Breaking Science News

With up to 70 percent of used tyres ending up in landfills, there is an opportunity to find other ways of recycling this material, and in turn reduce the environmental damage. The EU-funded TyGRE project set out to find a use for Europe's tyre waste - estimated to be three million tonnes a year.

One of the greatest mysteries of modern physics is the imbalance of matter and antimatter in the Universe. As every particle is produced and destroyed in tandem with its antiparticle, which has an identical mass but opposite charge, scientists are baffled as to why our Universe is matter dominated. In a significant advance that could allow direct measurement of the most minute differences between a particle and its antiparticle—and therefore potentially explain this imbalance—an international collaboration co-led by Stefan Ulmer from the RIKEN Ulmer Initiative Research Unit has developed a method that now makes it possible to observe reorientation of the magnetic moment associated with a single proton.

A French plan to set up wind turbines near the site of the D-Day landings that changed the course of World War II has enraged many who say it desecrates the memory of the liberators.

(Phys.org) —Thermometry – the measurement of temperature – is critical to a wide range of applications, including many industrial processes, biomedical monitoring, and environmental regulatory systems. However, measuring temperature in the presence of high RF (radio frequency) or other electromagnetic fields – such as are found in aerospace, automotive and medical systems – cannot be accomplished using electrical thermometric probes. In these cases, optical sensors that allow scientists to perform thermometry based on thermally-driven changes in fluorescence (brightness) are the instrument of choice. While typical fluorescence thermometers use millimeter-scale optical probes, smaller devices are needed to measure temperatures in intracellular and other nanoscale environments. As a result, the field has witnessed the development of nanoscale fluorescence thermometers based on quantum dots, rare-earth ions and nanogels.

The single-person, solar-powered Solar Impulse aircraft departed St. Louis, Missouri early Friday en route to Cincinnati and then the US capital, organizers said.

German ministers questioned major Internet companies on Friday about U.S. tracking of web activity, days before a visit to Berlin by President Barack Obama.

Microsoft's Office software package is coming to the iPhone for the first time Friday, offering people the ability to read and edit their text documents, spreadsheets and slide presentations at the doctor's office or at a soccer game.

In an EU-funded project the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart is developing, together with industrial and scientific partners, a modular system to purify dairy wastewater electrochemically. Using an integrated fuel cell, the generated hydrogen will be recovered to supply power to the system.

The electricity from our sockets could soon come from a high-tech device flying in the sky. The innovative research project to generate wind energy with the aid of a kite won over the "Venture Kick" jury; it is providing CHF 10,000 of support for the Empa spin-off "TwingTec".

Sharp Corporation has achieved the world's highest solar cell conversion efficiency of 44.4%, using a concentrator triple-junction compound solar cell. These solar cells are used in a lens-based concentrator system that focuses sunlight on the cells to generate electricity.

(Phys.org) —Getting the atomic-level fingerprint of a material takes a lot more than just a dab of ink.

(Phys.org) —It's no surprise that the data systems for SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser have drawn heavily on the expertise of the particle physics community, where collecting and analyzing massive amounts of data are key to scientific success.

(Phys.org) —Google has a new game called Cube Slam where you get to slam a cube into another player's screen target. If you hit the cube against the other player's screen three times, terrific, the screen shatters. To keep the game from getting dull, varied levels are part of the mix, complete with obstacles and gravity fields to keep players challenged. This is as addictive as an old-time video arcade game but supplemented with video chat as well. A share link gets the two players going. Google's CubeSlam debut falls under the Google umbrella of Chrome Experiments, a showcase for web experiments. Most of these experiments are built with the latest open technologies: HTML5, Canvas, SVG, and WebGL. "We hope they show how the web has become faster, more fun, and more open – the same spirit in which we built Google Chrome."

Ayça Alemdaroglu, a lecturer at Stanford, explains how demonstrations over plans to bulldoze an Istanbul park turned into a broader indictment of the government's ruling party.

(Phys.org) —Mammals vary enormously in size, from weighing less than a penny to measuring more than three school buses in length. Some groups of mammals have become very large, such as elephants and whales, while others have always been small, like primates. A new theory developed by an interdisciplinary team, led by Jordan Okie of Arizona State University, provides an explanation for why and how certain groups of organisms are able to evolve gigantic sizes, whereas others are not.

Drones – UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles – are not exactly ubiquitous yet. But that future may not be far away.

The leak of classified government documents last week revealed the existence of a massive National Security Administration program of bulk surveillance in which telecommunication and Internet companies are providing the government with broad access to private user information. Northeastern University news office asked Stephen Burgard, chair of Northeastern's School of Journalism in the College of Arts, Media, and Design, to examine the leak by Edward Snowden, a tech specialist who was contracted by the NSA, and the practice's place in the journalism landscape.

(Phys.org) —The next breakthrough in highly efficient battery technologies and solar cells may very well be nanoscopic crystals of silicon assembled like skyscrapers on wafer-scale substrates. An important route for growth of these nanoscale "whiskers"—or nanowires—involves alloyed metal droplets.

(Phys.org) —Reductions in emissions of black carbon since the late 1980s, mostly from diesel engines as a result of air quality programs, have resulted in a measurable reduction of concentrations of global warming pollutants in the atmosphere, according to a first-of-its-kind study examining the impact of black carbon on California's climate.

(Phys.org) —Viruses are masters of minimalist design. With only a simple genome and a handful of proteins, a virus can hijack much more sophisticated cells and mimic many of the intra- and inter-cellular machinery built by their much more complex hosts. Using these same building blocks, many viruses—like Hepatitis C—can also make us dangerously ill.