Science X Newsletter Week 40

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Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for week 40:

	A solar cell that stores its own power: World's first 'solar battery' runs on light and air Is it a solar cell? Or a rechargeable battery? Actually, the patent-pending device invented at The Ohio State University is both: the world's first solar battery.
	Majorana fermion: Physicists observe elusive particle that is its own antiparticle Princeton University scientists have observed an exotic particle that behaves simultaneously like matter and antimatter, a feat of math and engineering that could yield powerful computers based on quantum mechanics.
	Researchers discover a way to tease oxygen molecules from carbon dioxide (Phys.org) —A small team of researchers with the University of California has found a way break apart carbon dioxide molecules and get carbon atoms and oxygen molecules instead of carbon monoxide and an oxygen atom. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes how they did it, and the implications of their findings. Arthur Suits and David Parker offer a perspective piece in the same journal issue that describes in more depth, minimum energy path (MEP) where reactants don't always follow the easiest path during chemical reactions and how it pertains to the work done by this group.
	Cassini watches mysterious feature evolve in Titan sea (Phys.org) —NASA's Cassini spacecraft is monitoring the evolution of a mysterious feature in a large hydrocarbon sea on Saturn's moon Titan. The feature covers an area of about 100 square miles (260 square kilometers) in Ligeia Mare, one of the largest seas on Titan. It has now been observed twice by Cassini's radar experiment, but its appearance changed between the two apparitions.
	Memory loss associated with Alzheimer's reversed for first time Patient one had two years of progressive memory loss. She was considering quitting her job, which involved analyzing data and writing reports, she got disoriented driving, and mixed up the names of her pets. Patient two kept forgetting once familiar faces at work, forgot his gym locker combination, and had to have his assistants constantly remind him of his work schedule. Patient three's memory was so bad she used an iPad to record everything, then forgot her password. Her children noticed she commonly lost her train of thought in mid-sentence, and often asked them if they had carried out the tasks that she mistakenly thought she had asked them to do.
	Scientists invent award winning 2-in-1 motor for electric cars Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and German Aerospace Centre (DLR) have invented a 2-in-1 electric motor which increases the range of electric vehicles.
	First floating solar farm in UK comes to life in Berkshire Solar panel farms raise concerns about tying up valuable farmland. Is there another way to generate solar power without tying up large tracts of land? French company Ciel et Terre has an interesting approach that involves floating solar arrays on reservoirs, quarry lakes, irrigation canals or remediation and tailing ponds. Their platform has led to the UK's first floating solar farm, namely a solar array at a farm in Berkshire.
	New material steals oxygen from the air Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have synthesized crystalline materials that can bind and store oxygen in high concentrations. Just one spoon of the substance is enough to absorb all the oxygen in a room. The stored oxygen can be released again when and where it is needed.
	Superposition revisited: Proposed resolution of double-slit experiment paradox using Feynman path integral formalism (Phys.org) —The Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment, published in 1926 by Erwin Schrödinger, may be the most widely-known metaphorical explanation of quantum superposition and collapse. (Superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics stating that a physical system – such as a photon or electron – simultaneously exists partly in all theoretically possible states; but when measured or observed gives a result corresponding to only one of the possible states.)
	Simulations reveal an unusual death for ancient stars (Phys.org) —Certain primordial stars—those 55,000 and 56,000 times the mass of our Sun, or solar masses—may have died unusually. In death, these objects—among the Universe's first-generation of stars—would have exploded as supernovae and burned completely, leaving no remnant black hole behind.
	How to make a "perfect" solar absorber The key to creating a material that would be ideal for converting solar energy to heat is tuning the material's spectrum of absorption just right: It should absorb virtually all wavelengths of light that reach Earth's surface from the sun—but not much of the rest of the spectrum, since that would increase the energy that is reradiated by the material, and thus lost to the conversion process.
	Composite image shows two black holes orbiting each other The image above shows two supermassive black holes orbiting each other. It is a composite image where the blue/white indicates x-rays and the pink indicates radio wavelengths. It may look like they are orbiting closely, but the black holes are about 25,000 light years apart, which is about the same distance the Sun is from the center of the Milky Way.
	Cheap hybrid outperforms rare metal as fuel-cell catalyst (Phys.org) —Graphene quantum dots created at Rice University grab onto graphene platelets like barnacles attach themselves to the hull of a boat. But these dots enhance the properties of the mothership, making them better than platinum catalysts for certain reactions within fuel cells.
	A Higgs-gravity connection may leave traces in white dwarfs (Phys.org) —The discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2012 marked an important step toward understanding the origin of the mass of fundamental particles. Since mass plays a major role in gravity, the Higgs could also reveal insights into the nature of gravity. One possibility is that the Higgs field could couple to a specific spacetime curvature, a scenario that is invoked in various extensions of the standard model.
	Attacking type 2 diabetes from a new direction with encouraging results Type 2 diabetes affects an estimated 28 million Americans according to the American Diabetes Association, but medications now available only treat symptoms, not the root cause of the disease. New research from Rutgers shows promising evidence that a modified form of a different drug, niclosamide – now used to eliminate intestinal parasites – may hold the key to battling the disease at its source.
	Soon to become a minority in the US, whites express declining support for diversity, psychology study finds (Phys.org) —White Americans may view diversity and multiculturalism more negatively as the U.S. moves toward becoming a minority-majority nation, UCLA psychologists report.
	How small can galaxies be? Yesterday I talked about just how small a star can be, so today let's explore just how small a galaxy can be. Our Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light years across, and contains about 200 billion stars. The largest known galaxy (IC 1101) is about 6 million light years across, and has a mass of about 100 trillion solar masses. The smallest galaxy? It has about a thousand stars.
	HIV pandemic's origins located: It may have emerged in Congo in 1920s The HIV pandemic with us today is almost certain to have begun its global spread from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a new study.
	The extremes of Earth's Late Heavy Bombardment On June 30, 1908 a bolide streaked across the sky in the region near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Russia. When it exploded, the airburst leveled more than 2,000 square kilometers of trees. It is now known as the Tunguska event. This particular region of Russia is extremely remote so the damage was limited to trees and other local flora and fauna. But the impact is estimated to have been on the order of 10 -15 megatons. If it had occurred over a major city, the bolide would have destroyed it as surely as dropping a modern nuclear weapon. A similar sized event occurred in Arizona 40,000 years ago, and produced a crater a kilometer wide.
	Ancient human genome from southern Africa throws light on our origins What can DNA from the skeleton of a man who lived 2,330 years ago in the southernmost tip of Africa tell us about ourselves as humans? A great deal when his DNA profile is one of the 'earliest diverged' – oldest in genetic terms – found to-date in a region where modern humans are believed to have originated roughly 200,000 years ago.

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