Latest science news in Physics & Chemistry
Observatory: Diesel, Made Simply From Coffee Grounds (Ah, the Exhaust Aroma)
Scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno, have made diesel fuel from used coffee grounds.
Obama Names Energy Secretary, EPA Chief
President-elect Barack Obama today named his picks to run the nation's energy and environment policy in a move that shows a strong commitment to getting climate change under control and...
Alternating Mammography And MRI May Be Best For High-risk Women
Magnetic resonance imaging alternated with mammography at six-month intervals can detect breast cancers not identified by mammography alone, according to new research.
Pioneering Space Station Experiment Keeps Reactions In Suspense
A revolutionary container-less chemical reactor has been installed on the International Space Station. The reactor, named Space-DRUMS, uses beams of sound to position chemicals in mid-air so they don’t come...
Cheaper Plastic Solar Cells In the Works
A lab is developing a solar cell that can absorb more of the sun’s energy for electricity production.
Future of Plastics: Designing Tomorrow's Sustainable Polymer
Tomorrow's specialty plastics may be produced more precisely and cheaply thanks to the apparently tight merger of a theory by a chemist and years of unexplained data from real world...
Bit of bling adds new dimension to laser beam technology
No longer just an expensive ornament, diamonds are now of a sufficient size and quality to attract the eye of a team of physicists at Macquarie University, who are using...
Light shines for potential early cancer diagnosis technique
A team led by a Northwestern University biomedical engineer has developed a new optical technique that holds promise for minimally invasive screening methods for the early diagnosis of cancer.
Chemist Tames Longstanding Electron Computation Problem
For 50 years, theoretical chemists have puzzled over the problem of predicting many-electron chemistry with only two electrons, which many thought intractable and perhaps impossible to solve. One scientist will...
Wind, Water And Sun Beat Biofuels, Nuclear And Coal For Clean Energy
Biofuels, nuclear energy and coal are the worst choices for energy alternatives to petroleum products and wind, solar, geothermal, tides and waves are the best, according to results from the...
World's first deep sea lab-on-a-chip sensors proved to work
Innovative marine sensor technologies developed by researchers at the University of Southampton have been tested on a research cruise (D333, RRS Discovery, Canary Islands) and are now ready to be...
GM Plugs Its Chevy Volt Hybrid, but Will It Be Road-Ready In Time?
A single component will make or break Chevrolet's new Volt "extended-range electric vehicle"--and with it, potentially, the fate of America's largest carmaker, General Motors: its battery. It's no wonder then...
Pass on plastic bags and give the planet a helping hand
What would you rather see in a tree? A couple of bald eagles or a plastic bag? OK, that's a stupid, no-brainer question. Plastic bags have become the scourge of...
Carbon Nanofibers Cut Flammability of Upholstered Furniture
(PhysOrg.com) -- Carbon, the active ingredient in charcoal, is normally not considered a fire retardant, but researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have determined that adding a...
Elpida Completes Development of New 50nm Process 2-Gigabit Mobile RAM
Elpida Memory today announced that it had completed development of a 50nm process 2-gigabit Mobile RAM product using 50nm process technology with 193nm (ArF) immersion lithography and copper interconnect.
Researchers Observe Magnus Effect in Light for First Time
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have become the first to observe the Magnus effect in light, potentially opening a new avenue for controlling light in nanometer-scale...
Controlling the building blocks of life
(PhysOrg.com) -- A simple and reliable method for converting one of the simplest chemical entities into one of the most difficult-to-make molecular building blocks of life, with complete control over...
Whatever Floats Your Boat
Is it magic? Is that aluminum foil boat floating on air? Well, no and no. What we literally don't see is that the bottom of that aquarium is filled with...
Cell biology: Stretching the imagination
Squash them, pinch them, twist them, pull them #20; cells react to physical forces, finds Claire Ainsworth.
Patent pledge to Indian universities
Critics worry that push for technology transfer is moving too fast.
Muscle Cars Meet Green Technology
When you're buying a car, you can go big or you can go green, right? Not according to one mechanic Hari Sreenivasan met. His vehicles combine raw power with the...
Intel to produce 32nm chips
Intel Corp., the world's biggest computer chip-maker, said Wednesday that it has developed a manufacturing process that shrinks the circuitry in a chip to just 32 nanometers (nm). One nanometer...
Japan harnesses commuters' stamping for power
Japan has found a way to harness clean energy from thousands of stamping feet that pass through one of its busiest train stations every day.
Black gold fever
Canada's giant oil sands industry faces testing times
Hidden Travels of the Atomic Bomb
Atomic insiders say the weapon was invented only once, and its secrets were spread around the globe by spies, scientists and the covert acts of nuclear states.
Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems Offer Considerable Potential For Improving Traffic Safety
Intelligent vehicle safety systems will clearly improve traffic safety if they are extensively taken into use. Many of the systems effectively reduce the number of fatalities and injuries, although without...
Lights, Camera, Render: Visualizing the Universe
(PhysOrg.com) -- A red plume of hydrogen gas streams in three dimensions across a movie screen that almost spans the width of a dark conference room. Within the plume a...
Northeastern Physicist Recognized for Contributions to Interdisciplinary Science
Northeastern University physicist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi has once again been recognized for his outstanding contributions to science.