This news release is available in German.
The efficiency of the new method is based on a X-ray focussing optics being firmly fixed to the object to be imaged. While this approach initially provides a blurry image, this can be focussed in the computer based on the hologram information. At the same time, the rigid connection between the object and the focussing optics elegantly solves the problem of vibration induced jitter that plays an enormous role at the nanometre scale.
COLLEGE PARK, MD – Students in a University of Maryland undergraduate astronomy class have made a rare discovery that wowed professional astronomers: a previously unstudied asteroid is actually a pair of asteroids that orbit and regularly eclipse one another.
Fewer than 100 asteroids of this type have been identified in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, said Melissa Hayes-Gehrke, who teaches the hands-on class for non-astronomy majors in which eight students made the find in the fall semester 2013.
Green space in towns and cities could lead to significant and sustained improvements in mental health, finds a new study published in the journal of Environmental Science & Technology.
Analysing data that followed people over a five year period, the research has found that moving to a greener area not only improves people's mental health, but that the effect continues long after they have moved.
The findings add to evidence that suggests increasing green spaces in cities - such as parks and gardens - could deliver substantial benefits to public health.
An international team of astronomers, using NASA's Fermi observatory, has made the first-ever gamma-ray measurements of a gravitational lens, a kind of natural telescope formed when a rare cosmic alignment allows the gravity of a massive object to bend and amplify light from a more distant source.
This accomplishment opens new avenues for research, including a novel way to probe emission regions near supermassive black holes. It may even be possible to find other gravitational lenses with data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
An international team of astronomers has discovered the first Earth-mass planet that transits, or crosses in front of, its host star. KOI-314c is the lightest planet to have both its mass and physical size measured. Surprisingly, although the planet weighs the same as Earth, it is 60 percent larger in diameter, meaning that it must have a very thick, gaseous atmosphere.
A newly discovered system of two white dwarf stars and a superdense pulsar--all packed within a space smaller than the Earth's orbit around the sun -- is enabling astronomers to probe a range of cosmic mysteries, including the very nature of gravity itself.
The international team, which includes UBC astronomer Ingrid Stairs, reports their findings in the journal Nature on January 5.
Striking new observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope capture, for the first time, the remains of a recent supernova brimming with freshly formed dust. If enough of this dust makes the perilous transition into interstellar space, it could explain how many galaxies acquired their dusty, dusky appearance.
Galaxies can be remarkably dusty places and supernovas are thought to be a primary source of that dust, especially in the early Universe. Direct evidence of a supernova's dust-making capabilities, however, has been slim and cannot account for the copious amount of dust detected in young, distant galaxies.
A newly discovered system of two white dwarf stars and a superdense pulsar--all packed within a space smaller than the Earth's orbit around the sun -- is enabling astronomers to probe a range of cosmic mysteries, including the very nature of gravity itself.
The international team, which includes UBC astronomer Ingrid Stairs, reports their findings in the journal Nature on January 5.
Self-driving vehicles offer the promise of significant benefits to society, but raise several policy challenges, including the need to update insurance liability regulations and privacy concerns such as who will control the data generated by this technology, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered a unique stellar system of two white dwarf stars and a superdense neutron star, all packed within a space smaller than Earth's orbit around the Sun. The closeness of the stars, combined with their nature, has allowed the scientists to make the best measurements yet of the complex gravitational interactions in such a system.
The 18th century writer Adam Smith provided a workable metaphor for the way society utilizes resources. In his book "The Wealth of Nations," he argued that even as individuals strive, through personal industry, to maximize their advantage in life, they inadvertently contribute---as if under the influence of a "hidden hand"---to an aggregate disposition of wealth. Well, if Smith were a physicist and alive in the 21st century he might be tempted to compare people or nations to molecules and to replace the phrase "hidden hand" with "thermodynamic process."
BOZEMAN, Mont. – Red and green traps attract more sweetpotato weevils than other colors, and a Montana State University researcher who made that discovery wants to know if Montana insects react the same way.
Gadi V.P. Reddy, superintendent and entomologist/ecologist at MSU's Western Triangle Agricultural Research Center at Conrad, said the lessons he learned in Guam and published in the Jan. 2 issue of the Annals of the Entomological Society of America will be tested on some of the major pests that destroy Montana's wheat, barley and canola.
Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered an effective strategy that could prevent the human immune system from rejecting the grafts derived from human embryonic stem cells, a major problem now limiting the development of human stem cell therapies. Their discovery may also provide scientists with a better understanding of how tumors evade the human immune system when they spread throughout the body.
Jerusalem, January 1, 2014 --- Early on in our careers, many of us were tutored as to how to best write an effective and attention-getting curriculum vitae (CV) in looking for a job. But in today's world, many are looking not for just a job, but are engaged in wide, often Internet-based searches for seed money to launch entrepreneurial ventures of one sort of another. But what guidelines exist as to the best way to go about securing this kind of funding?