Using an orbiting camera designed to block the light from the sun and stars, an international team of solar physicists has been able for the first time to directly image clouds of electrons surrounding Earth that travel from the sun during periods of solar flare activity.

These electron clouds, a part of the solar atmosphere that extends millions of miles from the sun, cause geomagnetic storms that can disrupt communications satellites, expose high-flying aircraft to excess radiation and ev

Carnegie Mellon University robotics researcher Vladimir Brajovic has developed a tool that automatically improves the appearance of darkened or underexposed photographs by digitally adding light to dark areas.

The Shadow Illuminator, funded through a $350,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, was developed originally to help robots see better. Using principles based on the physics of how optical images are formed, Shadow Illuminator imitates the vision processes that take place in

In an innovative study, researchers at North Carolina State University have designed a way to control the movement of microscopic droplets of liquid freely floating across centimeter-sized chips packed with electrodes. The discovery allows the performance of new types of chemical experiments on the microscale.

The breakthrough came as the researchers – Dr. Orlin D. Velev, assistant professor of chemical engineering, and two NC State doctoral students, Brian Prevo and Ketan Bhatt – learned h

In the November issue of Optics Express*, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists describe a novel combination of microscopes that can peer deep into tissue-engineering scaffolds and monitor the growth and differentiation of cells ultimately intended to develop into implantable organs or other body-part replacements.

The new dual-imaging tool provides a much needed capability for the emerging tissue engineering field, which aims to regenerate form and function in d

A University of Sussex-led team of scientists is ahead in the race to solve one of the biggest mysteries of our physical world: why the Universe contains matter.

With the help of a new £2.3 million grant, the team is working on a project to make one of the most sensitive measurements ever of sub-atomic particles. The results, expected within six years, could finally help to explain the creation of matter in the aftermath of the Big Bang.

Physicist Dr Philip Harris, the leader of the

In the past, museum guides carried a clipboard and waved a flag to help straggling tourists find the group. In the future – thanks to technology developed at the University of Toronto – talking robotic guides carrying a customized microchip and four-way speakers could lead tourists from exhibit to exhibit.

“This is a very unique solution to navigating,” says lead researcher Professor Parham Aarabi of U of T’s Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Using a

An image of an elliptical galaxy by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed a trail of black holes and neutron stars stretching more than fifty thousand light years across space. The trail of intense X-ray sources is evidence that this apparently sedate galaxy collided with another galaxy a few billion years ago.

“This discovery shows that X-ray observations may be the best way to identify the ancient remains of mergers between galaxies,” said Lars Hernquist of the Harvard-Smithsonia

The belt of high-energy electrons that normally cradles Earth from afar was greatly enhanced and pushed unusually close to our atmosphere during the violent solar activity that occurred in late October, University of Colorado at Boulder researchers say.

The results were obtained from observations by NASA’s Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer, or SAMPEX satellite, said CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics Director Daniel Baker. An investigato

Although rings around planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are relatively short-lived, new evidence implies that the recycling of orbiting debris can lengthen the lifetime of such rings, according to University of Colorado researchers.

Strong evidence now implies small moons near the giant planets like Saturn and Jupiter are essentially piles of rubble, said Larry Esposito, a professor at CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. These re-constituted small

The structure of the proton is under the microscope at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) in Newport News, Virginia, where a series of experiments continues to produce unexpected results.

Simple theories of proton structure say that the way electric charge is distributed in the proton is the same as the magnetization distribution. But Jefferson Lab results indicate these distributions are definitely different.

A

Neutron star pairs may merge and give off a burst of gravity waves about six times more often than previously thought, scientists report in today’s issue of the journal Nature [4 December]. If so, the current generation of gravity-wave detectors might be able to register such an event every year or two, rather than about once a decade – the most optimistic prediction until now.

Gravity waves were predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Astronomers have indirect evidence of thei

In the ongoing quest to create computing devices that are both incredibly small and incredibly powerful, scientists – envisioning a future beyond the limits of traditional semiconductors – have been working to use molecules for information storage and processing.

Until now, researchers were skeptical that such molecular devices could survive the rigors of real-world manufacturing and use, which involve high temperatures and up to one trillion operational cycles. But scientists at the Univer

Walt Scacchi of the University of California, Irvine, and his colleagues are conducting formal studies of the informal world of open-source software development, in which a distributed community of developers produces software source code that is freely available to share, study, modify and redistribute. They’re finding that, in many ways, open-source development can be faster, better and cheaper than the “textbook” software engineering often used in corporate settings.

In a series of

Mars Express, ESA’s first probe to Mars, still has some challenges to face.

The spacecraft has successfully come through its first power test after the gigantic solar flare on 28 October.

Since 17 November the on-board software has been ’frozen’ after several updates and the spacecraft is now quietly proceeding to its destination. The next major task, starting on 19 December, will be to safely release the Beagle 2 lander.

Separation

To del

CAD software improves breast ultrasound, digital mammograms

New computerized systems that give doctors a “second pair of eyes” for looking at mammograms and other breast scans are showing great promise for detecting breast cancer, distinguishing it from benign problems without a biopsy, and tracking changes in a woman’s breast over time.

The systems, all developed at the University of Michigan Health System, are in various stages of readiness for clinical use. But UMHS

Researchers at Northeastern University today announced that they have been able to demonstrate the unique feature of imaging through a flat lens. Using the phenomenon of negative refraction through a novel photonic crystal, Northeastern physicists observed that a flat slab of such material behaves as a lens and focuses electromagnetic waves at microwave frequencies to produce a real image.

The research, published in tomorrow’s edition of the journal Nature, represents an important advance in