|  Author | Topic: New Millenium Technology VI (Read 1,342 times) |
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|  | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #285 on Oct 28, 2009, 7:37am » | |
![[image]](http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5983/13344775.jpg)
Research into the eyes of a mantis shrimp could aid the design of optical devices. Scientists report in the journal Nature Photonics how the crustacean’s eyes are naturally tuned to see different polarisations of light and could provide the basis for future data storage systems such as CDs and DVDs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/po....5287/html/1.stm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #286 on Oct 28, 2009, 8:11am » | |
Particle beams injected into LHC
Engineers working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have successfully injected beams of particles into two sections of the vast machine.
An LHC spokesperson said this was the first time particle beams had been inside the LHC since it was shut down late in September 2008.
Scientists working on the giant particle accelerator described the success as "a milestone".
They plan to circulate a beam around the 27km-long tunnel in November.
The LHC was closed down shortly after its switch-on last year, when a magnet problem called a "quench" caused a tonne of liquid helium to leak into its tunnel.
Since then, engineers have been working to repair the damage. Recently, all eight sectors of the LHC were cooled to their operating temperature of 1.9 kelvin (-271C; -456F) - colder than deep space.
On 23 and 25 October, beams of protons and of lead ions were injected into the LHC ring, and successfully guided both clockwise and anti-clockwise through two of the eight sectors. Each sector is approximately 3.5km long.
The extreme cold allows the magnets inside the LHC, which align and accelerate the beam, to become "superconducting". This means they channel electric current with zero resistance and very little power loss.
Gianluigi Arduini, deputy head of hardware commissioning for the LHC, told BBC News the beam test showed that the collider's systems were operating properly.
"This is a work of synchronisation," he said.
"The fast magnets must be synchronised to accelerate the beam and transfer it from one accelerator to the next and eventually to the LHC, which must be synchronised to accept it.
"This whole process happens within 100 picoseconds - one picosecond is a millionth of a millionth of a second."
The beams were injected at 450 billion electron volts, only a fraction of the energy that scientists will aim for when they attempt to collide two particle beams.
Two beams of particles will be fired down pipes running through the magnets - travelling in opposite directions at close to the speed of light.
Mr Arduini said: "The aim once the beam is circulating is to accelerate [it] up to 3.5 [trillion electron volts].
"But that will be in stages. We will first go to one, then 3.5... then from 2011 we're going to try to go to seven."
At allotted points around the tunnel, the proton beams cross paths, smashing into one another.
Scientists hope to see new particles in the debris of these collisions that could reveal insights into the "Big Bang" and the nature of the Universe.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8326666.stm
Published: 2009/10/26 18:18:25 GMT
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #287 on Oct 30, 2009, 9:25am » | |
New Celestial Map Gives Directions For GPS
![[image]](http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/6162/091029134342large258825.jpg)
A sky map of the 295 defining sources of ICRF2. The dashed line represents the ecliptic and the solid line is the galactic plane. (Credit: Dave Boboltz / USNO)
ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2009) — Many of us have been rescued from unfamiliar territory by directions from a Global Positioning System (GPS) navigator. GPS satellites send signals to a receiver in your GPS navigator, which calculates your position based on the location of the satellites and your distance from them. The distance is determined by how long it took the signals from various satellites to reach your receiver.
The system works well, and millions rely on it every day, but what tells the GPS satellites where they are in the first place?
"For GPS to work, the orbital position, or ephemeris, of the satellites has to be known very precisely," said Dr. Chopo Ma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "In order to know where the satellites are, you have to know the orientation of the Earth very precisely."
This is not as obvious as simply looking at the Earth -- space is not conveniently marked with lines to determine our planet's position. Even worse, "everything is always moving," says Ma. Earth wobbles as it rotates due to the gravitational pull (tides) from the moon and the sun. Even apparently minor things like shifts in air and ocean currents and motions in Earth's molten core all influence our planet's orientation.
Just as you can use landmarks to find your place in a strange city, astronomers use landmarks in space to position the Earth. Stars seem the obvious candidate, and they were used throughout history to navigate on Earth. "However, for the extremely precise measurements needed for things like GPS, stars won't work, because they are moving too," says Ma.
What is needed are objects so remote that their motion is not detectable. Only a couple classes of objects fit the bill, because they also need to be bright enough to be seen over incredible distances. Things like quasars, which are typically brighter than a billion suns, can be used. Many scientists believe these objects are powered by giant black holes feeding on nearby gas. Gas trapped in the black hole's powerful gravity is compressed and heated to millions of degrees, giving off intense light and/or radio energy.
Most quasars lurk in the outer reaches of the cosmos, over a billion light years away, and are therefore distant enough to appear stationary to us. For comparison, a light year, the distance light travels in a year, is almost six trillion miles. Our entire galaxy, consisting of hundreds of billions of stars, is about 100,000 light years across.
A collection of remote quasars, whose positions in the sky are precisely known, forms a map of celestial landmarks in which to orient the Earth. The first such map, called the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF), was completed in 1995. It was made over four years using painstaking analysis of observations on the positions of about 600 objects.
Ma led a three-year effort to update and improve the precision of the ICRF map by scientists affiliated with the International Very Long Baseline Interferometry Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Called ICRF2, it uses observations of approximately 3,000 quasars. It was officially recognized as the fundamental reference system for astronomy by the IAU in August, 2009.
Making such a map is not easy. Despite the brilliance of quasars, their extreme distance makes them too faint to be located accurately with a conventional telescope that uses optical light (the light that we can see). Instead, a special network of radio telescopes is used, called a Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI).
The larger the telescope, the better its ability to see fine detail, called spatial resolution. A VLBI network coordinates its observations to get the resolving power of a telescope as large as the network. VLBI networks have spanned continents and even entire hemispheres of the globe, giving the resolving power of a telescope thousands of miles in diameter. For ICRF2, the analysis of the VLBI observations reduced uncertainties in position to angles as small as 40 microarcseconds, about the thickness of a 0.7 millimeter mechanical pencil lead in Los Angeles when viewed from Washington. This minimum uncertainty is about five times better than the ICRF, according to Ma.
These networks are arranged on a yearly basis as individual radio telescope stations commit time to make coordinated observations. Managing all these coordinated observations is a major effort by the IVS, according to Ma.
Additionally, the exquisite precision of VLBI networks makes them sensitive to many kinds of disturbances, called noise. Differences in atmospheric pressure and humidity caused by weather systems, flexing of the Earth's crust due to tides, and shifting of antenna locations from plate tectonics and earthquakes all affect VLBI measurements. "A significant challenge was modeling all these disturbances in computers to take them into account and reduce the noise, or uncertainty, in our position observations," said Ma.
Another major source of noise is related to changes in the structure of the quasars themselves, which can be seen because of the extraordinary resolution of the VLBI networks, according to Ma.
The ICRF maps are not only useful for navigation on Earth; they also help us find our way in space -- the ICRF grid and some of the objects themselves are used to assist spacecraft navigation for interplanetary missions, according to Ma.
Despite its usefulness for things like GPS, the primary application for the ICRF maps is astronomy. Researchers use the ICRF maps as driving directions for telescopes. Objects are referenced with coordinates derived from the ICRF so that astronomers know where to find them in the sky.
Also, the optical light visible to our eyes is only a small part of the electromagnetic radiation produced by celestial objects, which ranges from less-energetic, low-frequency radiation, like radio and microwaves, through optical light to highly energetic, high-frequency radiation like X-rays and gamma-rays.
Astronomers use special detectors to make images of objects producing radiation our eyes can't see. Even so, since things in space can have extremely different temperatures, objects that generate radiation in one frequency band, say optical, do not necessarily produce radiation in another, perhaps radio. The main scientific use of the ICRF maps is a precise grid for combining observations of objects taken using different frequencies and accurately locating them relative to each other in the sky.
Astronomers also use the frame as a backdrop to record the motion of celestial objects closer to us. Tracing how stars and other objects move provides clues to their origin and evolution.
The next update to the ICRF may be done in space. The European Space Agency plans to launch a satellite called Gaia in 2012 that will observe about a half-million quasars. Gaia uses an optical telescope, but because it is above the atmosphere, the satellite will be able to clearly see these faint objects and precisely locate them in the sky. The mission will use quasars that are optically bright, many of which are too dim in radio to be useful for the VLBI networks. The project expects to have enough observations by 2018 to 2020 to produce the next-generation ICRF.
ICRF2 involved researchers from Australia, Austria, China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States; and was funded by organizations from these countries, including NASA. The analysis efforts are coordinated by the IVS. The IAU officially adopts the ICRF maps and recommends their occasional updates.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091029134342.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #288 on Oct 30, 2009, 9:53am » | |
Art Restoration: Technique Removes Old Polymer Layers From Sensitive Historic Artworks
![[image]](http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/8890/091027103107large413428.jpg)
Oil-in-water nanocontainers within an aqueous polymer network were effective for the low-impact selective cleaning of painted and gilded surfaces. Interactions with the polymer (black in the schematic illustration) did not alter the structure of the microemulsion nanodroplets (light blue and red) significantly. A photograph of an equilibrated mixture of the microemulsion and the polymer is shown. (Credit: Copyright Wiley-VCH 2009)
ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2009) — In the past, restoration of paintings and other old artwork often involved application of acrylic resins to consolidate and protect them. One of the most important tasks for modern restorers is thus to remove these layers, because it turns out that acrylic resins not only drastically change the optics of the treated artwork, but in many cases they accelerate their degradation.
Italian researchers working with Piero Baglioni at the University of Florence have now developed a technique to effectively remove such old polymer layers from sensitive historic artworks. As the researchers report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the new cleaning system involves only a tiny proportion of volatile organic compounds. "We have demonstrated the first successful application of a water-based system for the removal of an organic layer from artwork," says Baglioni. "In addition, our method is simpler and less invasive than traditional processes."
The scientists use an oil-in-water microemulsion with the organic solvent para-xylene as the oil component. An emulsion is a fine dispersion of droplets of one liquid in another liquid with which the first is not miscible. One example from our daily lives is milk. A microemulsion is an emulsion that forms spontaneously and is stable. It contains substances that act as emulsifiers. Because the individual drops are only nanometer-sized, the mircoemulsion is not milky and opaque, but clear and transparent.
The Italian researchers embedded their micoremulsion in a matrix of a modified type of cellulose -- a material used as a thickener for emulsion paints. The matrix makes the cleaning agent viscous, so that it cannot enter very far into the pores of a painting. Its activity is limited to the outer layer, whilst deeper layers of paint do not come into contact with the xylene. The environment is protected as well, because of the very low concentration of volatile solvent, the evaporation of which is further limited by the matrix. The optical transparency of the system also allows the restorer to continuously monitor the cleaning process.
"We successfully cleaned a mural from the 15th century," reports Baglioni. This painting is located in the Santa Maria della Scala Sacristy in Siena. "It was covered with a 35 year old layer of acrylic from a previous restoration. Our new system allowed us to completely remove the undesirable shine. We were also able to clean another art work: a gilt frame from an 18th century painting."
Journal reference:
1. Piero Baglioni. Nanoscience for Art Conservation: Oil-in-Water Microemulsions Embedded in a Polymeric Network for the Cleaning of Works of Art. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, DOI: 10.1002/anie.200904244
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091027103107.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #289 on Oct 30, 2009, 10:25am » | |
Improved Adhesive For Products Like Transparent Tape Could Benefit Biofuels Economy
ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2009) — An adhesive used in products like laminate countertops may also help cement a place for economically viable biofuels, according to a Kansas State University researcher.
Susan Sun directs K-State's Bio Materials and Technology Laboratory, where she studies bio-based materials. Her research group is studying adhesives made from by-products of soybean, corn, sorghum and biomass fuels.
"There are two important forces driving this research," Sun said. "We're trying to develop these bio-based adhesives to replace environmentally hazardous materials," she said. "Also, we need high-value products to sustain the biofuels economy."
Sun said the adhesives commonly used in construction products like kitchen floors and laminate furniture are formaldehyde-based and isocyanide-based. The isocyanide-based adhesives are toxic, she said. Moreover, the formaldehyde-based adhesives affect air quality and human health because the compound's carbon and nitrogen bonds are reversible in humid conditions, emitting formaldehyde into the air.
On the other hand, Sun said biofuels producers need co-products like adhesives to make sustainable fuels economically viable. For biomass biofuels, the amount of energy that goes into producing them is still greater than the energy that the biofuels can produce.
"Biomass by its nature contains not just sugar necessary for the biofuel, but also lignin, protein and other materials," Sun said. "So after you convert it into biofuel, you still have a lot of leftovers. So you have to develop high-value chemicals and bio-based products out of that biomass to balance the economics."
Lignin, a major by-product of cellulosic biomass, is what holds plants upright, Sun said. Without it, plants would grow flat on the ground. This property makes it a good basis for polymers, she said. Lignins show promise for adhesives, she said, because they're rich in aromatic structures with many functional groups.
Sun also said plant oils have properties that make them suitable for adhesives that are activated by pressure. Pressure-sensitive adhesives are used in everyday products like transparent tape, postage stamps, sticky notes and name tags. Her research group is studying the molecular structures and reaction pathways related to adhesion.
"If you have a name tag and put it on your shirt, when you peel it off, adhesives may be left on your clothes," she said. "That's why you need to design the backbone of the polymer to be strong enough to pull the sticky group back."
She said it's also important to design pressure-sensitive adhesives that can be applied quickly to products in the factory.
"If your adhesives are good but it takes a few hours to cure, the industry won't pick it up," Sun said. "So it's not just a structural challenge, it's also a performance challenge and an economic challenge."
Sun's group also studies proteins with a specific structure that relate to adhesion properties. This information will be important to K-State plant scientists, who engineer plants to produce functional protein polymers.
"They don't necessarily know which plants are good for materials, so that's why they say that I write them the prescription for the plant," Sun said.
In August, findings from this research appeared in the journal Biomacromolecules and were presented at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society.
One application of bio-based adhesives from Sun's projects was creating a bio-based barrel for cattle feed that has been commercialized. The product uses straw and soy adhesives and no hazardous chemicals, so it is safe to eat.
"With the use of oil drums to hold feed, the farmer has to pay $6 per container to recondition them for reuse," Sun said. "This one you don't have to collect. The cattle just eat them, so it's an environmental benefit, too."
Sun's other research area is to develop biodegradable plastics. Recently, she and her co-workers collaborated with Ken Klabunde, university distinguished professor of chemistry, to improve the process flowability and strength of a bio-based plastic, such as poly(lactic acid), using magnesium oxidize nanoparticles. The flowability makes it easier for the material to flow into molds that form products like the utensils available at K-State's Student Union. And that makes the process more efficient for manufacturers, Sun said.
This research appeared in the Journal of Biobased Materials and Bioenergy in June and in the Journal of Applied Polymer Science in October.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091029111911.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #290 on Oct 31, 2009, 12:21pm » | |
Nanotronics within reach with creation of molecule-sized diode
by Kate Melville
Arizona State University biodesigner N.J. Tao has found a way to make a key electrical component on a phenomenally tiny scale. The single-molecule diode created by Tao and his fellow researchers is described in this week's Nature Chemistry.
![[image]](http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/3999/moleculardiode8841835.jpg)
In the electronics world, diodes are ubiquitous and are essential ingredients for the semiconductor industry. Making components including diodes smaller, cheaper, faster and more efficient has been the holy grail of an exploding electronics field, now probing the nanoscale realm.
Diodes allow current to flow in one direction around an electrical circuit but not the other. For a molecule to perform this feat, Tao explains, it must be physically asymmetric, with one end capable of forming a covalent bond with the negatively charged anode and the other with the positive cathode terminal.
The new study compares a symmetric molecule with an asymmetric one, detailing the performance of each in terms of electron transport. The idea of surpassing silicon limits with a molecule-based electronic component has been around for some time. "Theoretical chemists Mark Ratner and Ari Aviram proposed the use of molecules for electronics like diodes back in 1974," Tao says. "People around world have been trying to accomplish this for over 30 years."
Most efforts to date have involved many molecules. Only very recently have serious attempts been made to surmount the obstacles to single-molecule designs. One of the challenges is to bridge a single molecule to at least two electrodes supplying current to it. Another challenge involves the proper orientation of the molecule in the device. "We are now able to do this — to build a single molecule device with a well defined orientation," Tao says. The technique developed by Tao's group relies on a property known as AC modulation. "Basically, we apply a little periodically varying mechanical perturbation to the molecule," said Tao. "If there's a molecule bridged across two electrodes, it responds in one way. If there's no molecule, we can tell."
Tao's team used conjugated molecules, in which atoms are stuck together with alternating single and multiple bonds. Such molecules display large electrical conductivity and have asymmetrical ends capable of spontaneously forming covalent bonds with metal electrodes to create a closed circuit.
"I think it's exciting because we are able to look at a single molecule and play with it," Tao says. "We can apply a voltage, a mechanical force, or optical field, measure current and see the response. As quantum physics controls the behaviors of single molecules, this capability allows us to study properties distinct from those of conventional devices."
Tao is also examining the mechanical properties of molecules, for example, their ability to oscillate. Binding properties between molecules make them attractive candidates for a new generation of chemical sensors. "I am interested in molecular electronics not because of their potential to duplicate today's silicon applications," Tao says. Instead, he believes molecular electronics will benefit from unique electronic, mechanical, optical and molecular binding properties that set them apart from conventional semiconductors.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20090914215044data_trunc_sys.shtml
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #291 on Nov 7, 2009, 12:34am » | |
F1 designer unveils electric car
![[image]](http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/2593/46674534lorddrayson0102.jpg)
An electric car created by the McLaren F1 'supercar' road car designer Gordon Murray has been unveiled.
Three prototypes of the T.27 model will be developed over the next 16 months.
The manufacturing process, called iStream, has received £9m of investment, half of which came from the government's Technology Strategy Board.
iStream plants can be just one fifth of the size of a conventional car factory, as the cars are not made from stamped steel.
All the parts are designed by computer and welded together rather than being stamped out of metal sheets, explained David Bott, director of innovation platforms at the Technology Strategy Board.
"It's a very radical approach to manufacturing," he told the BBC. "Usually you talk about high value, or low carbon, or resource efficient manufacturing - this ticks all those boxes."
Lightweight
The T.27 car is designed for city or town use. Its predecessor, the T.25, weighs 600kg - half the weight of an average small family car.
"Cars don't tend to be heavy because of safety; they tend to be heavy because of luxury," added Mr Bott.
"The tubular frame of the T.27 is designed to absorb energy. It will pass all the relevant safety tests."
Gordon Murray, F1 designer and inventor of iStream, has been refining the technology since 1999, and has recruited former colleagues from his days at F1.
"The thinking is similar to McLaren's," he said. "It's all about efficiency and being lightweight, but in urban vehicles."
The most expensive part of any electric car is the battery, he added. So in order to be energy efficient, they need to be lightweight.
The T.27 can reach 60 miles per hour and is designed to travel up to 100 miles in between recharges.
"It's for commuting, picking the kids up, that sort of thing," said Mr Murray, who drives a Smartcar.
"We're not saying get rid of your station wagon but it's where car use must go - rather than having a couple of big cars in the family."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/8344532.stm
Published: 2009/11/05 15:04:04 GMT
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #292 on Nov 7, 2009, 8:28pm » | |
Bird beats big bang with bit of baguette
November 8, 2009
![[image]](http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6286/hadroncollidertunnel420.jpg)
The tunnel in the Large Hadron Collider. Photo: CERN
GENEVA : THE $6.5 billion machine designed to recreate the conditions present at the beginning of time had to be switched off after a bird dropped a "bit of baguette" into it, causing it to overheat.
As a result, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland had to postpone their plans last week to emulate the universe's Big Bang.
The European particle physics laboratory near Geneva launched the LHC in September last year. Physicists hoped to prove the existence of the Higgs boson, or God particle, which gives matter in the universe its mass.
But the LHC, which when running will collide protons travelling at 99.9 per cent of the speed of light, has been out of action since a helium leak caused it to be shut down nine days after its start-up.
The bird dropped bread on a compensating capacitor – where the mains electricity supply enters the collider – cutting power to the LHC during a test run.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technol....91107-i2u0.html
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #293 on Nov 7, 2009, 11:28pm » | |
E-Infrastructures Give Real Boost To Virtual Observatories
ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2009) — New tools and systems developed by European researchers are helping astronomers access data centres from anywhere in the world. From charting new stars to finding new meaning in old stellar objects, the result will be virtual observatories with very real impact.
In the past 50 years, the number of telescopes worldwide has exploded, creating at the same time vast quantities of information. This has boosted research considerably and increased knowledge of our place in the Universe.
But much more remains to be discovered, if only astronomers had access to all the possible data available on celestial objects. An astronomer may have access to images from NASA, but can he or she compare them to those acquired by the European Southern Observatory, or the European Space Agency? Do they have access to all the observations taken by every available telescope, on the ground and in space?
Virtual observatories (VOs) may provide the answer, making vast quantities of astronomical data available over the internet. The results of which could well be new stellar discoveries, but also new opportunities for researchers anywhere in the world.
“It is a question of equality, too,” explains Françoise Genova, coordinator of the Euro-VO DCA project (http://www.euro-vo.org/pub/dca/overview.html). “Ultimately, all scientists will have equal access to all possible data on any astronomical object.”
Problem solving – making the data interoperable
Up to now, although most current and historical astronomical data is already theoretically out there to be had, much of it is stored on computers in specialised data centres, and very often these systems cannot talk to each other, or interoperate.
That was the problem the Euro-VO Data Centre Alliance sought to solve. The team wanted to coordinate data centres in Europe, to help them conform to existing standards, and where necessary refine the standards.
The project also explored problems relating to the storage of complex data, such as astronomical modelling, and looked at the best ways of integrating grid-based systems – i.e. using multiple computers to solve a single problem at the same time – with VO standards.
“There were several strands to our work,” explains Genova. “Some data centres use grid-based systems, which use their own standards. We needed to develop a way that they could connect and exchange data with the broader VO standards.”
A significant fraction of the project’s work consisted of outreach activities – through the website, seminars and several workshops – which were very well subscribed to.
Euro-VO DCA also produced, for the first time, a census of European astronomical data centres. Further success is being recorded in the project’s work on theoretical modelling and standards building with the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA), the VO international standardising body.
Euro-VO DCA completed its work at the end of 2008, which has been taken over by the EU-funded Euro-VO AIDA (Astronomical Infrastructure for Data Access). AIDA will take the work further, seeking to unify the digital data collections of Europe’s astronomy centres, integrating their access mechanisms with evolving e-technologies, and enhancing the science extracted from the data.
Pre-internet-age astronomy
The AIDA project is one more phase in the drive by the astronomical community to make data available to all. Before the DCA, the European Astrophysical Virtual Observatory project performed a valuable proof of concept, showing how this community has evolved as technology has evolved.
“Sharing data in astronomy has a long history, preceding the internet by several decades” reveals Genova. “My institute, the Strasbourg astronomical data centre (CDS), was set up to offer access to data in the early 70s, with punch card access, printouts and magnetic tape,” she recalls. “They would send us letters asking for the data they wanted. Today, we receive 200,000 queries through the internet every day!”
But increasingly, scientists can access data from Genova’s institute and many others, all at the push of a few keys.
VO-enabled astronomy community
The upshot is much better access to data and more interesting research. As data centres join the VO-sphere by sharing their data interoperably, it enables a diverse range of new science projects, and stimulates innovative ways of using the data.
For example, new VO services from the Institut de Mecanique Celeste et de Calcul des Ephemerides (IMCCE), in Paris, provide positions of known solar system bodies. So if an astronomer asks the question: Is that a known asteroid streaking though my image taken in 2006? The answer is there, fast and efficient.
Other services use the core registries, or records, of the Euro-VO to request, for instance, all relevant data at a given position in the sky – a task which would take weeks to do by querying each individual website. These and many more VO services provide a new toolbox for astronomers.
The youngest astronomers are among those reaping the benefits, as evidenced by the lively participation of PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in the first Euro-VO school held in the frame of Euro-VO AIDA in April this year.
In the four-day programme, participants applied VO techniques to their own scientific projects, one of which established an efficient workflow for identifying Ultra Luminous X-ray sources and X-ray binary stars in nearby galaxies.
There is no doubt that VOs enormously boost the potential for research. And they make astronomy more economic, because they allow a greater number of researchers to benefit from all observations and to compare easily the available information.
The Euro-VO DCA project received funding from the Sixth Framework Programme for research.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091012100514.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #294 on Nov 7, 2009, 11:40pm » | |
Laser-plasma Accelerators Ride On Einstein's Shoulders
![[image]](http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/3964/091102103329large512403.jpg)
Example of a laser wakefield simulated in a “Boosted Frame”. Electrons (colored tubes) are injected and accelerated by surfing the wave (blue surfaces) generated by a laser pulse. (Credit: Image courtesy of American Physical Society)
ScienceDaily (Nov. 2, 2009) — Using Einstein's theory of special relativity to speedup computer simulations, scientists have designed laser-plasma accelerators with energies of 10 billion electron volts (GeV) and beyond. These systems, which have not been simulated in detail until now, could in the future serve as a compact new technology for particle colliders and energetic light sources.
Researchers at Instituto Superior Técnico of Portugal (IST), the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) used Einstein's principle that length and time scales change with the speed of the observer (in this case, the simulator) to incorporate otherwise intractable calculations into the simulations required to design these novel accelerators.
High-energy particle accelerators are used in many areas of science and technology, including fundamental physics exploration and discovery, medical science, chemistry, biology, and material science, among others. In the past couple of decades, a new concept of acceleration based on laser (or particle beam) plasma interactions has been demonstrated, with the potential to greatly reduce the size and cost of the world's largest atom smashers and to create very compact accelerators for a wide variety of applications.
In a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA), an intense, short laser pulse is sent through a column of tenuous plasma, generating a wave wake on which particles can surf to very high energies. The acceleration gradients obtained are more than three orders of magnitude higher than conventional radio-frequency accelerators. In the last five years, LWFA experiments have produced electron beams with energies from 100 million electron volts to 1 GeV within millimeter to centimeter distances. At 1 GeV, an electron is traveling at 99.99999 percent of the speed of light. The next decade promises tremendous improvements as a new generation of more powerful lasers becomes available, and the process becomes better understood.
It is at this point that numerical simulations play a critical role, not only to determine the optimal laser and plasma parameters, but also as a tool to explore new concepts and configurations. The challenge, however, is that accurate one-to-one simulations of the next generation of laser wakefield experiments are not easily possible: it would take more than one year to perform a single simulation using standard techniques. The difficulty arises from the necessity to resolve the laser wavelength of about one micron (1 millionth of a meter) while simulating a laser propagating through a plasma that can be several meters long -- distances that are more than six orders of magnitude apart. To access this range of scales in reasonable computational times, researchers have successfully used reduced models. These models, however, cannot capture some of the physics required for next-generation experiments.
Performing simulations in a frame of reference that moves close to the speed of light makes simulations of next-generation experiments possible. By Einstein's theory of special relativity, the laser pulse will stretch and the plasma will contract, which brings the scales of the two entities closer together. This means that modeling an experiment in this "boosted frame" can be more than 1,000 times faster than a simulation in the standard "laboratory frame."
Using this technique, scientists at IST, UCLA, and LBNL are now designing and simulating self- guided stages up to 12 GeV -- and externally guided and injected stages up to 50 GeV. These new kinds of numerical experiments enable the scientists to understand the new physical processes involved, to optimize experimental parameters, and to estimate the acceleration possible with the next generation of laser systems. The new results show that laser wakefield acceleration with near term lasers could lead to compact, less expensive infrastructures for fundamental science research, for new accelerator technology development, and might potentially lead to a future particle collider at very high energies.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091102103329.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #295 on Nov 16, 2009, 8:02pm » | |
16 November 2009
Universal quantum processor demonstrated
by Kate Melville
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a "universal" programmable quantum information processor that uses two quantum bits of information to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics.
The demonstration marks the first time any research group has moved beyond demonstrating individual tasks for a quantum processor to perform programmable processing, combining enough inputs and continuous steps to run any possible two-qubit program. "This is the first time anyone has demonstrated a programmable quantum processor for more than one qubit," said NIST postdoctoral researcher David Hanneke, the first author of the paper. "It's a step toward the big goal of doing calculations with lots and lots of qubits. The idea is you'd have lots of these processors, and you'd link them together."
The new processor, described in Nature Physics, stores binary information in two beryllium ions which are held in an electromagnetic trap and manipulated with ultraviolet lasers. Two magnesium ions in the trap help cool the beryllium ions. The processor allows the states of each beryllium qubit to be placed in a "superposition" of both 1 and 0 values at the same time. Researchers can also "entangle" the two qubits, a quantum phenomenon that links the pair's properties even when the ions are physically separated.
The researchers performed 160 different processing routines on the two qubits. Although there are an infinite number of possible two-qubit programs, this set of 160 is large and diverse enough to fairly represent them, Hanneke contends, thus making the processor "universal." Key to the experimental design was use of a random number generator to select the particular routines that would be executed, so all possible programs had an equal chance of selection. This approach was chosen to avoid bias in testing the processor, in the event that some programs ran better or produced more accurate outputs than others.
In the experiments, each program consisted of 31 logic operations, 15 of which were varied in the programming process. A logic operation is a rule specifying a particular manipulation of one or two qubits. In traditional computers, these operations are written into software code and performed by hardware.
The programs executed did not perform easily described mathematical calculations. Rather, they involved various single-qubit "rotations" and two-qubit entanglements. As an example of a rotation, if a qubit is envisioned as a dot on a sphere at the north pole for 0, at the south pole for 1, or on the equator for a balanced superposition of 0 and 1, the dot might be rotated to a different point on the sphere, perhaps from the northern to the southern hemisphere, making it more of a 1 than a 0.
Each program operated accurately an average of 79 percent of the time across 900 runs, each run lasting about 37 milliseconds. To evaluate the processor and the quality of its operation, the scientists compared the measured outputs of the programs to idealized, theoretical results. They also performed extra measurements on 11 of the 160 programs, to more fully reconstruct how they ran and double-check the outputs.
Hanneke notes that many more qubits and logic operations will be required to solve large problems. And a significant challenge for future research will be reducing the errors that build up during successive operations. Program accuracy rates will need to be boosted substantially, both to achieve fault-tolerant computing and to reduce the computational "overhead" needed to correct errors after they occur, according to the paper.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20091015193716data_trunc_sys.shtml
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #296 on Nov 18, 2009, 12:41pm » | |
Exotic Electric Properties of Graphene Confirmed
![[image]](http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2277/091117133510large592105.jpg)
Graphene layers are found in graphite flakes like those from pencil lead. (Credit: Kirill Bolotkin)
ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2009) — First, it was the soccer-ball-shaped molecules dubbed buckyballs. Then it was the cylindrically shaped nanotubes. Now, the hottest new material in physics and nanotechnology is graphene: a remarkably flat molecule made of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal rings much like molecular chicken wire.
Not only is this the thinnest material possible, but it also is 10 times stronger than steel and it conducts electricity better than any other known material at room temperature. These and graphene's other exotic properties have attracted the interest of physicists, who want to study them, and nanotechnologists, who want to exploit them to make novel electrical and mechanical devices.
"There are two features that make graphene exceptional," says Kirill Bolotin, who has just joined the Vanderbilt Department of Physics and Astronomy as an assistant professor. "First, its molecular structure is so resistant to defects that researchers have had to hand-make them to study what effects they have. Second, the electrons that carry electrical charge travel much faster and generally behave as if they have far less mass than they do in ordinary metals or superconductors."
Bolotin has been directly involved in the efforts to manufacture and characterize this exotic new material as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Philip Kim at Columbia University. In a paper published last week in the journal Nature, he and his Columbia colleagues report that they have managed to clean up graphene enough so that it exhibits a bizarre electrical phenomenon called the fractional quantum Hall effect, where the electrons act together to create new particles with electrical charges that are a fraction that of individual electrons.
Although graphene is the first truly two-dimensional crystalline material that has been discovered, over the years scientists have put considerable thought into how two-dimensional gases and solids should behave. They have also succeeded in creating a close approximation to a two-dimensional electron gas by bonding two slightly different semiconductors together. Electrons are confined to the interface between the two and their motions are restrained to two dimensions. When such a system is cooled down to less than one degree above absolute zero and a strong magnetic field is applied, then the fractional quantum Hall effect appears.
Since scientists figured out how to make graphene five years ago, they have been trying to get it to exhibit this effect with only marginal success. According to Bolotin, the Columbia group figured out that interference from the surface the graphene was sitting on was the problem. So they applied semiconductor lithography techniques to suspend ultraclean graphene sheets between microscopic posts above the surface of semiconductor chips. When they cooled this configuration down within six degrees of absolute zero and applied a magnetic field, the graphene generated a robust quantum Hall effect as predicted by theory.
The best way to understand this counterintuitive effect is to think of the electrons in graphene as a forming a (very thin) sea of charge. When the magnetic field is applied, it generates whirlpools in the electron fluid. Because electrons carry a negative charge, these vortices have a positive charge. They form with fractional charges such as one-third, one-half and two-thirds that of an electron. These positive charge carriers are attracted to and attach to the conduction electrons, creating quasi-particles with fractional charges.
Understanding the electrical properties of graphene is important because, unlike the other materials used by the electronics industry, it remains stable and conductive down to the molecular scale. As a result, when the current silicon technology reaches it's a fundamental miniaturization limit in coming years, graphene could very well take its place.
Meanwhile, some theoretical physicists are interested in graphene for a totally different reason: It provides a new way to test their theories.
As electrons move through ordinary metals, they interact with the electrical fields produced by the lattice of metal atoms, which push and pull them in a complex fashion. The net result is that the electrons act as if they have a mass different from that of ordinary electrons. So physicists call this an "effective mass" and consider them to be quasiparticles. When traveling through graphene they also act as quasiparticles, but they behave as if they have a mass of zero. It turns out that graphene quasiparticles, unlike those in other materials, obey the rules of quantum electrodynamics, the same relativistic equations that physicists use to describe the behavior of particles in black holes and high-energy particle accelerators. As a result, this new material may allow physicists to conduct tabletop experiments that test their theoretical models of some of the most extreme environments in the universe.
The research was supported by grants from Microsoft Project Q, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency and the Department of Energy.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091117133510.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #297 on Nov 18, 2009, 12:58pm » | |
Advanced Nuclear Fuel Sets Global Performance Record
![[image]](http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/438/0911170948296938079.jpg)
The fuel pellets contain a kernel of enriched uranium surrounded by carbon and carbide layers that act as a containment boundry for the radioactive material. (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Idaho National Laboratory)
ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2009) — Idaho National Laboratory (INL) scientists have set a new world record with next-generation particle fuel for use in high temperature gas reactors (HTGRs).
The Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) Fuel Program, initiated by the Department of Energy in 2002, used INL's unique Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) in a nearly three-year experiment to subject more than 300,000 nuclear fuel particles to an intense neutron field and temperatures around 1,250 degrees Celsius.
INL researchers say the fuel experiment set the record for particle fuel by consuming approximately 19 percent of its low-enriched uranium -- more than double the previous record set by similar experiments run by German scientists in the 1980s and more than three times that achieved by current light water reactor (LWR) fuel. Additionally, none of the fuel particles experienced failure since entering the extreme neutron irradiation test environment of the ATR in December 2006.
"This level of performance is a major accomplishment," said Dr. David Petti, Director of the Very High Temperature Reactor Technology Development Office at the U.S. Department of Energy's INL. The purpose of the fuel program is to develop this particle fuel, produce experimental data that demonstrates to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the fuel is robust and safe, and re-establish a U.S. fuel manufacturing capability for high temperature gas reactors. INL has been working with Babcock and Wilcox Inc., General Atomics and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to establish standards and procedures for the manufacture of commercial-scale HTGR fuel. The overarching goal of the AGR Fuel Program is to qualify coated nuclear fuel particles for use in HTGRs such as the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP). Developing particle fuel capable of achieving very high burnup levels will also reduce the amount of used fuel that is generated by HTGRs.
"An important part of our mission is the development and exploration of advanced nuclear science and technology," said Dr. Warren F. "Pete" Miller, assistant secretary for Nuclear Energy. "This achievement is an important step as we work to enable the next generation of reactors, decrease fossil fuel use in industrial applications, make fuel cycles more sustainable, and reduce proliferation risks."
"AGR-1" is the first of eight similar experiments which aim to confirm designs and fabrication processes and performance characteristics for such fuel. Future AGR fuel tests will include particle fuel produced on a prototypic industrial scale to further prove the irradiation performance of the NGNP-specific fuel design. The 18-foot-long AGR-1 experiment was inserted in INL's ATR core and allowed for each of six capsules containing the particle fuel specimens to be monitored and controlled separately. Inside the ATR core, the fuel specimens were subjected to neutron irradiation many times higher than what they would experience inside an HTGR or a current light water reactor, allowing INL researchers to gain irradiation performance data for nuclear fuel and materials in a shorter time. The team is monitoring the AGR fuel for a number of factors including "burn-up," which is a measurement of the percent of uranium fuel that has undergone fission reactions.
Although the experiment has now left the ATR, researchers still have more work to do before the AGR-1 test campaign will be finished. Post irradiation examination (PIE) will begin at INL and ORNL facilities and allow scientists to examine the fuel up close so that the fuel and its layers of coatings can be evaluated for degradation patterns and other characteristics. In addition, controlled higher temperature testing in furnaces is planned to determine the safety performance of the fuel under postulated accident conditions. These activities will last another two years.
The Next Generation Nuclear Plant Program aims to use a high temperature gas reactor to produce high temperature process heat and hydrogen used by many industrial facilities in daily operations and to support the broader goal of developing the next generation of nuclear power systems that provide abundant carbon-free electricity on a 24/7 basis. Excellent fuel irradiation performance must be demonstrated before high temperature gas reactors can be licensed and co-located with these complementary industrial facilities. Reaching this world record peak burn-up of 19 percent without any particle failure demonstrates the robustness of this particle fuel design.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091117094829.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #298 on Nov 21, 2009, 9:57am » | |
Large Hadron Collider: Beams Are Back on at World's Most Powerful Particle Accelerator
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2009) — Particle beams are once again zooming around the world's most powerful particle accelerator -- the Large Hadron Collider -- located at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. On November 20 at 4:00 p.m. EST, a clockwise circulating beam was established in the LHC's 17-mile ring.
After more than one year of repairs, the LHC is now back on track to create high-energy particle collisions that may yield extraordinary insights into the nature of the physical universe.
"The LHC is a machine unprecedented in size, in complexity, and in the scope of the international collaboration that has built it over the last 15 years," said Dennis Kovar, U.S. Department of Energy Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics. "I congratulate the scientists and engineers that have worked to get the LHC back up and running, and look forward to the discoveries to come."
American scientists have played an important role in the construction of the LHC. About 150 scientists, engineers and technicians from three DOE national laboratories -- Brookhaven Lab, Fermilab and Berkeley Lab -- built critical accelerator components. They are joined by colleagues from DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin in ongoing LHC accelerator R&D. The work has been supported by the DOE Office of Science.
Circulating beams are a major milestone on the way to the ultimate goal: data from high-energy particle collisions in each of the LHC's four major particle detectors. Over the next few months, scientists will create collisions between two beams of protons. These very first LHC collisions will take place at the relatively low energy of 900 GeV. They will then raise the beam energy, aiming for collisions at the world-record energy of 7 TeV in early 2010. With these high-energy collisions, the hunt for discoveries at the LHC will begin.
"It's great to see beam circulating in the LHC again," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "We've still got some way to go before physics can begin, but with this milestone we're well on the way."
In all, an estimated 10,000 people from 60 countries have helped design and build the LHC accelerator and its four massive particle detectors, including more than 1,700 scientists, engineers, students and technicians from 97 U.S. universities and laboratories in 32 states and Puerto Rico supported by the DOE Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091120234858.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: New Millenium Technology VI
« Reply #299 on Nov 21, 2009, 11:13am » | |
Accidental Discovery Produces Durable New Blue Pigment for Multiple Applications
![[image]](http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/2562/091116143621large986113.jpg)
An unusual "trigonal bipyramidal coordination" of manganese compounds was used to create a new blue pigment that is safe to produce, durable and environmentally benign. (Credit: Image courtesy of Oregon State University)
ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2009) — An accidental discovery in a laboratory at Oregon State University has apparently solved a quest that over thousands of years has absorbed the energies of ancient Egyptians, the Han dynasty in China, Mayan cultures and more -- the creation of a near-perfect blue pigment.
Through much of recorded human history, people around the world have sought inorganic compounds that could be used to paint things blue, often with limited success. Most had environmental or durability issues. Cobalt blue, developed in France in the early 1800s, can be carcinogenic. Prussian blue can release cyanide. Other blue pigments are not stable when exposed to heat or acidic conditions.
But chemists at OSU have discovered new compounds based on manganese that should address all of those concerns. They are safer to produce, much more durable, and should lead to more environmentally benign blue pigments than any being used now or in the past. They can survive at extraordinarily high temperatures and don't fade after a week in an acid bath.
The findings were just published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and a patent has been applied for on the composition of the compound and the process used to create it.
"Basically, this was an accidental discovery," said Mas Subramanian, the Milton Harris Professor of Materials Science in the OSU Department of Chemistry. "We were exploring manganese oxides for some interesting electronic properties they have, something that can be both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic at the same time. Our work had nothing to do with looking for a pigment.
"Then one day a graduate student who is working in the project was taking samples out of a very hot furnace while I was walking by, and it was blue, a very beautiful blue," he said. "I realized immediately that something amazing had happened."
What had happened, the researchers said, was that at about 1,200 degrees centigrade -- almost 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit -- this otherwise innocuous manganese oxide turned into a vivid blue compound that could be used to make a pigment able to resist heat and acid, be environmentally benign and cheap to produce from a readily available mineral.
The newest -- and possibly the best -- blue pigment in world history was born, due to manganese ions being structured in an unusual "trigonal bipyramidal coordination" in the presence of extreme heat.
"Ever since the early Egyptians developed some of the first blue pigments, the pigment industry has been struggling to address problems with safety, toxicity and durability," Subramanian said.
The pigment may eventually find uses in everything from inkjet printers to automobiles, fine art or house paint, researchers say.
The scientists said in their journal article that the new compound yields "a surprisingly intense and bright blue color," and they have outlined its structure and characteristics in detail. Collaborating on the work were researchers in the Materials Department at the University of California/Santa Barbara.
"A lot of the most interesting discoveries are not really planned, we've seen that throughout history," Subramanian said. "There is luck involved, but I also teach my students that you have to stay alert to recognize something when it happens, even if it isn't what you were looking for."
"Luck favors the alert mind."
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091116143621.htm
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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