The EDGE: ScienceDaily Technology Headlines -- for Sunday, December 4, 2011

ScienceDaily Technology Headlines

for Sunday, December 4, 2011

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What's that sparkle in Cassini's eye? (December 3, 2011) -- The moon Enceladus, one of the jewels of the Saturn system, sparkles peculiarly bright in new images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The images of the moon, the first ever taken of Enceladus with Cassini's synthetic aperture radar, reveal new details of some of the grooves in the moon's south polar region and unexpected textures in the ice. These images, obtained on Nov. 6, 2011, are the highest-resolution images of this region obtained so far. ... > full story

Thinner thermal insulation (December 3, 2011) -- Insulation panels that are both thin and effective are expensive. At present these high-end products are built into energy-saving refrigerators. Innovative components and production techniques are now set to sink the costs – so that private home-builders can also benefit from the new technology. Researchers in Germany are now developing films for a material that will insulate homes without much additional structural alteration: vacuum isolation panels, VIPs for short. The panels are only two centimeters thick and yet perform just as well as a classic 15-centimeter-thick insulation layer made from polyurethane foam. The inner workings of the VIPs are made mostly from pyrogenic silica. A high-tech film holds the material together and makes it air-tight. ... > full story

Astronomers find 18 new planets: Discovery is the largest collection of confirmed planets around stars more massive than the sun (December 2, 2011) -- Discoveries of new planets just keep coming and coming. A team of astronomers has found 18 Jupiter-like planets in orbit around massive stars. The discoveries further constrain theories of planet formation. ... > full story

Sharp decline in pollution from U.S. coal power plants, NASA satellite confirms (December 2, 2011) -- A team of scientists have used the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite to confirm major reductions in the levels of a key air pollutant generated by coal power plants in the eastern United States. The pollutant, sulfur dioxide, contributes to the formation of acid rain and can cause serious health problems. ... > full story

Swiss scientist prove durability of quantum network (December 2, 2011) -- Scientists and engineers have proven the worth of quantum cryptography in telecommunication networks by demonstrating its long-term effectiveness in a real-time network. Their international network, created in collaboration with ID Quantique and installed in the Geneva metropolitan area and crossing over to the site of CERN in France, ran for more than one-and-a-half years from the end of March 2009 to the beginning of January 2011. ... > full story

Course excellent, adjustment postponed: Mars Science Laboratory mission status report (December 2, 2011) -- Excellent launch precision for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission has forestalled the need for an early trajectory correction maneuver, now not required for a month or more. ... > full story

More promising natural gas storage? (December 2, 2011) -- A research team has developed a computational method that can save scientists and engineers valuable time in the discovery process. The new algorithm automatically generates and tests hypothetical metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), zeroing in on the most promising structures. These MOFs then can be synthesized and tested in the lab. The researchers quickly identified more than 300 different MOFs that are predicted to be better than any known material for methane storage. ... > full story

Scientists use laser imaging to assess safety of zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreen (December 2, 2011) -- Ultra-tiny zinc oxide (ZnO) particles are among the ingredients list of some commercially available sunscreen products, raising concerns about whether the particles may be absorbed beneath the outer layer of skin. To help answer these questions, a team of scientists from Australia and Switzerland have developed a way to optically test the concentration of ZnO nanoparticles at different skin depths. ... > full story

Astronomers look to neighboring galaxy for star formation insight (December 2, 2011) -- An international team of astronomers has mapped in detail the star-birthing regions of the nearest star-forming galaxy to our own, a step toward understanding the conditions surrounding star creation. They found a large number of relatively low-mass clouds of molecular hydrogen -- material for star forming -- and found a correlation between young massive stars and molecular clouds. ... > full story

'Pacman' nebula gets some teeth (December 2, 2011) -- To visible-light telescopes, this star-forming cloud appears to be chomping through the cosmos, earning it the nickname the "Pacman" nebula, like the famous Pac-Man video game that debuted in 1980. When viewed in infrared light by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, the Pacman takes on a new appearance. In place of its typical, triangle-shaped mouth is a new set of lower, sharp-looking teeth. The Pacman is located at the top of the picture, taking a bite in the direction of the upper left corner. ... > full story

New switch could improve electronics (December 2, 2011) -- Researchers have invented a new type of electronic switch that performs electronic logic functions within a single molecule. The incorporation of such single-molecule elements could enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient electronics. ... > full story

New magnetic-field-sensitive alloy could find use in novel micromechanical devices (December 2, 2011) -- A multi-institution team of researchers has combined modern materials research and an age-old metallurgy technique to produce an alloy that could be the basis for a new class of sensors and micromechanical devices controlled by magnetism. ... > full story