Thanks to measurements by ESA’s Cluster mission, a team of European scientists have identified ‘micro’-vortices in Earth’s magnetosphere.
Such small-scale vortex turbulence, whose existence was predicted through mathematical models, has not been observed before in space. The results are not only relevant for space physics, but also for other applications like research on nuclear fusion.
On 9 March 2002, the four Cluster satellites, flying in tetrahedral formation at 10
Space has come down to Earth for this week’s legendary Fastnet regatta. Competitor Marc Thiercelin’s 20-metre Pro-Form yacht boasts lighter batteries, more efficient solar cells and advanced energy management systems – all spin-offs from Europe’s space programmes.
On Sunday 7 August 283 boats took off from Cowes in the Rolex Fastnet 2005 race, sailing along the south coast of England before crossing the Irish Sea to round the Fastnet Rock off Ireland’s south we
Blazing hot temperatures welcomed ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft as it arrived at the Yubileiny airport of the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on Sunday morning, 7 August.
The shipment, including the spacecraft and all the complex equipment needed for ground support to prepare for launch, was carried by an Antonov 124 cargo plane which left the airport of Toulouse, France, on Saturday 6 August.
On arrival the precious load was unloaded from the huge cargo bay of the pla
Seven member countries of the OECD’s Global Science Forum have launched a project to promote international collaboration among scientists and create new ways of sharing and analysing data to improve our understanding of how the human brain works.
Advances in information technology are enabling scientists to develop increasingly sophisticated methods of measuring a brain’s functions. To spur developments in this new research field, called neuroinformatics, the seven founding countries (th
Too little of the research being done on renewable energy options is taking potential ecological implications into account, a major new review of the ecological implications of offshore renewable energy published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology has found.
The review by Dr Andrew Gill of Cranfield University found that despite an explosion of academic interest in the subject – almost 400 papers on renewable energy were published in peer-reviewed
Aquapharm Bio – Discovery Ltd (Aquapharm), a leading UK marine biotechnology company developing, amongst other things, anti-infective drug candidates from marine natural products, is pleased to announce the completion this month of its latest round of financing.
The investment of £344000 by E-Synergy Ltd and the Scottish Enterprise Co-Investment Fund completed the £1.25 million package by adding to a recent earlier investment of £350000 (£175,000 each) by NESTA (the National Endow
Emerging wireless technologies for vehicle-to-vehicle communication promise to dramatically reduce fatal roadway accidents by providing early warnings to motorists. As well as improving road safety, such technologies will also help optimise traffic flow and enable drivers to take greater control of their vehicles.
This is the broad vision behind the IST-funded project CarTALK 2000. The project developed cooperative driver assistance systems and a self-organising ad-hoc radio network
A team of astronomers from The Netherlands and the UK has discovered a vast ‘jet-powered bubble’ formed in the gas around a black hole in the Milky Way. The discovery means that for decades scientists have been severely underestimating how much power black holes pump back into the universe instead of merely swallowing material across their event horizons.
Jets of energy and particles flowing outwards at close to the speed of light are a common feature of all accreting black holes,
Our Galaxy could be a lot bigger than we thought. That’s the conclusion of team of astronomers that’s found whole new ‘suburbs’ of stars in another galaxy.
Like archaeologists unearthing a lost city, the Australian and US astronomers used the 8-m Gemini South telescope in Chile to reveal the faint ancient outer parts of the galaxy NGC 300, showing that that galaxy is at least twice as big as previously thought.
The finding implies that our own Galaxy too is probably much
VLT NACO Instrument Helps Discover First Triple Asteroid
One of the thousands of minor planets orbiting the Sun has been found to have its own mini planetary system. Astronomer Franck Marchis (University of California, Berkeley, USA) and his colleagues at the Observatoire de Paris (France) [1] have discovered the first triple asteroid system – two small asteroids orbiting a larger one known since 1866 as 87 Sylvia [2].
“Since double asteroids seem to be common, people hav
The figure is famous: a deceptively simple line drawing that at first glance resembles a vase and, at the next, a pair of human faces in profile. When you look at this figure, your brain must rapidly decide what the various lines denote. Are they the outlines of the vase or the borders of two faces? How does your brain decide?
It does so in a fraction of a second via special nerve circuits in the brain’s visual center that automatically organize information into a “whole” even
Mild winters, low humidity, lots of room, cultural diversity, higher education opportunities and a lively economy – El Paso has a lot to offer. But one thing it doesn’t have is a lot of water.
Enter Texas Agricultural Experiment Station researchers, who study ways to make the most of the area’s limited water supply.
El Paso sprawls at the base of the Franklin Mountains in the farthest point of West Texas. The terrain is mostly desert except for the Rio Grande, which mean
As water becomes ever more scarce, quenching thirsty crops with wastewater may be OK if done right, researchers here say.
“Managing reclaimed water by pretreating before using it to irrigate, monitoring for viruses, choosing correct crops and periodically leaching the soils should be successful and safe,” said Dr. George Di Giovanni, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station environmental microbiologist.
Di Giovanni and his colleagues studied the movement of viruses carried
First Imaging Study to Implicate Brain Opioids Could Explain Addictive Nature of Behavioral Disorder, Say Johns Hopkins Researchers
The role of the brain’s opioid receptor system—or endorphin system—may hold the key to understanding and treating bulimia nervosa, according to research reported in the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s August issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
“Involvement of the opioid system may explain the addictive quality of this behavioral dis
The invention relates to a manufacturing technique for a material that can be used to replace the hard substance of the tooth in the treatment of dental…
Testing of “substances”, transplanted cells and dressings for wound treatmentFurther Information: PDF TuTech Innovation GmbH (TuTech)Phone: +49 (0)40/76629-6541
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