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Physics & Astronomy
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Unravelling Coronal Mass Ejections from Our Solar System’s Origin

Young stars ejecting plasma could give us clues into the Sun’s past Kyoto, Japan — Down here on Earth we don’t usually notice, but the Sun is frequently ejecting huge masses of plasma into space. These are called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). They often occur together with sudden brightenings called flares, and sometimes extend far enough to disturb Earth’s magnetosphere, generating space weather phenomena including auroras or geomagnetic storms, and even damaging power grids on occasion. Scientists believe that when…

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New Synthetic Inhibitors Target Ras-Raf Signal Transduction

Scientists of the Ruhr-University Bochum have identified new potential inhibitors which prevent in a specific manner the binding of Raf-Kinase to the…

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Stem Cell Isolation: New Insights from Monoclonal Antibody 473HD

The monoclonal antibody 473HD reacts with a glycosaminoglycan epitop selectively expressed on radial gliacytes of which a subpopulation shows stem cell…

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New Adjuvant Boosts Antiviral Vaccine Immune Response

A new adjuvant inducing an increased humoral and cellular immune response by enhancing antigen uptake and presentation.Further Information: PDF rubitec -…

Physics & Astronomy

SMART-1 Captures Stunning Hadley Rille Image from Space

This image, taken by the Advanced Moon Micro-Imager Experiment (AMIE) on board ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft, shows the Hadley Rille on the south-east edge of Mare Imbrium on the Moon.

AMIE obtained this image from an altitude of about 2000 kilometres. It covers an area of about 100 kilometres and shows the region around Hadley Rille centred at approximately 25° North and 3° East.

The sinuous rille follows a course generally to the north-east toward the peak of Mount Hadl

Physics & Astronomy

Cassini Unveils Young Geological Features on Enceladus

New detailed images taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft of the south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus reveal distinctive geological features, and the most youthful terrains of any seen on Enceladus. These findings point to a very complex evolutionary history for Saturn’s brightest, whitest world.

Cassini’s flyby on July 14 brought it within 175 kilometers (109 miles) of the surface of the icy moon. The close encounter revealed a landscape near the south pole

Physics & Astronomy

Sorting Out Carbon Nanotubes: A Key Innovation in Composites

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and university researchers report a significant step toward sorting out the nanotube “problem”–the challenge of overcoming processing obstacles so that the remarkable properties of the tiny cylindrical structures can be exploited in new polymer composite materials of exceptional strength.

As described in the current issue of Physical Review Letters,* their analysis reveals that, during mixing, carbon nanotubes suspended i

Physics & Astronomy

JILA Unveils Compact System for Laser Frequency Stabilization

A compact, inexpensive method for stabilizing lasers that uses a new design to reduce sensitivity to vibration and gravity 100 times better than similar approaches has been demonstrated by scientists at JILA in Boulder, Colo. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The method, described in the July 15 issue of Optics Letters,* stabilizes laser light to a single frequency, so that it can be use

Physics & Astronomy

Unfolding Innovation: The Compact Dobson Space Telescope

A novel suitcase-sized telescope could revolutionise the way we see the Earth and other planets. ESA has supported the work of a group of students in developing the Dobson Space Telescope, being tested this month aboard ESA’s parabolic flight campaign aircraft.

This experimental prototype launches in a compact configuration and then unfolds to provide a cost-effective space telescope. It could lead to fleets of low-cost telescopes, bigger than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Physics & Astronomy

Cassini reveals Saturn’s eerie-sounding radio emissions

Saturn’s radio emissions could be mistaken for a Halloween sound track.

That is how University of Iowa researchers Bill Kurth and Don Gurnett describe their recent findings, published 23 July in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Their research investigated sounds that are not just eerie, but also descriptive of a phenomenon similar to Earth’s northern lights. The study was based on data from the Cassini spacecraft’s radio and plasma wave science instrume

Physics & Astronomy

UK Researchers Join NASA’s Mars Mission to Uncover Water History

On August 10th 2005 NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will be launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida beginning its journey to the red planet. For scientists from Oxford, Cardiff and Reading it will be an intense time as it will be their third attempt to get their instrument to Mars onboard a NASA spacecraft.

The main aim of the MRO mission is to seek out the history of water on Mars. This will be accomplished by a suite of six science instruments, 3 engineering experiments a

Physics & Astronomy

Photon-Atom Entanglement Milestone for Quantum Networks

Quantum communication networks show great promise in becoming a highly secure communications system. By carrying information with photons or atoms, which are entangled so that the behavior of one affects the other, the network can easily detect any eavesdropper who tries to tap the system.

Physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have just reached an important milestone in the development of these systems by entangling a photon and a single atom located in an atomic

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Computer Vision System Enhances Food Safety by Detecting Contaminants

Although metal detectors help commercial food processors keep metal fragments from ending up in finished products, these detectors can’t identify plastic and other foreign objects.

And as plastic becomes more widespread, used in everything from conveyor belts to latex gloves, plastic contamination is a growing concern for many food processing operations.

For the past year, John Stewart, a research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, has been leading a

Physics & Astronomy

Student Satellite Leverages ESA ESTEC Facilities for Success

The SSETI Express educational space mission received vital assistance with spacecraft integration and testing at ESA ESTEC. The student project to design, build and launch a satellite would not have been possible without the use of the ESTEC facilities and the technical assistance provided by personnel from ESA’s Directorate of Technical and Quality Management.

In its ESTEC Test Centre, ESA maintains facilities for the testing of space vehicles and their subsystems and components. The centr

Physics & Astronomy

Rare Light Show: MIT-Williams Team Observes Charon Hiding Star

Pluto’s moon hides a star

In a feat of astronomical and terrestrial alignment, a group of scientists from MIT (Cambridge, Mass.) and Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.) recently succeeded in observing distant Pluto’s tiny moon, Charon, hide a star. Such an event had been seen only once before, by a single telescope 25 years ago, and then not nearly as well. The MIT-Williams consortium spotted it with four telescopes in Chile on the night of July 10-11.

Physics & Astronomy

Dusty Star Mimics Sun’s Features, Revealing Cosmic Collisions

Astronomers report tremendous quantities of warm dusty debris surrounding a star with luminosity and mass similar to the sun’s, but located 300 light-years from Earth. The extraordinary nature of the dust indicates a violent history of cosmic collisions between asteroids and comets, or perhaps even between planets. The discovery is published July 21 in Nature.

“What is so amazing is that the amount of dust around this star is approximately 1 million times greater than the du

Physics & Astronomy

New Precision Mirrors Enhance Nano-Material Research at ORNL

Precision mirrors to focus X-rays and neutron beams could speed the path to new materials and perhaps help explain why computers, cell phones and satellites go on the blink.

In the last few years, a team led by Gene Ice of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has improved by a factor of nearly 10 the performance of mirrors that enable researchers to examine variations in structure and chemistry and even individual nanoparticles. Information at this fine

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