Tag: function

Crazy fast X-ray laser catches chemical reactions in the act

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC laboratory have taken a “molecular movie” of a chemical reaction for the first time. The results of their research could give new insights into to how chemical bonds form, helping researchers better understand biological processes. To give you an idea of the difficulty of the feat, the critical part of the reaction — the breaking apart of a ring-shaped gas molecule — takes a mere 200 femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second). To record such a rapid process, the researchers used the two mile long Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) to fire X-ray laser pulses a mere 25 quadrillionths of a second in duration. The molecular changes are not captured with visible light like a camera takes a picture, however. Here’s how it works: first, the chemical reaction is initiated by blasting the gas (1, 3-cyclohexadiene) with a separate, high-powered optical laser. That breaks the molecular bonds, converting it into another gas called hexatriene. While the chemical transformation is still in action, the LCLS X-ray laser strikes the altered molecule, creating a distinctive diffraction pattern that’s capture by a detector. The shape of the pattern on the detector helps scientists “infer back what’s going on the molecule, ” according to lead scientist Mike Minitti. By varying the time between the optical laser that kicks off the reaction and the X-ray laser (in 25 femtosecond increments), the team could see the chemical bonds breaking apart step-by-step. It took about 100, 000 measurements to get enough data to create a simulated “molecular movie” showing the complete transformation. It happens so fast that if it were possible to film it using a real camera, it would have to roll at around 30 trillion frames per second. “Before your eyes, a chemical reaction is occurring that has never been seen before this way, ” said Minitti. As a result, the study helped resolve “long standing questions about how this (ring-shaped) molecule actually opens up, ” he added. With the first successful observation of a rapid chemical transformation in a simple gas, the SLAC scientists plan to move onto larger molecules. Filed under: Science , Alt Comments Source: Stanford University

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Crazy fast X-ray laser catches chemical reactions in the act

Apple yanks games with Confederate flags from the App Store (update)

Following the lead of other major retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Etsy and eBay in removing products featuring the Confederate flag, Apple has reportedly begun removing apps that feature the Stars and Bars from its online store. The apps most affected are, unsurprisingly, Civil War games like Ultimate General: Gettysburg and Civil War. Update : In a statement to TechCrunch , Apple said it is only removing software that uses the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways, which violate the existing guidelines. The company says it is working with any developers of educational or historical apps that were removed to get them back in the App Store. Ultimate General’s developer confirmed via tweet that it’s app had been pulled from the App Store for that reason: Our official response about the removal of our game from AppStore. Please read at the below link:… http://t.co/1kIGlR1Jsk – Ultimate_General (@GeneralUltimate) June 25, 2015 As Polygon points out , basically any depiction of the Confederate flag (even in its proper historical context) appears to be enough for Apple to nix an offending app. What’s more, Google looks to have taken similar action and removed apps featuring the flag from Play. We’ve reached out to Apple for confirmation that the flag is the reason behind the removal of these apps and will update once they reply with comment. Apple: “We have removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways, which is in violation of our guidelines. We are not removing apps that display the Confederate flag for educational or historical uses.” Filed under: Gaming , Internet , Apple , Google Comments Via: Polygon Source: Touch Arcade

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Apple yanks games with Confederate flags from the App Store (update)

Microrobotic tentacles pick up bugs without squishing them

Some researchers develop soft robots , while others specialize on building tiny ones. This robotic tentacle by a team of engineers from Iowa State University, however, is both soft and tiny. In fact, that’s a true-to-size ant encircled by the tentacle in the picture above and not a scaled-up version of the bug. Associate electrical/computer engineering professor Jaeyoun (Jay) Kim wanted to “pioneer new work in the field with both microscale and soft robotics.” So, he and his team set out to make microtubes using a silicon-based material called PDMS, measuring 8 millimeters in length and less than a hundredth of an inch in width. The engineers admitted that it was tough to design a teensy tentacle that can delicately handle small and fragile objects. In addition to figuring out how to peel off such tiny tubes from the production templates, they also had to add modifications to the tubes to give them more coils — they detailed the process in their paper published on Scientific Reports . According to Kim, his team’s microrobotic tentacles could be used for medical applications, since they don’t squeeze an object to pick it up — they’re “soft, safe and small” and just gently wrap around what they’re trying to hold. Thanks to the way they work, they won’t damage tissues, nerves or even blood vessels during medical procedures. [Image credit: Jaeyoun (Jay) Kim] Filed under: Robots Comments Source: Scientific Reports , Iowa State University

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Microrobotic tentacles pick up bugs without squishing them

The US military is developing Star Wars-style hoverbikes

Last time we heard from Malloy Aeronautics, it was testing hoverbike technology with a robot-carrying drone . A few months later, it’s partnering with a Maryland-based defense company to develop a hoverbike for the US military . Working with Survice Engineering Co., the UK aeronautics company will set up shop in Maryland as part of “an ongoing research and development contract.” The duo will also work with the US Army Research Laboratory on the project that aims to create “a new class of Tactical Reconnaissance Vehicle (TRV).” The goal is to replace some of the work a helicopter does with the hoverbikes, a vehicle that provides increased safety and costs significantly less. “With adducted rotors you immediately not only protect people and property if you were to bump into them, but if you ever were to bump into somebody or property it’s going to bring the aircraft out of the air, ” Malloy’s marketing sales director Grant Stapleton told Reuters . Funds from a Kickstarter campaign for those compact UAVs was used to build scale models capable of carrying a human — one of which was on display at the Paris Air Show. [Image credit: Malloy Aeronautics] Filed under: Transportation Comments Via: Reuters Source: Malloy Aeronautics

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The US military is developing Star Wars-style hoverbikes

UCLA discovers how solar cells’ charges can last for weeks

Solar cells have always been inspired by photosynthesis, so it’s only natural for researchers to take cues from different aspects of the energy-making process. A team of UCLA chemists, for instance, have developed a way that will allow solar cells to keep their charge for weeks instead of just a few seconds like current products are capable of. According to Sarah Tolbert, UCLA chem professor and one of the study’s authors , they looked into plants’ nanoscale structures that can keep negatively charged molecules separated from positively charged ones. “That separation is the key to making the process so efficient, ” she said. The team has discovered that in order to mimic those nanoscale structures in plastic solar cells (which are potentially cheaper to make than silicon-based ones), they need to use two components: a polymer donor and a nano-scale fullerene acceptor. The team describes the process as follows: The UCLA technology arranges the elements more neatly — like small bundles of uncooked spaghetti with precisely placed meatballs (see image below). Some fullerene meatballs are designed to sit inside the spaghetti bundles, but others are forced to stay on the outside. The fullerenes inside the structure take electrons from the polymers and toss them to the outside fullerene, which can effectively keep the electrons away from the polymer for weeks. In short, those two can form the right “noodle and meatball” structure to keep different charges away from each other for days to weeks, greatly improving a cell’s capability to retain power. It’s also a plus that the components can auto-assemble, simply by putting them in water. The ability to store energy is a big deal for solar energy systems, since they need to be able to save enough power to use at night or during days when the sun isn’t shining as brightly. UCLA’s technology isn’t quite ready yet, but Tolbert and her team are already trying to figure out how to incorporate it into real solar cells . [Image credit: Jason A. Samfield/Flickr , UCLA Chemistry] Filed under: Science Comments Source: UCLA , Science

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UCLA discovers how solar cells’ charges can last for weeks

NASA mission sends back fuzzy, color ‘movies’ of Pluto

Sure, Pluto doesn’t have full-fledged planetary status anymore, but we’re still excited to get some pictures from the edge of the Solar System . The New Horizons spacecraft is carrying a “Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera” that takes stills in blue, red, and near-infrared, then puts them together for a color picture. It took a series of pictures between May 29th and June 3rd that show the dwarf planet and its largest moon, Charon revolving around their shared center of gravity. The mission will make its closest approach to Pluto on July 14th when it gets about 7, 800 miles above the surface (shown above in an artist rendering). You can check out the low-res animation after the break, and mark your calendar for the better look that’s just 24 days away. New images from @NASANewHorizons show Pluto and its moon Charon, now in color: http://t.co/yp6BZOrXmU pic.twitter.com/sCiFKTsa35 – NASA (@NASA) June 19, 2015 Filed under: Science Comments Source: NASA , New Horizons Mission

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NASA mission sends back fuzzy, color ‘movies’ of Pluto

The world’s thinnest light bulb is made from graphene

Forget LED light bulbs… in the future, your lighting may be made from carbon . Columbia University researchers have built a light bulb chip that superheats graphene to produce illumination. While that’s the same basic concept that you see in an incandescent bulb, the graphene filament measures just one atom thick — this is the world’s thinnest light bulb, and may be close to being the thinnest possible . It’s transparent, too, which could suit it to see-through displays . The technology should have uses beyond lighting things up, too. Generating this kind of heat on a small scale could lead to “micro-hotplates” that heat up chemicals for the sake of studying chemical reactions. Also, creating light at this scale is key to developing photonic processors that are much faster than conventional chips. The light will need to switch on and off much faster for any computing uses, but it’s a realistic possibility. [Image credit: Myung-Ho Bae/KRISS] Filed under: Displays , Household , Science Comments Source: Columbia University , Nature

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The world’s thinnest light bulb is made from graphene

Rearranging jellyfish limbs may lead to self-healing robots

Normally when a jellyfish loses a limb, say to the jaws of a hungry sea turtle, it simply regenerates the lost appendage, no big deal. However, a Caltech research team has been studying a certain jellyfish species that doesn’t regrow its limbs but rather rearranges the remaining ones to maintain symmetry. They think that this body-modifying trick could one day help robots repair themselves after similar injuries. In a paper published June 15th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the team described its work with the moon jellyfish. They amputated the various numbers of limbs from anesthetized jellies and then monitored their recovery. While the jellies healed in a couple of hours (as they normally do), the team noticed that rather than beginning to regrow their limbs the jellies instead shifted their remaining appendages around to restore their symmetry. What’s really wild is that mechanical forces created by the jelly’s own muscle contractions appear to be behind its reorganization. “This is a different strategy of self-repair, ” Caltech assistant professor of biology Lea Goentoro said in a statement. “Some animals just heal their wounds, other animals regenerate what is lost, but the moon jelly ephyrae [juveniles] don’t regenerate their lost limbs. They heal the wound, but then they reorganize to regain symmetry.” This discovery could lead to new advances in robotics . “Symmetrization may provide a new avenue for thinking about biomaterials that could be designed to ‘heal’ by regaining functional geometry rather than regenerating precise shapes, ” Goentoro continued. “Other self-repair mechanisms require cell proliferation and cell death-biological processes that aren’t easily translated to technology. But we can more easily apply mechanical forces to a material.” Soon, injured robots may not drag their broken limbs behind them like this little guy , but simply rearrange their other legs instead. [Image Credit: Getty Images/Vetta (top); Caltech (inline)] Filed under: Science Comments Source: Caltech

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Rearranging jellyfish limbs may lead to self-healing robots

Here’s how Xbox One backward compatibility works

The Xbox 360 had a dedicated spot in millions of living rooms, bedrooms and offices for nearly 10 years, and during that time, players purchased massive libraries of games. However, when the Xbox One launched in 2013, it didn’t include the ability to play or transfer Xbox 360 games, a disappointment for many fans. That’s why Microsoft’s announcement at its E3 showcase was so exciting: The Xbox One is getting backward compatibility this holiday, with a lineup of more than 100 fan-requested Xbox 360 games to start and more to be added as demand warrants. Xbox One backward compatibility runs an Xbox 360 emulator right on the console, which is no easy feat, Microsoft General Manager of Games Publishing Shannon Loftis explains during a chat at E3. Are you pleased with the response to the announcement of backward compatibility on Xbox One? It’s something that I, as a gamer, have been wanting. Actually, the genesis of backwards compatibility is that gamers asked for it. It took some time for us to figure out how to do it, but we did and the response has been amazingly positive. How does it work, technologically? It wasn’t easy. It took some pretty dedicated engineering effort and very talented engineers. What they did was they created a software-based 360 emulation within the Xbox One architecture. So, when you put your disc in the drive, we’re actually loading up an emulator, and then we put up a little portion of the Xbox 360 dashboard and you use that dashboard to launch into your game. You still have access though to all the great Xbox One features: game streaming, game DVR, screenshots. It works for digital games as well and your saved games do transfer. Gamers have put so much into 360 games, so much passion, energy, time, money, and that value I think is important for us to bring into the Xbox One story. Will every Xbox 360 game eventually be available via backward compatibility? It’s up to gamers to tell us what they want . We do all the work, but there is a little bit of work and part of that involves talking with the publisher and making sure that this is consistent with their goals for the game as well. So, as gamers ask us, we will deliver. Check here for everything happening at E3 2015! Filed under: Gaming , HD , Microsoft Comments

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Here’s how Xbox One backward compatibility works

Watch the first full-color HD videos of Earth from space

It’s no longer a challenge to get astonishingly sharp photos of the Earth from space, but video? That’s another matter. UrtheCast is about to open the floodgates, however. It just released the first batch of full-color, high-definition video of Earth recorded from the International Space Station. In many ways, the extremely sharp footage (with detail down to 3.3 feet) of Barcelona, Boston and London is like an internet mapping site come to life — all those pathways are suddenly full of moving boats and cars. The Iris imaging system that recorded these movies won’t be fully operational until the summer, but the preview suggests that its customers will get plenty of insights into traffic and other activity that’s harder to track from the ground. Filed under: Cameras Comments Source: UrtheCast

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Watch the first full-color HD videos of Earth from space