Airline pilots have an increased risk of nuclear cataracts [common type of cataract, associated with aging] compared with non-pilots, and that risk is associated with cumulative exposure to cosmic radiation, according to a study in the August issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Commercial airline pilots are reported to be at an increased risk for some cancers, but studies on the biological effects of their exposure to cosmic radiation have been l
Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered a new technique for cooling atoms and molecules that will allow them to study quantum physics more effectively with a greater variety of particles.
The researchers have found a way to use lasers to form walls that allow atoms and molecules to pass through in one direction, but do not allow them to return.
The technique could lead to advances in atomic clocks, which are used to standardize time worldwide.
MARSIS, the sounding radar on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, is collecting the first data about the surface and the ionosphere of Mars.
The radar started its science operations on 4 July 2005, after the first phase of its commissioning was concluded on the same day. Due to the late deployment of MARSIS, it was decided to split the commissioning, originally planned to last four weeks, into two phases, one of which has just ended and the second one to be started by December th
New images of Saturn obtained by a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team on June 21 using an instrument on the Cassini spacecraft show auroral emissions at its poles similar to Earth’s Northern Lights.
Taken with the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph aboard the Cassini orbiter, the two UV images, invisible to the human eye, are the first from the Cassini-Huygens mission to capture the entire “oval” of the auroral emissions at Saturn’s south pole. They also show similar emissio
The difficulty of detecting the presence of explosives and chemical warfare agents (CWAs) is once again all too apparent in the news about the London bombings.
In a significant breakthrough, researchers at Northwestern University’s Center for Quantum Devices have demonstrated a specialized diode laser that holds promise as a weapon of defense in both civilian and military applications. Once optimized, the tiny laser could quickly detect explosives and CWAs early and warn agai
On its recent close flyby of Mimas (MY-muss), the Cassini spacecraft found the Saturnian moon looking battered and bruised, with a surface that may be the most heavily cratered in the Saturn system.
The Aug. 2 flyby of Saturn’s ’Death Star’ moon returned eye-catching images of its most distinctive feature, the spectacular 140-kilometer diameter (87-mile) landslide-filled Hershel crater. Numerous rounded and worn-out craters, craters within other craters and long grooves reminiscent of
In two days’ time [Wednesday 10th August] NASA will launch the biggest spacecraft ever to be sent to Mars – Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). UK scientists are involved with MRO’s Mars Climate Sounder instrument that will profile the atmosphere of Mars. Additionally, MRO carries high resolution cameras to provide the most detailed picture yet of the Red Planet’s surface, including the potential to trace lost Mars missions such as the UK’s Beagle 2.
Scheduled for launch from C
ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has just completed its last phase of testing in Europe and is ready to be shipped to its launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
One and a half years after its sister spacecraft Mars Express arrived at Mars, Europe’s newest planetary probe is ready to depart on the first leg of its journey to Earth’s own sister planet, the mysterious Venus.
Venus Express was proposed in 2001, as a mission concept to take as much as possible
ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft has just completed its last phase of testing in Europe and is ready to be shipped to its launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
One and a half years after its sister spacecraft Mars Express arrived at Mars, Europe’s newest planetary probe is ready to depart on the first leg of its journey to Earth’s own sister planet, the mysterious Venus.
Venus Express was proposed in 2001, as a mission concept to take as much as possible
Why does the sky glow?
Astronomers have found that the sky glows in very energetic X-rays. They think the X-rays are the last gasp of material being swallowed by massive black holes. These objects hide behind thick walls of gas and dust, walls so thick that only radio waves and very high-energy X-rays can escape. Even moderately energetic X-rays are blocked.
When astronomers find massive black holes swallowing their surroundings, they can identify them by their peculiar
The Nuclear Physics Group at the University of Surrey has been awarded a large scale grant worth almost half a million pounds (£483k) from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to synthesise and study the structure of the most exotic forms of nuclear matter created to date.
The Surrey collaboration, led by Dr. Paddy Regan, Reader in Nuclear Physics, has won a four-year grant to perform a series of experiments at the € 1Billion GSI-FAIR heavy-ion resear
Research published in the journal Space Weather warns that massive gaps in our understanding and monitoring of space weather will effectively block US plans for a manned mars space mission. The study, led by University of Warwick researcher Dr Claire Foullon, draws on work that Dr Foullon and colleagues carried out for the European Space Agency on radiation hazards and space weather.
Dr Foullon points to particular concerns about the radiation dangers of Solar Proton Events (SPEs) particula
One of the biggest obstacles facing computer systems today is the problem of memory latency, the time a computer must wait to access the data stored in memory despite faster processor speeds. Two demonstrators reveal that optoelectronics may offer solutions.
“Your domestic PC these days can have a processor of two GHz and faster – this is quite common – but the processor power will often be wasted because the real bottleneck in computer processing is the memory.” That is John Sn
One of the two Galileo satellites currently under development, GSTB-V2/A, has arrived at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre to undergo testing.
Two satellites are being developed for the Galileo System Test Bed – Version 2, which will make up the first phase of in the ’in-orbit validation’ of the Galileo system.
The primary mission of the first Galileo satellites is to secure the Galileo frequency filings, validate new technologies for operational use, c
A team of researchers from the UK and France used SOHO, ACE and the four Cluster spacecraft to study a huge eruption on the Sun, tracing its progress from birth to when it reached Earth.
The team, led by scientists from University College London, identified the source of a ‘coronal mass ejection’ (CME) and analysed how its magnetic field changes on its path to Earth.
Triggered by a massive explosion on the Sun with millions of times more energy than a nuclear bomb, these
’Orbitronics’ could keep silicon-based computing going after today’s technology reaches its limits
For about 40 years, the semiconductor industry has been able to continually shrink the electronic components on silicon chips, packing ever more performance into computers. Now, fundamental physical limits to current technology have the industry scouring the research world for an alternative. In a paper published in the Aug. 1 online edition of Physical Review Letters
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