Category: Science

Science

CERN release preliminary results: particle looking ‘more and more like a Higgs boson’ Alt

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As reported on Engadget. By Mat Smith CERN’s latest update to its god particle project is that the new particle that it was able to pick up is behaving “more and more like a Higgs boson.” The team isn’t being particularly specific here, as its not certain just yet whether it’s detected a ‘standard model’ particle or the lightest of several possible bosons predicted in other spin-off theories. Researchers are referencing the interactions of the particle (particularly its spin, or…

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Art Entertainment Science

Pixar’s Senior Scientist explains how math makes the movies and games we love

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As reported on The Verge. By Tim Carmody Applied research by Tony DeRose and his colleagues takes animators from simple polygons to the limits of geometric storytelling Tony DeRose wanders between rows at New York’s Museum of Mathematics. In a brightly-colored button-up T-shirt that may be Pixar standard issue, he doesn’t look like the stereotype of a scientist. He greets throngs of squirrely, nerdy children and their handlers — parents and grandparents, math and science teachers…

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Science Story

Physicists steer light on superconducting chips, forge our quantum computing future Alt

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As reported on Engadget. By Nicole Lee We’re still years away from quantum computing becoming an everyday reality, but the physics geniuses over at the University of California Santa Barbara have made a discovery that might speed that process along. A team under professor John Martinis’ tutelage has developed a way to manipulate light on a superconducting chip at the quantum level, allowing the group to control the wave forms of released photons with a switch and a resonator. That…

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Science Tech

Scientists say child has been ‘functionally cured’ of HIV infection with early treatment

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As reported on The Verge. By T.C. Sottek Medical researchers announced today that, for the first time, a child born with HIV appears to have been cured. Doctors are hopeful that the results may be replicated and used to treat infants infected by pregnancy or delivery in the first few days of life.   DESPITE ENDING TREATMENT THE CHILD NOW HAS NO IDENTIFIABLE LEVELS OF HIV   According to the National Institutes of Health, a two-year…

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Science Space Story

NASA’s discovery of third radiation belt around Earth will mean ‘rewriting textbooks’

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As reported on The Verge. By Jeff Blagdon Scientists used to think that the Van Allen belts — two nested rings of charged particles surrounding the Earth — bulge and swell in response to what’s happening on the sun, but are otherwise more or less fixed in place. Well, according to a new findingannounced by NASA, the rings are actually much more malleable than originally thought. New data shows their structure reconfigured in response to a…

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Environmental Science Story

Infrared holography lets firefighters see through fire and smoke

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As reported on The Verge. By Jeff Blagdon It isn’t easy to see through the smoke and flames in a burning building, but it’s crucial for emergency responders like firefighters, who need to be able to tell if people are trapped inside. To solve the problem, researchers at Italy’s National Institute of Optics have come up with a technique that one-ups conventional infrared camera technology by ditching an optical lens in favor of a laser, using…

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Science

Robotic wing helps scientists uncover the secrets of bat flight

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As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris Scientists at Brown University have developed a robotic wing to study the intricacies of bat flight. The team created the wing because bats are so light — and uncooperative — that attaching them to monitoring equipment negates their ability to fly. Using a complex system of joints, a flexible silicone elastomer membrane, servo motors, and a pulley system, the researchers were able to achieve the same weight-to-thrust ratio…

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Science Story

Scientists find weird new property of matter that breaks all the rules

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As reported on The Verge. By Arikia Millikan Similar eureka moments have brought us maglev trains — what’s next? When physicists discover new properties of matter, it usually means better technologies for the rest of us. Superconductors, liquid crystal displays like the ones found in most TVs now, medical imaging technologies that allow doctors to peer inside the human body, and magnetic levitation — which was used to create the Shanghai Maglev train — are all examples of…

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Science

How Scientists Stalked a Lethal Superbug — With the Killer’s Own DNA

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As reported on Wired. BY CARL ZIMMER Klebsiella pneumoniae Photo: Dan Forbes A lethal bacterium was running rampant at an NIH hospital. Antibiotics were useless. Then two scientists began a frantic race to track down the killer—with the superbug’s own DNA. On September 19, 2011, Evan Snitkin sat staring at a computer monitor, its screen cluttered with Perl script and row after row of 0s sprinkled with the occasional 1. To Snitkin, a bioinformatician at the National…

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Science Space Story

Rogue Planet Confirmed Orbiting Around ‘Eye of Sauron’

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As reported on Wired. BY ADAM MANN LONG BEACH, California – Astronomers have confirmed that a controversial exoplanet called Fomalhaut b actually does exist and have calculated its potential orbit. The results show that the object is even stranger than scientists could have imagined, dubbing it a “rogue planet.” The uncertainty about this object started in 2008, when scientists released an image taken with NASA’s Hubble space telescope of a tiny dot of light in the debris…

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