The EDGE: ScienceDaily Technology Headlines -- for Sunday, February 5, 2012

ScienceDaily Technology Headlines

for Sunday, February 5, 2012

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Classic portrait of a barred spiral galaxy (February 3, 2012) -- The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a similar barred spiral, and the study of galaxies such as NGC 1073 helps astronomers learn more about our celestial home. ... > full story

Schizophrenia: When hallucinatory voices suppress real ones, new electronic application may help (February 3, 2012) -- When a patient afflicted with schizophrenia hears inner voices something is taking place inside the brain that prevents the individual from perceiving real voices. A simple electronic application may help the patient learn to shift focus. ... > full story

Surface of Mars an unlikely place for life after 600-million-year drought, say scientists (February 3, 2012) -- Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet’s surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analyzing individual particles of Martian soil. ... > full story

Judder-free videos on the smartphone (February 3, 2012) -- Overloaded cellular networks can get annoying – especially when you want to watch a video on your smartphone. An optimized Radio Resource Manager will soon be able to help network operators accommodate heavy network traffic. ... > full story

Google Earth ocean terrain receives major update: Data sharpen resolution of seafloor maps, correct 'discovery' of Atlantis (February 2, 2012) -- Internet information giant Google updated ocean data in its Google Earth application this week, reflecting new bathymetry data assembled by researchers from around the world. The newest version of Google Earth includes more accurate imagery in several key areas of ocean using data collected by research cruises over the past three years. ... > full story

Hand counts of votes may cause errors (February 2, 2012) -- Hand counting of votes in postelection audit or recount procedures can result in error rates of up to two percent, according to a new study. ... > full story

Unraveling a butterfly's aerial antics could help builders of bug-size flying robots (February 2, 2012) -- By figuring out how butterflies flutter among flowers with amazing grace and agility, researchers hope to help build small airborne robots that can mimic those maneuvers. ... > full story

New way to study ground fractures (February 2, 2012) -- Geophysics researchers have created a new way to study fractures by producing elastic waves, or vibrations, through using high-intensity light focused directly on the fracture itself. ... > full story

Millisecond pulsar paradox: Stellar astrophysics helps explain behavior of fast rotating neutron stars in binary systems (February 2, 2012) -- Pulsars are among the most exotic celestial bodies known. They have diameters of about 20 kilometers, but at the same time roughly the mass of our sun. A sugar-cube sized piece of its ultra-compact matter on Earth would weigh hundreds of millions of tons. A sub-class of them, known as millisecond pulsars, spin up to several hundred times per second around their own axes. Previous studies reached the paradoxical conclusion that some millisecond pulsars are older than the universe itself. Now this paradox may be solved by computer simulations, new research shows. ... > full story

New super-Earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby cool star (February 2, 2012) -- Sientists have discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. The star is a member of a triple star system and has a different makeup than our Sun, being relatively lacking in metallic elements. This discovery demonstrates that habitable planets could form in a greater variety of environments than previously believed. ... > full story

Graphene electronics moves into a third dimension (February 2, 2012) -- Wonder material graphene has been touted as the next silicon, with one major problem -- it is too conductive to be used in computer chips. Now scientists have given its prospects a new lifeline. Scientists have now literally opened a third dimension in graphene research. Their research shows a transistor that may prove the missing link for graphene to become the next silicon. ... > full story

Hubble zooms in on a magnified galaxy (February 2, 2012) -- Astronomers aimed Hubble at one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. Hubble's view of the distant background galaxy, which lies nearly 10 billion light-years away, is significantly more detailed than could ever be achieved without the help of the gravitational lens. ... > full story