tumours, carrying drugs, delivering pulses of heat. Rather than settling for just one of these, researchers...
Study disputes Einstein theory of liquids
URBANA, Ill., July 27 (UPI) -- Microscopic objects floating in fluids move great distances at times, not just in a bell curve, disputing an Einstein theory, a U.S. university...
Nanodiamonds Deliver Insulin For Wound Healing
Using tiny nanodiamonds, researchers have demonstrated an innovative method for delivering and releasing insulin at a specific location over a period of time. The nanodiamond-insulin clusters hold promise for wound-healing...
A Quest for Batteries to Alter the Energy Equation
The competition is on to build smaller, lighter, more powerful batteries that could help transform the American energy economy.
Columbia Researchers Lead Race to Find Dark Matter
(PhysOrg.com) -- Inside a mountain range in central Italy, Columbia researchers are trying to solve one of the most pressing questions in modern physics: What is dark matter? The riddle...
Agilent To Acquire Varian For $1.5 billion
Deal brings Agilent a line of atomic and molecular spectroscopy instruments, and bolsters its push into the bioanalytical instrumentation market.
Spallation Neutron Source sees first target replacement
Having outlasted all expectations of its service life, the original mercury target of the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science's record-setting neutron science facility...