bstadil - Slashdot User

Submission + - IBM researchers push MRI imaging to nanoscale

Submitted by

TheCybernator

on Friday April 27, 2007 @12:14AM

TheCybernator writes: "Researchers at IBM's Almaden Research Center have developed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to visualize nanoscale objects. The new techniques are a major milestone in the quest to build a microscope that could "see" individual atoms in three dimensions. Using Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM), IBM researchers have captured two-dimensional images of objects as small as 90 nanometers. (A nanometer is one billionth of a meter; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers in diameter.) "Our ultimate goal is to perform three-dimensional imaging of complex structures such as molecules with atomic resolution," said Dan Rugar, manager, Nanoscale Studies, IBM Research. "This would allow scientists to study the atomic structures of molecules — such as proteins — which would represent a huge breakthrough in structural molecular biology." MRFM offers imaging 60,000 times more sensitive than current MRI technology. MRFM uses what is known as force detection to extend the limits of conventional MRI and view structures that would otherwise be too small to be detected. The imaging breakthrough could eventually have major impact on the study of materials ranging from proteins and pharmaceuticals to integrated circuits — that required detailed understanding of the atomic structure. Knowing the exact location of specific atoms within tiny nanoelectronic structures, for example, would improve designers' insight into manufacture and performance. The ability to directly image the detailed atomic structure of proteins would aid the development of new drugs."

Submission + - Uncovering lost text of the ancients

Submitted by

jd

on Thursday April 26, 2007 @05:38PM

jd writes: "A very real once-in-a-lifetime three-for-the-price-of-one deal by Alexexander of Aphrodisias is being uncovered by the Walters Art Museum, in collaboration with a vast array of science labs armed with the latest in particle accelerators. It was discovered some time back that a medieval prayer book had re-used parchment previously used to record texts by Archimedes and Hyperides. By bombarding the ancient ink with high energy particles, it was possible to see the lost text even though the surface had been largely scrubbed clean of it. There had been a fuzzy region, though, that they could not read and it was driving them nuts. By subtly adjusting their techniques, the letters finally swam into view — but not anything they had expected. A far more ancient lost text, a critique on the work of Aristotle, has been uncovered. Speaking to the very origins of logic and classification, this is a glimpse into the first steps by the Greeks towards science and a rational explanation of the world."

Submission + - No major scientific hurdle to Z-pinch fusion

Submitted by

nanotrends

on Wednesday April 25, 2007 @05:41PM

nanotrends writes: "The Sandia Z-pinch device can be fired once every 10 seconds thanks to a new device called a linear transformer driver. This achievement has been described as "amazing" and "the biggest breakthrough in energy generation in decades". It seems to indicate that no scientific hurdle stands in the way of nuclear fusion. Just 5-7 years of engineering and configuring about 60 next generation linear transformer drivers. Then refining the system for commercial use starting in 20 years or less. All the pieces are now ready and proven, we just need to put them together for commercial nuclear fusion.

The Z-pinch can operate at 2 billion degrees kelvin which allows for the use of helium 3 for cleaner nuclear fusion

The Z-pinch technology is also the basis of the minimag Orion concept of Andrew Space Minimag Orion could be used for 90 day or less travel to Mars using sub-critical explosions. A full fusion system would be even more powerful."

Thin Water Acts Like a Solid 138

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday April 25, 2007 @04:17PM from the mash-downs dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "What happens when you compress water in a nano-sized space? According to Georgia Tech physicists, water starts to behave like a solid. "The confined water film behaves like a solid in the vertical direction by forming layers parallel to the confining surface, while maintaining it's liquidity in the horizontal direction where it can flow out," said one of the researchers. "Water is a wonderful lubricant, but it flows too easily for many applications. At the one nanometer scale, water is a viscous fluid and could be a much better lubricant," added another one."

Submission + - New Book: "How To Pull An Allnighter"

Submitted by

SmarterThanCaffeine

on Wednesday April 25, 2007 @01:11PM

SmarterThanCaffeine writes: "New Book About How To Pull An All-Nighter Book covers topics such as cognitive effects of sleep deprivation, use of glucose and caffeine during all-nighters, sleep debt, caffeine, avoiding fatty foods, memory, circadian rhythm http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2007/4/emw52001 1.htm Publisher's Web site for this book: http://www.lulu.com/content/710402"

Submission + - Stem Cell Signaling Mystery Solved

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Sunday March 25, 2007 @02:56AM

Anonymous Coward writes: "A newly discovered small molecule called IQ-1 plays a key role in preventing embryonic stem cells from differentiating into one or more specific cell types, allowing them to instead continue growing and dividing indefinitely, according to research performed by a team of scientists who recently have joined the stem cell research efforts at the Keck School of Medicine of USC."

Some Dinosaurs Made Underground Dens 124

Posted by kdawson on Saturday March 24, 2007 @06:15PM from the dig-it dept.

anthemaniac writes "Scientists have long puzzled over how some dinosaurs and other creatures survived the asteroid impact that supposedly caused the KT mass extinction 65 million years ago and wiped out all the big dinosaurs. One idea has been that smaller animals, including mammals, could have endured the fallout, the big chill, the subsequent volcanoes, and whatever else by burrowing. Now scientists have come up with the first evidence of burrowing dinosaurs. They speculate that underground dens might explain how some dinosaurs got through long, dark winters at high latitudes, too."

Single Gene Gives Mice Three-Color Vision 184

Posted by kdawson on Saturday March 24, 2007 @03:53PM from the colors-you-can't-see dept.

maynard writes "A study in the peer-reviewed journal Science shows that mice transgenetically altered with a single human gene are then able to see in full tri-color vision. Mice without this alteration are normally colorblind. The scientists speculate that mammalian brains even from animals that have never evolved color vision are flexible enough to interpret new color-sense information with just the simple addition of new photoreceptors. Such a result is also indicated by a dominant X chromosome mutation that allows for quad-color vision in some women." A sidebar in the article includes a nice illustration of what two-color vs. three-color mice might perceive.

Submission + - Mossie CO2 receptor identified

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23, 2007 @11:29PM

An anonymous reader writes: A team led by Rockefeller University, writing in Nature, has found that that mosquitoes [which were already known to be very sensitive to detecting carbon dioxide in exhaled breath] have identified the receptor responsible for detecting carbon dioxide. In a structure extending from their jaws, mosquitoes are able to sense carbon dioxide gas using protein receptors which were similar to fly proteins [Gr21a and Gr63a]. When they switched on these two proteins in fly, which normally can not detect carbon dioxide, the flies were able to detect carbon dioxide with their antenna. From the article: "the identification of the carbon dioxide receptor provides a potential target for the design of inhibitors that would act as an insect repellent. "These inhibitors would help fight global infectious disease by reducing the attraction of blood-feeding insects to humans." Dr Simon Hay, an expert in malaria at the University of Oxford, said: "Curiously, the work could also open the opportunity for the development of attractants, used to lure mosquitoes away from humans. "Increasing the distance mosquitoes have to fly for blood meals has long been known to increase their mortality and thus decrease disease transmission."

Submission + - Alcohol more harmful than LSD or ecstacy.

Submitted by

ozmanjusri

on Friday March 23, 2007 @09:20PM

ozmanjusri writes: "Professor David Nutt and colleagues have used a comprehensive 9-category matrix of harm to suggest commonly used drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are more damaging than many illicit drugs such as LSD and ecstacy. According to Professor Nutt, in a press release from the Bristol University,

"Drug misuse and abuse are major health problems. Our methodology offers a systematic framework and process that could be used by national and international regulatory bodies to assess the harm of current and future drugs of abuse."

While a sensible framework to assess harm from recreational drugs is helpful, I would be wary of wider adoption of such a scale, since it doesn't take into account the benefits of each drug.

If they could integrate a 9-category of positives; well I'd drink to that..."

Submission + - Mice get human gene, can see color

Submitted by troll -1 on Friday March 23, 2007 @03:53PM

troll -1 writes: Mice are dichromats, they have only S and M cone pigments. They don't see color too well. But now researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of California at Santa Barbara have successfully transformed their vision by introducing a single human gene into a mouse chromosome. Jeremy Nathans, one of the authors of the study, describes it as 'the same evolutionary event that happened in one of the distant ancestors of all primates and that led ultimately to the trichromatic color vision'.

Submission + - Paying Attention to Not Paying Attention

Submitted by yonathan on Friday March 23, 2007 @09:58AM

yonathan writes: Researchers are studying a pervasive psychological phenomenon in which oh man we've got to finish doing the taxes this weekend ... C'mon, admit it. Your train of thought has derailed like that many times. It's just mind-wandering. We all do it, and surprisingly often, whether we're struggling to avoid it or not.

France Opens Secret UFO Files 379

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday March 23, 2007 @05:29AM from the mulder-and-scully dept.

Radon360 notes that France has become the first country to open its files on UFOs. A new website lists over 1600 sightings dating back to the 1950s. "The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists. Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption."

NASA's Instrument For Detecting Life On Mars 88

Posted by kdawson on Sunday March 11, 2007 @10:03PM from the knock-knock dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "With the financial help of NASA, American and European researchers have developed a new sensor to check for life on Mars. It should also be able to determine if traces of life's molecular building blocks have been produced by anything that was once alive. The device has been tested in the Atacama Desert in Chile. It should be part of the science payload for the ExoMars rover planned for launch in 2013."

Submission + - What's new in study of human evolution?

Submitted by je ne sais quoi on Sunday March 11, 2007 @04:42PM

je ne sais quoi writes: MSNBC/Newsweek has an informative article summarizing a lot of the recent advancements in tracing the evolution of modern humans. From the article:

Unlike the earlier wave of Homo erectus into Asia a million years ago, the first modern humans, the ancestors of everyone today, departed Africa about 66,000 years ago... These pilgrims were strikingly few. From the amount of variation in Y chromosomes today, population geneticists infer how many individuals were in this "founder" population. The best estimate: 2,000 men. Assuming an equal number of women, only 4,000 brave souls ventured forth from Africa. We are their descendants.
The article emphasizes that evolution is not necessarily linear, in that a given trait might show up multiple times before being used by a successful species. We've come a long way from the old story of humanoid evolution that goes in a more or less linear chain from Australopithicus to Homo Sapiens.

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