System detects tissue changes

Mammograms, X-rays and other pricey medical scans do little good if doctors can’t see the tiny changes that signal early stages of disease. But such warning signs are often too subtle to spot by eye, and too complex for computers to interpret. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory have developed the Change Detection System, technology that highlights slight differences between digit

Nanotechnologists could have a firmer handle on the forces at play in their microscopic world thanks to recent physics research at Purdue University.

The latest in a series of experiments aimed at revealing fundamental knowledge of the universe has yielded precise measurement of the so-called Casimir force – a force that could make tiny machines behave erratically, causing a thorn in the side of nanotechnology manufacturers. A team, including Purdue physicist Ephraim Fischbach, has answered

Simulate Network Traffic from over 1 Million Web Browsers in Near Real Time

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created the fastest detailed computer simulations of computer networks ever constructed—simulating networks containing more than 5 million network elements. This work will lead to improved speed, reliability and security of future networks such as the Internet, according to Professor Richard Fujimoto, lead principal investigator of the DARPA-funded projec

A novel method of analysis has been developed that could change the way complicated documents are assessed for bias, accuracy and consistency.

The technique could be used to simplify all sorts of records. For instance long legal documents that use complex and obscure reasoning could be stripped down to their essential arguments.

It could also be used to identify inconsistencies, spotting whether arguments have been changed or contradicted or if evidence has been hidden. The m

The universe is gently fading into darkness according to three astronomers who have looked at 40,000 galaxies in the neighbourhood of the Milky Way. Research student Ben Panter and Professor Alan Heavens from Edinburgh University´s Institute for Astronomy, and Professor Raul Jimenez of University of Pennsylvania, USA, decoded the “fossil record” concealed in the starlight from the galaxies to build up a detailed account of how many young, recently-formed stars there were at different periods in the 1

Giant hollow towers of ice formed by steaming volcanic vents on Ross Island, Antarctica are providing clues about where to hunt for life on Mars.

University of Melbourne geologist, Dr Nick Hoffman has found evidence from recent infra-red images of Mars that similar structures may exist on Mars and, if life is to be found, such towers may be best place to start looking.

Hoffman has drawn attention to strange temperature anomalies in these latest Mars images taken with an inf

First Polarimetric Detection of Explosion Asymmetry has Cosmological Implications

An international team of astronomers [2] has performed new and very detailed observations of a supernova in a distant galaxy with the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory (Chile). They show for the first time that a particular type of supernova, caused by the explosion of a “white dwarf”, a dense star with a mass around that of the Sun, is asymmetric during the initial phases of exp

Classification of quantum phenomena critical to high-temp superconductivity

A team of physicists led by researchers at Rice University has developed the first thermodynamic method for systematically classifying quantum phase transitions, mysterious electromagnetic transformations that are widely believed to play a critical role in high-temperature superconductivity.

The new research is described in two papers – one theoretical and one experimental – in the Aug. 8 issue of Phy

CryoSat, the first Earth Explorer mission within ESA’s Living Planet Programme, is now entering the final phase of assembly prior to its scheduled launch next year.

CryoSat is designed to measure changes in the Earth’s terrestrial and marine ice fields and aims to provide conclusive evidence as to whether there is a trend towards diminishing polar ice cover as a result of climate change.

The first part of the Critical Design Review (CDR), which was successfully completed on

This is clearly Europe´s time for interplanetary exploration. Having sent the first European mission to Mars, ESA is about to launch its first probe to the Moon. It is called SMART-1 and its goals are both technological and scientific. It is the first of a series of “Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology”.

On the one hand, SMART-1 will test new state-of-the art instruments and techniques essential to ambitious future interplanetary missions, such as a solar-electric prim

The Liverpool Telescope, the world’s largest fully robotic telescope, has snapped its first images of the heavens this week. This 2 meter optical telescope is owned by the Astrophysics Research Institute (ARI) of Liverpool John Moores University (JMU), but observes autonomously from its site on La Palma in the Canary Islands. The telescope was designed, constructed and commissioned by Telescope Technologies Ltd., a subsidiary company of JMU.

The Liverpool Telescope’s unique capabilities of

On August 18th and 19th in Stanford, California, at Hot Chips 15 conference, the most important international event on processors architecture, mAgic VLIW will be presented: it is a revolutionary electronic component derived by technologies developed by Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (Infn) in the context of the special project Ape and conceived by the Italian company Ipitec, financed by Atmel. The processor will be produced by Atmel itself, a world-wide leader in the semiconducto

Using a powerful electron microscope to view atomic-level details, Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered a “twinning” phenomenon in a nanocrystalline form of aluminum that was plastically deformed during lab experiments. The finding will help scientists better predict the mechanical behavior and reliability of new types of specially fabricated metals. The research results, an important advance in the understanding of metallic nanomaterials, were published in a recent issue of the journal Scien

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has confirmed that close encounters between stars form X-ray emitting, double-star systems in dense globular star clusters — spherical collections of hundreds of thousands of stars. These double-star systems have a different birth process than their cousins outside globular clusters, and should have a profound influence on the cluster’s evolution. The Marshall Center manages the Chandra program.

A team of scientists led by David Pooley of the Massachus

A new PC-based radar system exploits the computer’s built-in networking capabilities to share radar images with other users over the Internet. This allows ships and coastguards to see each other’s radar images and should bring increased safety for vessels as their radar is tracked onshore.

In extreme circumstances, were a ship’s own antennae to break, it would still be able to look at another ship’s picture of the local situation on its own display. PC RADAR should also improve coord

The world’s largest astronomical camera has been installed on Palomar Observatory’s 48-inch Oschin Telescope in California. This telescope has been working to improve our understanding of the universe for nearly 55 years. The new upgrade will help it to push the limits of the unknown for years to come.

The new camera is known as QUEST (Quasar Equatorial Survey Team). Designed and built by astrophysicists at Indiana and Yale universities, QUEST recently “saw” its first starlight and i