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Here is your customized PHYSorg.com Newsletter for week 49:
Voyager 1 hits new region at solar system edge
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic purgatory. In it, the wind of charged particles streaming out from our sun has calmed, our solar system's magnetic field has piled up, and higher-energy particles from inside our solar system appear to be leaking out into interstellar space.
Learning high-performance tasks with no conscious effort may soon be possible (w/ video)
(Medical Xpress) -- New research published today in the journal Science suggests it may be possible to use brain technology to learn to play a piano, reduce mental stress or hit a curve ball with little or no conscious effort. It's the kind of thing seen in Hollywood's "Matrix" franchise.
Kepler confirms its first planet in habitable zone of sun-like star
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.
'Faster-than-light' particles spark science drama
Oh Albert. Did you get it wrong? In 2011, physics was shaken by an experiment which said the Universe's speed limit, enshrined by Einstein in his 1905 theory of special relativity, could be broken.
Astronomers discover biggest black holes ever (Update)
University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered the largest black holes to date two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.
A rare survey of the one percent
(PhysOrg.com) -- Though little reliable survey research exists about the nation’s wealthiest one percent, public discourse is rife with claims about their opinions and attitudes. Now a Northwestern University pilot study sheds light on philanthropic and other behaviors of the so-called one percent.
First molybdenite microchip
(PhysOrg.com) -- Molybdenite, a new and very promising material, can surpass the physical limits of silicon. EPFL scientists have proven this by making the first molybdenite microchip, with smaller and more energy efficient transistors.
Superhard carbon material could crack diamond
(PhysOrg.com) -- By applying extreme pressure to compress and flatten carbon nanotubes, scientists have discovered that they can create a new carbon polymer that simulations show is hard enough to crack diamond. The pressure-induced formation process of the new carbon allotrope, called Cco-C8, is similar to the 3D polymerization of the soccer-ball-like buckminsterfullerene, C60, at high pressure. When the carbon nanotube bundle is subjected to further compression, it becomes even more distorted and flattened to produce the Cco-C8 structure.
The birth of a telescope 30 times larger than Earth
(PhysOrg.com) -- On 15 November 2011, the Effelsberg 100-meter radio telescope, together with three Russian and one Ukrainian telescope, took part in the first interferometric observations with the orbiting 10-meter antenna Spektr-R of the Russian RadioAstron project. The observations were made at a wavelength of 18 centimeters, targeting the distant, bright, and very compact quasar 0212+735. Interferometric signals have been successfully detected by the RadioAstron team between Spektr-R and the ground antennas, setting a new world record for the size of a radio interferometer and opening a new era in interferometric studies of cosmic radio emission.
2010 spike in Greenland ice loss lifted bedrock, GPS reveals
(PhysOrg.com) -- An unusually hot melting season in 2010 accelerated ice loss in southern Greenland by 100 billion tons – and large portions of the island's bedrock rose an additional quarter of an inch in response.
NASA OKs Feb. launch of private space station trip
A private California company will attempt the first-ever commercial cargo run to the International Space Station in February.
Evolution reveals missing link between DNA and protein shape
Fifty years after the pioneering discovery that a protein's three-dimensional structure is determined solely by the sequence of its amino acids, an international team of researchers has taken a major step toward fulfilling the tantalizing promise: predicting the structure of a protein from its DNA alone.
Could dark matter not matter?
You probably want to put on your skeptical goggles and set them to maximum for this one. An Italian mathematician has come up with some complex formulae that can, with remarkable similarity, mimic the rotation curves of spiral galaxies without the need for dark matter.
NASA vows $8.8 bn space telescope on track for 2018
After a series of delays and billions spent over budget, the potent James Webb Space Telescope is on track to launch in 2018 at a total project cost of $8.8 billion, NASA vowed on Tuesday.
Experts stumped by ancient Jerusalem markings
Mysterious stone carvings made thousands of years ago and recently uncovered in an excavation underneath Jerusalem have archaeologists stumped.
Physicists find that an ultrahigh-energy proton looks like a black disk
(PhysOrg.com) -- What does a proton look like? The common answer to this question is that protons are much too small to scatter light, and since light is necessary for us to see things, protons do not “look” like anything. But in a new study, physicists have gathered sufficient evidence to show that, at least at very high energies, the proton is a black disk – sort of an elongated hockey puck. This description fits only for protons at such ultrahigh energies that even the most advanced experiments will probably never be able to detect them.
NASA satellite could reveal if primordial black holes are dark matter
(PhysOrg.com) -- The primary objective of NASA’s Kepler satellite, which was launched in March 2009 to orbit the Sun, is to search for Earth-like planets in a portion of the Milky Way galaxy. But now a team of physicists has proposed that Kepler could have a second appealing purpose: to either detect or rule out primordial black holes (PBHs) of a certain mass range as the primary constituent of dark matter.
500 million-year-old super predator had remarkable vision
South Australian Museum and University of Adelaide scientists working on fossils from Kangaroo Island, South Australia, have found eyes belonging to a giant 500 million-year-old marine predator that sat at the top of the earth's first food chain.
Researchers design Alzheimer's antibodies
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new method to design antibodies aimed at combating disease. The surprisingly simple process was used to make antibodies that neutralize the harmful protein particles that lead to Alzheimer's disease.
Study shows people can guess personality via body odor
(Medical Xpress) -- An interesting study conducted by Polish researchers Agnieszka Sorokowska, Piotr Sorokowski and Andrzej Szmajke, of the University of Wroclaw, has found that people are able to guess a person’s type of personality to a reasonable extent, simply by smelling them, or their clothes. The team did some testing with volunteers, as they describe in their study published in the European Journal of Personality, and found that people could guess another’s personality through odors at least as well as they could when shown videos of people in action.
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