The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way has surprisingly helped spawn a new generation of stars, according to observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This novel mode of star formation may solve several mysteries about the supermassive black holes that reside at the centers of nearly all galaxies.

“Massive black holes are usually known for violence and destruction,” said Sergei Nayakshin of the University of Leicester, United Kingdom, and coauthor of

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory group discovers a paradox: hydrophobic H2O

Now you can extend that truism about oil and water to water and itself. Water and water don’t always mix, either.

The textbooks say that water readily comes together with other water, open arms of hydrogen clasping oxygen attached to other OH molecules. This is the very definition of “wetness.” But scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have observed a first: a single l

Scientists at The University of Manchester have made a major breakthrough which could pave the way for a new type of high-speed computer.

Professor Richard Winpenny, of the School of Chemistry and a team of international researchers, have discovered a new method which could hold the key to creating the first practical quantum computers.

If built, quantum computers would be the most powerful computers ever made, with speeds millions of times faster than the average PC for s

The new technology developed by VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland makes it possible to identify the user based on her or his physical movements such as walking style. This feature prevents unauthorised use of portable devices such as laptops or mobile phones. In the future, credit cards may also verify user’s identify based on their physical movements before approval of payment transactions.

For the user the new identification system offers the advantages of increased se

Metal detectors currently used for screening aircraft passengers could soon be supplanted by novel millimetre-wave cameras, able to detect even non-metallic concealed objects. The new system, named after a Brazilian bat, is based on technology developed for ESA spacecraft. Tadar is being demonstrated at this week’s Inter Airport Europe Exhibition in Munich.

Conventional metal detectors, such as those used to check passengers at airports, are limited in that they can on

Preparations for ESA’s Venus Express mission passed a new milestone when the spacecraft was attached to its Fregat upper-stage rocket. The mission is now only two weeks away from launch on 26 October.

The composite unit of the launch vehicle adapter (LVA) and the Venus Express spacecraft, together called the ’stack’, has been mechanically mated with the Fregat upper-stage rocket.

The activity was classified as ’hazardous’ since both the space

Observations of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 made by ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft after the Deep Impact collision suggest that comets are ‘icy dirtballs’, rather than ‘dirty snowballs’ as previously believed.

Comets spend most of their lifetime in a low-temperature environment far from the Sun. Their relatively unchanged composition carries important information about the origin of the Solar System.

On 4 July this year, the NASA Deep Impact mission sent an ‘impactor’ probe to hit the

Miren Sarasola, Bachelor of Physics Science and researcher of the Materials Department at CEIT, has developed dense high performance low alloy PM steels by liquid phase sintering. The Thesis title is : “Development of dense high performance low alloy PM steels by liquid phase sintering”.

The master alloy concept as a mean for obtaining high density low alloyed PM steels was revisited. In a first instance, several master alloys previously reported in the literature, were reprod

A team of scientists headed by Dr. Christoph Lienau of the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI) in Berlin develops and utilizes novel nanoptical techniques for imaging structures that are many times smaller than the wavelength of light. The research is based on a special Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope (SNOM), patented by MBI, providing extremely high optical resolution and flexible combination with different spectroscopic techniques. A microscope based

The extreme environment surrounding the black hole at the centre of our galaxy is birthplace for new stars, according to a scientist from the University of Leicester.

Dr Sergei Nayakshin and his co-author, Rashid Sunyaev of the Max Plank Institute for Physics in Germany, used Chandra X-ray Observatory images to study the region around Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. Their results challenge the traditional theories of star formation, as they

Engineers at Purdue University have shown how researchers might better use tiny hollow fibers called “multi-walled carbon nanotubes” to more precisely measure structures and devices for electronics and other applications. Findings will appear in the November issue of the journal Nanotechnology.

Researchers attach the tubes to the ends of imaging instruments called atomic force microscopes. Because the tubes are long and slender, their shape is ideal for the emerging field of “nan

Currently, the density of transistors that electronic devices now allow is such that the integration of complete digital systems in a single integrated circuit is now possible. With the aim of reducing the period of design and development and enabling the tackling of these kinds of designs possible, these are made up of a base of modules or cores. Given their complexity, these modules often include one or more processors, whereby, in these cases, multi-processor systems are possible.

Many vision systems require text recognition captured at very high speed: vehicle registration identification devices, scanners, etc. Current technology enables the use of complex image pre-processing systems to enhance reading characteristics. This PhD thesis puts forward two binarisation algorithms that are suitable for high-precision applications in optical character reading (OCR). The binarisation of a digital image involves the conversion of the digital image into a black and white one in su

Oil companies could soon harness the power of distant supercomputers to tackle problems such as where to place equipment and how to clean up oil spills.

For decades, the industry has used computers to maximize profit and minimize environmental impact, explained Tahsin Kurc, assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Ohio State University.

Typically, companies take seismic measurements of an oil reservoir and simulate drilling scenarios on a local computer. Now

Researchers at the University of Essex have been awarded almost £1.2 million as part of a programme to develop a new generation of portable, handheld radiation detectors that could have a range of potential applications from disease diagnosis to weapons detection.

The new devices, which would be the size of a normal torch, will detect radiation in the THz (terahertz) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is hoped they could be used in applications such as screening for explos

Within the framework of the EU’s Sixth Framework Program, preliminary studies are underway to build a land-based telescope that will be by far the largest ever, thus offering entirely new potential for detailed observations. For one thing, researchers hope to be able to see so far into space, and thereby so far back in time, that they will be able to understand the creation of the universe and discover whether it is possible that there is life on other planets.

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