Ephemera.

Mar 16, 2009 12:27

  • An engineered solid-state metamaterial proved it can function as a state-of-the-art device in the complex terahertz (THz) range of the electromagnetic spectrum, controlling the phase of a THz beam 30 times faster and with far greater precision than a conventional optical device.
  • A new analysis of old data shows that gravitational waves may have been detected in 1987.
  • NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found within Saturn's G ring an embedded moonlet, some half a kilometer across, that appears as a faint, moving pinprick of light. Scientists believe it is a main source of the G ring and its single ring arc.
  • A man who lost his sight 30 years ago says he can now see flashes of light after being fitted with a bionic eye.
  • Microscopic particles of carbon known as buckyballs may be able to keep the nation's water pipes clear in the same way clot-busting drugs prevent arteries from clogging up.
  • A Purdue University researcher has found a way to eliminate bacteria in packaged foods such as spinach and tomatoes. By placing two high-voltage, low-watt coils attached to a transformer on the outside of a sealed food package, a plasma field of ionized oxygen is generated, which forms ozone. Ozone kills bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella.
  • Two separate research teams have come up with four different methods to sniff keystrokes by detecting the electromagnetic radiation leaked from a computer keyboard.
  • Researchers at the University of Miami and at the Universities of Tokyo and Tohoku, in Japan, have discovered a spin battery effect: the ability to store energy into the magnetic spin of a material and to later extract that energy as electricity, without a chemical reaction.
  • Dutch scientists have successfully weakened fear memories in human volunteers by administering the beta-blocker propranolol. Interestingly, the fear response did not return over the course of time.
  • A new theory of variable gravity involving two cosmological-scale extra dimensions may account for observed gravitational anomalies on the medium scale.
  • Scientists have discovered a transparent form of the element sodium (Na). They were able to demonstrate that sodium defies normal physical expectations by going transparent under pressure.
  • Researchers in England have used fMRI to map the activity in volunteers' hippocampuses. From these scans, they could pinpoint exactly where the volunteers were in a virtual reality landscape.

miscellany

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