Measurements taken* at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may help physicists develop a clearer understanding of high-temperature superconductors, whose behavior remains in many ways mysterious decades after their discovery. A new copper-based compound exhibits properties never before seen in a superconductor and could be a step toward solving part of the mystery.
Earth
Old-fashioned snail mail with a postage stamp might be the answer for federal officials working to keep the waters off the U.S. coast from being overfished.
Anglers who fish for fun in U.S. coastal waters say the federal government currently relies on questionable data to determine which ocean locales are overfished and subsequently placed off limits to recreational and commercial fishing so stocks can rebuild.
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have used a small crystal of ions (electrically charged atoms) to detect forces at the scale of yoctonewtons. Measurements of slight forces—one yoctonewton is equivalent to the weight of a single copper atom on Earth—can be useful in force microscopy, nanoscale science, and tests of fundamental physics theories.
Researchers describe how to carry out the first experimental test of string theory in a paper published tomorrow in Physical Review Letters.
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College Park, MD (August 31, 2010) -- Like most technologies, work on solar devices has proceeded in generational waves. First came bulk silicon-based solar cells built with techniques that borrowed heavily from those used to make computer chips. Next came work on thin films of materials specifically tailored to harvest the sun's energy, but still more or less borrowed from the realm of microelectronics manufacturing.
Inorganic elements known to be toxic at low concentrations are being discharged to air and water by oilsands mining and processing according to University of Alberta (U of A) research findings being published this month in one of the world's top scientific journals.
The 13 elements being discharged include mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium and several other metals known to be toxic at trace levels. The paper will appear in the August 30 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Orcus Patera is an enigmatic elliptical depression near Mars's equator, in the eastern hemisphere of the planet. Located between the volcanoes of Elysium Mons and Olympus Mons, its formation remains a mystery.
Meconium, the dark and tarry stools passed by a baby during the first few days after birth, can be used to determine how much the mother smoked, or if she was exposed to tobacco smoke during pregnancy. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Environmental Health measured tobacco smoke metabolites in meconium samples from 337 babies, finding that they correlated well with reported smoke exposure and other markers of tobacco smoke exposure.