Science news of the day thread.

[Ronja]

Phys.org -- A team of University of Maryland scientists have discovered that when electric current is run through carbon nanotubes, objects nearby heat up while the nanotubes themselves stay cool, like a toaster that burns bread without getting hot. Understanding this completely unexpected new phenomenon could lead to new ways of building computer processors that can run at higher speeds without overheating.

http://phys.org/news/2012-04-carbon-nan ... emote.html

Wonderfully weird! Thanks for posting this, PS.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Awesome auroras spotted on Uranus ... and on Earth
Slideshow!

Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have caught a rare display of auroras on Uranus, which ranks among the solar system's oddest planets.

Unlike the beautiful, rippling curtains of greenish light we've been seeing in earthly skies over the past few months, the Uranian auroras are short-lived bright spots sitting on top of the ice giant's bluish cloud tops. But they're caused by a similar mechanism, involving the interaction of electrically charged particles with atoms and ions in the planet's upper atmosphere.

NASA's Voyager 2 probe picked up the first evidence of Uranus' auroras in 1986. "Since then, we've had no opportunities to get new observations of this very unusual magnetosphere," Laurent Lamy, an astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris, said today in a news release. There have been a few hints of auroral observations, but Hubble's views from last November rank as the best views yet. Lamy and his colleagues provide the details in a paper published by Geophysical Research Letters.

Continues.

[Tero]

science lore
http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/speci ... elson.html

LP: In fact, Matt, some chemists were not careful when working with tellurium compounds, and they acquired a condition known as "tellurium breath." As a result, they have become isolated from society. Some have even committed suicide.
Me: Oh.

we had a couple of people of people with selenium breath at my grad school
it goes away eventually, they got married
not to each other, though that would work too

[PsychoSerenity]

I saw this on reddit today, and thought it was pretty awesome. Could save a lot of lives, and it also kind of hints at a future with the sort of nano-technology medicines of science fiction.

Injecting Life-Saving Oxygen Into a Vein

ScienceDaily (June 27, 2012) — Patients unable to breathe because of acute lung failure or an obstructed airway need another way to get oxygen to their blood -- and fast -- to avoid cardiac arrest and brain injury. A team led by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital has designed tiny, gas-filled microparticles that can be injected directly into the bloodstream to quickly oxygenate the blood.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Cool, maybe I won't suffocate. That would be nice.

[Tero]

Men's food triangle, on right

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Men's food triangle, on right

Cheese?

[MiM]

Men's food triangle, on right

Cheese?

Yes please.

[Blind groper]

Want to get smarter?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 211902.htm

This works for mice - Rapamycin - a drug that fends off Alzheimers and generally makes mice more alert and better at solving puzzles.
Wonder if it works for humans?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

New “Flying Tea Kettle” Could Get Us To Mars in Weeks, Not Months.

At 54.6 million km away at its closest, the fastest travel to Mars from Earth using current technology (and no small bit of math) takes around 214 days — that’s about 30 weeks, or 7 months. A robotic explorer like Curiosity may not have any issues with that, but it’d be a tough journey for a human crew. Developing a quicker, more efficient method of propulsion for interplanetary voyages is essential for future human exploration missions… and right now a research team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville is doing just that.

This summer, UAHuntsville researchers, partnered with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Boeing, are laying the groundwork for a propulsion system that uses powerful pulses of nuclear fusion created within hollow 2-inch-wide “pucks” of lithium deuteride. And like hockey pucks, the plan is to “slapshot” them with plasma energy, fusing the lithium and hydrogen atoms inside and releasing enough force to ultimately propel a spacecraft — an effect known as “Z-pinch”.

“If this works,” said Dr. Jason Cassibry, an associate professor of engineering at UAH, “we could reach Mars in six to eight weeks instead of six to eight months.”

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/95991/new- ... z1zO479JmE

Continues.

[Calilasseia]

LHC Announces 4.9 sigma confidence discovery of Higgs like particle

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Who the fuck decided "the God particle" was a good nickname, please?

[Clinton Huxley]

Who the fuck decided "the God particle" was a good nickname, please?

Thought it was short for the "God Damn" particle.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Who the fuck decided "the God particle" was a good nickname, please?

Thought it was short for the "where is that God Damn" particle.