SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 27, 2013 – Vibration absorbers are devices used to damp vibration in everything from engines to buildings. When attached to the wheels or the tracks of rail transit systems, they may reduce the noise from trains, bringing more peace and quiet to passengers and those who work or live near the tracks. In tests of two major metropolitan public rail systems, researchers say that vibration absorbers have a modest effect if any on wheel or rail rolling noise, but they may be effective in reducing wheel squeal.
Heavens
Optical fibers carry data in the form of pulses of light over distances of thousands of miles at amazing speeds. They are one of the glories of modern telecommunications technology. However, their capacity is limited, because the pulses of light need to be lined up one after the other in the fiber with a minimum distance between them so the signals don't interfere with each other. This leaves unused empty space for data in the fiber.
A star is formed when a large cloud of gas and dust condenses and eventually becomes so dense that it collapses into a ball of gas, where the pressure heats the matter, creating a glowing gas ball – a star is born. New research from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, shows that a young, newly formed star in the Milky Way had such an explosive growth, that it was initially about 100 times brighter than it is now. The results are published in the scientific journal, Astrophysical Journal Letters.
RICHLAND, Wash. – Highly insulating triple-pane windows keep a house snug and cozy, but it takes two decades or more for the windows to pay off financially based on utility-bill savings, according to a report by energy efficiency experts at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The findings are being presented Dec. 4, 2013 by PNNL research engineer Sarah Widder at the Buildings XII Conference in Clearwater Beach, Fla. The meeting is sponsored by ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers).
WASHINGTON (Dec. 3, 2013) – The acute care system, which includes urgent care and retail clinics, emergency departments, hospitals, and doctors' offices, reflects the best and worst in American medicine. While acting as a safety net for the under- and uninsured, the system is also fragmented, disconnected, and costly.
Quantum entanglement, a perplexing phenomenon of quantum mechanics that Albert Einstein once referred to as "spooky action at a distance," could be even spookier than Einstein perceived.
Physicists at the University of Washington and Stony Brook University in New York believe the phenomenon might be intrinsically linked with wormholes, hypothetical features of space-time that in popular science fiction can provide a much-faster-than-light shortcut from one part of the universe to another.
The fires (outlined in red) in this image of Ecuador taken by the Aqua satellite are most likely agricultural in nature. The location, widespread nature, and number of fires suggest that these fires were deliberately set to manage land. Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil and to clear the ground of unwanted plants. While fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture, the fires also produce smoke that degrades air quality.
AUSTIN, Texas — In a finding of relevance to the search for life in our solar system, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research have shown that the subsurface ocean on Jupiter's moon Europa may have deep currents and circulation patterns with heat and energy transfers capable of sustaining biological life.
The water signals were all less pronounced than expected, and the scientists suspect this is because a layer of haze or dust blankets each of the five planets. This haze can reduce the intensity of all signals from the atmosphere in the same way fog can make colors in a photograph appear muted. At the same time, haze alters the profiles of water signals and other important molecules in a distinctive way.
The Northwestern Pacific Ocean tropical cyclone season continues with the formation of the thirty-third tropical depression today, December 3, 2013.Two NASA satellites provided a look at the newly formed depression's cloud cover and rainfall rates.
Rain, crucial to sustaining life on Earth, is proving deadly for young peregrine falcons in Canada's Arctic.
A University of Alberta study recently published in Oecologia has found that an increase in the frequency of heavy rain brought on by warmer summer temperatures is posing a threat not seen in this species since before pesticides such as DDT were banned from use in Canada in 1970.
The study is among the first to directly link rainfall to survival of wild birds in Canada.
Scientists were able to reliably predict the timing of the 2012-2013 influenza season up to nine weeks in advance of its peak. The first large-scale demonstration of the flu forecasting system by scientists at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health was carried out in 108 cities across the United States.
Results are published online in the journal Nature Communications.
The bedrock hidden beneath the thick ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica has intrigued researchers for years. Scientists are interested in how the shape of this hidden terrain affects how ice moves -- a key factor in making predictions about the future of these massive ice reservoirs and their contribution to sea level rise in a changing climate.
After several days of continued observations, scientists continue to work to determine and to understand the fate of Comet ISON: There's no doubt that the comet shrank in size considerably as it rounded the sun and there's no doubt that something made it out on the other side to shoot back into space. The question remains as to whether the bright spot seen moving away from the sun was simply debris, or whether a small nucleus of the original ball of ice was still there. Regardless, it is likely that it is now only dust.
NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storms Sentinel airborne mission known as HS3 wrapped up for the 2013 Atlantic Ocean hurricane season at the end of September, and had several highlights. HS3 will return to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., for the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season.