An international team of researchers working on the Large Underground Xenon dark matter experiment announced today that they have failed to detect any dark matter particles.…
Jean Picard Scientist of the Day
Jean Picard, a French astronomer, was born July 21, 1620. In 1669-70, Picard successfully measured the length of a degree of latitude.
Much of the current research on the development of a quantum computer involves work at very low temperatures. The challenge to make them more practical for everyday use is to make them work at room temperature.…
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A volume phase holographic (VPH) grism, a combination of a diffraction grating and a prism. This grism combines a grating from Kaiser Optical Systems Inc. with prism wedges from Janos Technology Inc., and was assembled at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) by Al Camacho and Heidi Yarborough. It is used in the new Multi-Aperture Red Spectrometer (MARS, which is CryoCam resurrected).
Image credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF
A couple of years ago, a quantum physicist suggested to Vulture South that one of the best uses for quantum computers might be to model reality. Now, Google reckons its boffins have done just that.…
Patients sent to rehabilitation facilities to recover from medical crises or surgery too often suffer additional harm from the care they get there, according to research by U.S. health officials.
Pics The surviving members of the Viking Mars probe team have been celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first probe to make it down onto the surface of the Red Planet, send back pictures, and perform scientific experiments.…
At Facebook's F8 Developer Conference this year, Mark Zuckerberg revealed more details about his laser-firing drones that will encircle the world and relay Facebook, sorry, the internet to far-flung places, reaching potentially all seven billion of us.…
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A terrible drought hit Ghana in the 1400s, far worse than today's conditions. Yet people had enough to eat, while today they go hungry. What changed? In a word, colonialism, a new study suggests.
Tomato plants grown in large-scale outdoors are often selected for hardiness more than taste. What if you could boost disease resistance, flavor and yield? Researchers think they can — by grafting.
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Spiroplasma, a small helical-shaped microbe, is responsible for bringing out a ‘male-killing' instinct in African Queen butterflies, according to research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.…
Far from feeling lonely or abandoned, I feel very much part of what is taking place on the lunar surface. I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have. This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two.
I don't mean to deny a feeling of solitude. It is there, reinforced by the fact that radio contact with the earth abruptly cuts off at the instant I disappear behind the moon. I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God only knows what on this side. I feel this powerfully -- not as fear or loneliness -- but as awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation. I like the feeling.
"Roger Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue! We're breathing again! Thanks a lot!" I sank back into my chair, looked at Deke [Slayton] -- we were grinning from ear to ear. This was my greatest experience, until I had the opportunity to land on the moon myself almost three years later.
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The enormity of the achievement hit me later when I began to reflect that this feat had occurred less than ten years after the first man had gone to space. It was a tremendous accomplishment and the culmination of years of planning and training and managing. All of us felt a great sense of pride and fulfillment to have been part of this flight. Everyone was popping their buttons, our chests were so swelled with pride.
The magnificent desolation of the moon was no longer a stranger to mankind. We came to experience firsthand the utter desolation of the orb's lifeless terrain. In contrast, the achievement realized by scientific enterprise and teamwork in designing and engineering the rockets that could send two men to land on the moon was magnificent. I could not help marveling that the very first footsteps we had taken, and the footprints we had left on the moon's surface, would remain undisturbed for millions of years to come.
Hello Neil and Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House.
I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you have done. For every American this has to be the proudest day of our lives, and for people all over the world I am sure that they, too, join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is.
Now in my late forties, I wasn't yet three years old when Apollo 11 made it to the Moon on July 20, 1969. My mother had plunked me in front of the family television set in the den that would become my bedroom a few years later. I sat in the middle of the carpeted floor, with my parents, one of them cradling my brother, surely behind me on the green upholstered couch, to watch the event along with an estimated 500 million other viewers worldwide that Sunday. Somehow, I knew that the hazy black-and-white images of two men in gleaming spacesuits were important. There were people inside those bulky, bouncing spacesuits; I listened to their crackling voices. The Moon seemed a place I might visit someday. Upon that image of the Moon landing, everything I have experienced and know has been built.
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Gregor Mendel Scientist of the Day
Johann Gregor Mendel, a Moravian monk, was born July 20, 1822.
Physicists have found that neutrinos keep their quantum weirdness over the longest distance that quantum mechanics has been tested to date.…
In his new book Recreating an Age of Reptiles, artist and palaeontologist Dr Mark Witton explores the issues around trying to bring extinct animals and their environments back to life. Here's an introduction to the world of the dinosaurs
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An international team of scientists has solved a case of mistaken identity and discovered a new species of venomous snake. The newly discovered Talamancan palm-pitviper is a striking green-and-black snake living in some of the most remote regions of Costa Rica. The coloring is a characteristic it shares with its close relative the black-speckled palm-pitviper. In fact, these two species look so similar that the Talamancan palm-pitviper went unrecognized for more than 100 years. It is a case of cryptic speciation, where two species look almost identical, but are genetically different.
Image credit: University of Central Florida
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Researchers have identified a whole new class of high-performing organic molecules, inspired by vitamin B2, that can safely store electricity from intermittent energy sources like solar and wind power in large batteries. The development builds on previous work in which the team developed a high-capacity flow battery that stored energy in organic molecules called quinones and a food additive called ferrocyanide. That advance was a game-changer, delivering the first high-performance, non-flammable, non-toxic, non-corrosive and low-cost chemicals that could enable large-scale, inexpensive electricity storage.
Image credit: Kaixiang Lin/Harvard University