Science News
Headline and Article Archive
September 2004
Week of 26 September 2004
- High-Tech
Helmets
- According to
a July, 2004 report from the National Center for Catastrophic Sports
Injuries, about 1.5 million junior high and high school students
play football in the U.S., with colleges and universities fielding
about 75,000 players. Three players died during 2003 as a direct
result of injuries suffered on the field, two of which came following
severe head injuries. Now, researchers at Virginia Tech might help
figure out where improvements in helmet technology are needed most,
using a system called HITS (Head Impact Telemetry System).
Week of 19 September 2004
- Spacecrafts
powered by thunder
- Thunderous sound
waves could one day propel spacecraft to the edge of the solar
system, say engineers who have developed a new type of acoustic
engine. NASA is funding research into Stirling engines, which use
temperature differentials between reservoirs of gas to create electricity. "Inside
the engine, the acoustic pressure is high enough to pop your eardrums," Petach
told New Scientist. "It's louder than a thunderclap."
- Large
Binocular Telescope Dedication in October
- The Large Binocular
Telescope is located on Mount Graham near Safford, Ariz. When fully
operational in 2005, it will be the most technologically advanced
ground-based telescope in the world. The LBT is unlike any other
telescope because its twin 8.4-meter (27.6 ft.) "honeycombed" mirrors
will sit on a single mount. The mirrors are much larger and lighter
than conventional solid-glass mirrors and will collect more light
than any existing telescope.
- Extreme
Impersonations
- Extreme physical
conditions have a way of bringing out the strangest behaviors that
nature can muster. Just ask physicist John E. Thomas. Two years
ago, he and his colleagues at Duke University in Durham, N.C.,
were working with intense lasers in a high-vacuum chamber at temperatures
next to absolute zero. They were manipulating tiny clouds of lithium
gas. When the scientists turned off the lasers, peculiar things
began to happen. At first, the microscopic puff of lithium billowed
out of the spot where the lasers had held it. But then, instead
of expanding evenly in all directions, as any normal gas would,
the lithium cloud morphed into a pancake.
Week of 12 September 2004
- Falling
into Place: Atom mist yields nanobricks and mortar
- Nanotechnologists
envision using tiny structures to create ultrastrong materials
and to build memory chips that store entire libraries. But these
visions require making matter behave in exceptionally orderly ways.
Now, materials scientists Jagdish Narayan and Ashutosh Tiwari of
North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh have induced
tiny particles, or nanodots, of nickel to spontaneously assemble
into exceptionally uniform, three-dimensional arrays of macroscopic
size.
Week of 5 September 2004
- Cartilage
Heal Thyself
- Damaged cartilage
in knees and joints caused by traumatic injury or the regular wear
and tear of age is nearly impossible for the body to repair on
its own. Unlike other tissues, cartilage lacks the blood vessels
that deliver nutrients and other healing substances to damaged
regions. Medical treatment usually aims to alleviate pain and discomfort
without mending underlying injuries. Now scientists are working
to develop a biomaterial that could help the body use its own resources
to replenish damaged cartilage.
- Inflatable
spaceship set for test flight
- An inflatable
lifeboat could one day ferry stranded astronauts back to Earth,
if a prototype's test flights are successful next month. The re-entry
vehicle weighs just 130 kilograms and is being developed to carry
cargo back from the International Space Station (ISS). But its
inventors believe that it could also let astronauts bail out of
the space station, or deliver robots to the surface of Mars.
- NIST
Unveils Chip-Scale Atomic Clock
- The heart of
a minuscule atomic clock believed to be 100 times smaller than
any other atomic clock has been demonstrated by scientists at the
Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), opening the door to atomically precise timekeeping in portable,
battery-powered devices for secure wireless communications, more
precise navigation and other applications. The clock's inner workings
are about the size of a grain of rice, consume less than 75 thousandths
of a watt and are stable to one part in 10 billion, equivalent
to gaining or losing just one second every 300 years.
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