The flow of soap solutions through fibres is of great importance for the final result of the washing process. This is one of the conclusions from the research project of Annemoon Timmerman. She will defend her thesis on Monday 22 April at TU Delft. With this conclusion she supports a theory that was disbelieved for years by experts in the field. Timmerman: “I have now experimentally proven why the laundry is actually clean after less than half an hour of washing. Up to now, that was a mystery.” The r
A team of researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in coordination with the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aerospacial Esteban Terradas (INTA – Esteban Terradas National Institute of Aerospace Technology), is preparing for a person to jump from an altitude of 38,000 metres, on the edge of the stratosphere. This will be the highest altitude from which anybody has ever jumped, allowing for the first ever studies of human behaviour in such an extreme situation.
Parachutist Miguel
A research group of the Microtechnology Centre at Chalmers, MC2, at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, has developed an ultra-sensitive device for detecting the presence of organic molecules present in space. Organic material as far away from us as many thousands of light years can be discovered this way. The sensor, which has a world record for sensing low amounts of heat, will be a vital part in satellite systems for the Herschel Mission, a remote sensing satellite project at th
A project to develop effective techniques for the ‘surface pasteurisation’ of food led by the University of Bristol is being helped by a new technique developed by scientists at the University of the West of England. Officially titled ‘BUGDEATH’ the project, which in total has eight partners, is aimed at ‘Predicting microbial death during heat treatments on foods’.
Researchers based at the University of Bristol Food Refrigeration and Process Engineering Centre, have been looking at ‘steam p
By using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) as a `time machine`, astronomers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford in the UK and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore in the USA have been able to trace back the history of massive elliptical galaxies. They have found that galaxies of this kind, which still exist today, were already luminous families of stars about 10 billion years ago when the universe was only one third its present age. Their latest observations suggest tha
Archaeologists of the University of Bonn have just begun the first of three series of excavation programmes in Xkipché on the Mexican peninsula of Yucatán. They are investigating the living conditions of the population shortly before the city was finally abandoned towards the end of the 10th century as well as the city?s role as the residence of local princes during the turbulent period of its decline.
The location of the find is in the vicinity of the world famous ruined city of Uxmal (rece
Friction pushes a spinning egg from horizontal to vertical.
Mathematicians have cracked the conundrum of the spinning egg. A hard-boiled egg spun on its side flips upright because of friction between the egg and the table, they calculate 1 .
The egg’s elevation appears paradoxical. Its centre of gravity moves up – making the system seem to be gaining energy.
In fact, spinning energy, translated into a horizontal force, pushes the egg upright, sa
Footprints and a fire found from 20,000 years ago.
Handprints and footprints 20,000 years old reveal that people lived on the Tibetan plateau at the height of the Ice Age – 16,000 years earlier than scientists had thought. The newly found signs of life cast doubt on the idea that a glacier a kilometre thick covered the plateau at that time.
David Zhang and S. H. Li of the University of Hong Kong found the marks of at least six individuals, including two children, in marble-l
Ethiopian fossil suggests early humans were one big family.
A one-million-year-old skull unearthed in Ethiopia hints that our long-extinct cousins Homo erectus were a varied and widespread bunch, much like today’s humans. The find may undermine previous claims that H. erectus was in fact made up of two different species. Homo erectus , which means ’upright man’, appeared about 1.8 million years ago. Because of its posture and large brain, it is regarded as t
A lack of investment in corporate research may be counterproductive to industry says Dr Elsa Reichmanis, director of Materials Research at Lucent Technologies` Bell Labs, New Jersey, USA. In an exclusive Tomorrow’s Leaders online broadcast, Reichmanis stated ‘In order to succeed in the long term, investment in the future is a must, and that means investment in research.’
Dr Reichmanis made her remarks during a one-hour live broadcast at www.tomorrows-leaders.net. She answered questions fr
Technology unravels mysteries of ancient corpse.
Glassy-eyed with a hole in the head – meet Nesperennub, the virtual-reality mummy. A new three-dimensional reconstruction of his insides swoops through musty layers of linen to penetrate his holy skull, without putting the ancient artefact at risk.
Egyptologist John Taylor smuggled the British Museum’s sealed coffin into a hospital computerized tomography (CT or CAT) scanner after hours. The resulting 1,500 flat scans hav
Research by a University of Sunderland psychologist has revealed that one in four people may have a special gift for predicting uncertainties like the weather.
Tests carried out by Professor Richard Heath, from the university’s Business School, also showed that this uncanny ability could possibly extend to the financial markets.
During his research volunteers were shown temperature figures for the previous eight days and were asked to predict the following four days.
The f
An ambitious project is underway to build the world’s smallest electronic nose.
If the project succeeds, it is expected that the technology would have many potential applications in areas such as environmental monitoring, healthcare and food safety.
The aim is to combine the odour sensors together with the signal processing components on to a single silicon chip, around a square centimetre in size. The instrument would require very little power and could be held comfortably
Linguists filter languages for sound before meaning.
Bilingual people switch off one language to avoid speaking double Dutch. By first sounding out words in their brain’s dictionary, they may stop one tongue from interfering with another.
Those fluent in two languages rarely mix them up. They switch between language filters that oust foreign words, Thomas Munte of Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, Germany, and his team suggest 1 .
Their
Colorado State University is leading a team of researchers who plan to develop sunflowers into a rubber-producing crop, alleviating the harvest of rubber trees in Southeast Asia and Brazil – currently the only natural source of rubber in the world.
The United States is currently totally dependent upon imports for its rubber supply, importing nearly 1.3 million tons a year at a cost of $2 billion. Almost all natural rubber comes from rubber trees including those grown on plantations in Malays
Eddies appear in the ocean like in the atmosphere. Atmospheric eddies are short-lived, extremely speedy, and often very hazardous. Oceanic eddies are slower and can be observed only with the use of special equipment, but these eddies gently mixing ocean waters affect the climate in general.
For more than ten years specialists from the Pacific Institute of Oceanology in Vladivostok have observed the oceanic eddies formed at the confluence of two largest undercurrents in the west of the Pacif
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