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Submission + - Toward a Quantum Theory of Gravity? (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by GlowingCat
GlowingCat writes: One of the main problems in attempting to calculate gravitational interactions with gravitons has been that the calculations produced unphysical infinities at almost every step. Bern and colleagues, however, managed to enormously simplify the calculations by showing that, at least in some cases, gravitons can be replaced by two copies of gluons — the carriers of the strong nuclear force. If this double-copy-of-gluons relationship holds in general, this clue could potentially lead to a dramatic breakthrough in the search for a quantum theory of gravity.

Submission + - Amazing New Invention: A Nail Polish That Detects Date Rape Drugs (geek.com)

Submitted by stephendavion
stephendavion writes: Checking to see if your drink has been tampered with is about to get a whole lot more discreet. Thanks to the work of four North Carolina State University undergrads, you’ll soon be able to find out without reaching for a testing tool. That’s because you’ll already have five of them on each hand. The team — Ankesh Madan, Stephen Gray, Tasso Von Windheim, and Tyler Confrey-Maloney — has come up with a creative and unobtrusive way to package chemicals that react when exposed to Rohypnol and GHB. They put it in nail polish that they’re calling Undercover Colors.

Submission + - What I learned from debating science with trolls (theconversation.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I often like to discuss science online and I’m also rather partial to topics that promote lively discussion, such as climate change. This inevitably brings out the trolls.

“Don’t feed the trolls” is sound advice, but I’ve ignored it on occasion and been rewarded. Not that I’ve changed the minds of any trolls, nor have I expected to.

But I have received an education in the tactics many trolls use. These tactics are common not just to trolls but to bloggers, journalists and politicians who attack science.

Some techniques are comically simple. Emotionally charged, yet evidence-free, accusations of scams, fraud and cover-ups are common. Such accusations may be effective at polarising debate and reducing understanding.

The full article is available at The Conversation.

Comment Where From? (Score 1) 303

by gpronger (#47722361) Attached to: Scientists Baffled By Unknown Source of Ozone-Depleting Chemical
So, the main use of carbon tet was manufacturing the CFC's. this is replacing a chlorine with a fluorine. Done in a manufacturing facility. So, if this is due to it still being used for that purpose, you'd be able to look at the presence of the products. If plants have leaky manufacturing processes, you should see the carbon tet as well as the CFC's.

If I were to guess, it's degassing from old landfills.

Comment Re:Source is HVAC Contractors (Score 1) 303

by gpronger (#47722267) Attached to: Scientists Baffled By Unknown Source of Ozone-Depleting Chemical
Chemically it's not going to happen. Carbon tet is fluorinated to make the CFC's. The CFC's, in use are largely unreactive. We need to recharge due to leaks, not due to decompostion. In the atmosphere, the CFC's aren't going to have a ready source for the chlorine to somehow react back to carbon tet.

Submission + - 1 Old Car Battery Can Help Power 30 Homes (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Taffykay
Taffykay writes: Science recently scored a simultaneous victory over pollution for both recycling and renewable energy! A team of researchers at MIT has come up with plan to turn old car batteries into durable solar panels. According to Phys.org, the system proposed by a group of MIT professors and published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science uses a fairly new solar cell technology that includes a compound called perovskite, which is nearly on par with traditional silicon-based cells but takes significantly less material to manufacture.

Submission + - How to read a microbiome study like a scientist.

Submitted by bmahersciwriter
bmahersciwriter writes: Scientific reports have increasingly linked the bacteria in your gut to health and maladies, often making wild-sounding claims. Did you hear about the mice who were given fecal transplants from skinny humans and totally got skinny! Well, some of the more gut-busting results might not be as solid as they seem. Epidemiologist Bill Hanage offers five critical questions to ask when confronted by the latest microbiome research.

Submission + - As Ebola death toll rises, scientists work on nanotech cure

Submitted by rlinke
rlinke writes: Scientists at Northeastern University are using nanotechnology to find an effective treatment for the Ebola virus, which has killed more than 1,200 people and sickened even more.

What makes finding a vaccine or cure such a formidable job is that the virus mutates so quickly. How do you pin down and treat something that is continually changing?

Thomas Webster, professor and chairman of bioengineering and chemical engineering at Northeastern, may have an answer to that — nanotechnology.

Submission + - VertiKUL Drone "Delivers" on Both Hovering and Forward Flight (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: When something is sent to you by airmail, it travels in a fast and relatively fuel-efficient fixed-wing aircraft, not a fuel-guzzling helicopter. Nonetheless, when we hear about the possibility of drones being used to deliver items within cities, multirotor-style aircraft are almost always what's proposed – while they're good at maneuvering in urban spaces, they're essentially just little unmanned helicopters. With that in mind, a group of three engineering students from Belgium's KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) have created a prototype delivery drone known as VertiKUL, which combines the best features of both types of aircraft.

Submission + - Recycled Car Batteries Transformed into Low-Cost Solar Panels

Submitted by rofkool
rofkool writes: MIT researcher have developed a method of transforming old lead-acid car batteries into long-lasting, low-cost solar panels.

It is estimated that a single battery could be used to produce enough solar cells to power up to 30 homes.

The discovery addresses two key problems: Firstly the problem of disposing of lead-acid batteries in an environmentally-responsible way, and secondly the difficulty of producing raw lead ore for use in solar cells.

Angela Belcher, W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT and co-author of the study, said: "Once the battery technology evolves, over 200 million lead-acid batteries will potentially be retired in the United States, and that could cause a lot of environmental issues."

Comment So why bother with Brand Recognition (Score 1) 653

by gpronger (#46536221) Attached to: $30K Worth of Multimeters Must Be Destroyed Because They're Yellow
Fluke is a manufacturer of higher quality testing equipment, and has put in a lot of effort on brand recognition. It is not by accident that these units match. Now it may be that Sparkfun simply purchased a bunch of cheap Chinese units who had copied the trademarked systems, but it's not Fluke who is at fault here nor should be villanized.

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