The SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY News Thread

[RRW]

If researchers can make electronic chips out of the one-atom thick material graphene, everyday devices could ultimately become thinner and lighter. A newly developed technique by researchers has overcome a significant obstacle in making this happen and could pave the way for their development. MIT News reports that Harvard and MIT researchers have now developed a way to simplify the placement of circuits onto graphene, which previously required carefully placing the circuits individually. The team's new process uses a pre-made template to more easily and efficiently create the circuitry.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/10/42...rvard-research

[AnimeFan188]

NASA-backed fusion engine could cut Mars trip down to 30 days:

"NASA, and plenty of private individuals, want to put mankind on Mars. Now a team
at the University of Washington, funded by the space agency, is about to start
building a fusion engine that could get humans there in just 30 days and make
other forms of space travel obsolete."

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04...ast_mars_trip/

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

NASA-backed fusion engine could cut Mars trip down to 30 days:

"NASA, and plenty of private individuals, want to put mankind on Mars. Now a team
at the University of Washington, funded by the space agency, is about to start
building a fusion engine that could get humans there in just 30 days and make
other forms of space travel obsolete."

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04...ast_mars_trip/

Oh yeah, vacation on mars in my lifetime here I come

[Ithekro]

Get to Mars in about the time it use to take to get from Europe to the Americans.

[AnimeFan188]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

NASA-backed fusion engine could cut Mars trip down to 30 days:

"NASA, and plenty of private individuals, want to put mankind on Mars. Now a team
at the University of Washington, funded by the space agency, is about to start
building a fusion engine that could get humans there in just 30 days and make
other forms of space travel obsolete."

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04...ast_mars_trip/

One possible name for it (from the comments section of the article):

Pulsing Electric Nuclear Injection System

[Ithekro]

....Riiight.

[ganbaru]

U.S. Air Force eyes mixed approach for next weather satellite
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9380XD20130409

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

U.S. Air Force eyes mixed approach for next weather satellite
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9380XD20130409

now that the US has working laser weapons. How many of those new "weather satellites" will have a laser added to it.

[RRW]

THE HUNT for some of the most wanted stuff in the universe took a new twist this week with the first results from a high-profile, space-based dark matter detector. The results are inconclusive, but, if combined with recent theory, they hint at something exciting. Could the universe have a dark side, complete with its own force, a zoo of particles and even a shadow version of the Milky Way?

"There could be a mirror world where interesting things are going on," says James Bullock of the University of California at Irvine, who has been working on the idea of a "dark sector" for a while. "It means nature is much richer than we would otherwise know," he says.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ay.html?page=1

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by RRW

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ay.html?page=1

The next thing we know Dark Hour really does exist.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by RRW

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ay.html?page=1

My theory is that dark matter (and dark energy) are traveling at faster than light speeds and therefore cannot be seen.

[AnimeFan188]

Chinese boffins predict iPad-sized supercomputers

"Chinese boffins are predicting iPad-shaped supercomputers could become a
reality after observing for the first time a phenomenon known as the quantum
anomalous Hall (QAH) effect, which could pave the way for a new generation of
low energy-consumption electronics."

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04...nomalous_hall/

[Ithekro]

Yeah, but then someone will put thousands of them into a giant bank of a computer just to have a super massive super computer (Star Trek sized ship's computers were typically giant cylinder a few decks high, but held pretty much all the information every accumulated from every species in the Federation plue whatever they can get from other races outside the Federation. Plus be able to run the entire ship on its own outside of maintaining itself)

[SaintessHeart]

FRENCH SCIENTIST BEMUSED BY BUZZ OVER BRA RESEARCH

I didn't know that the French have such fun research projects.

[Anh_Minh]

Don't we already have supercomputers the size of phones? It's just a matter of what decade you pull your supercomputer from.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

FRENCH SCIENTIST BEMUSED BY BUZZ OVER BRA RESEARCH

I didn't know that the French have such fun research projects.

Listen to this man!

[LoweGear]

CNet: Construction of World's Largest Optical Telescope Approved

Originally Posted by CNet

If you love eye-popping images of space, here's welcome news: the Hawaiian Board of Land and Natural Resources has backed building what's to be the world's largest, most powerful optical telescope above the clouds atop the volcano Mauna Kea.

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will have a primary mirror of 492 segments measuring some 100 feet across, giving it the power to image objects 13 billion light years away, near the beginning of the universe.
It may also photograph planets outside our solar system with unprecedented detail.

The focus of a collaboration among scientists in California, Canada, Japan, China, and India, the instrument will have 144 times the light-collecting area of the Hubble Space Telescope and nearly 10 times that of one of the Keck telescopes.

Despite opposition from some environmentalists and native Hawaiian groups, construction of the next-generation observatory will begin in a year and is expected to cost over $1 billion. The TMT is slated to begin scientific studies in 2021.

The TMT will operate in wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared. It will work with the planned James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble's successor, to peer into the early ages of the universe.

The TMT's supremacy, however, may not last long. It's slated to be outclassed by the European Extremely Large Telescope, which will have a 137-foot mirror when it begins operations in 2021 in Chile.

Meanwhile, the TMT needs final approval from Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources, as well as a sublease from the University of Hawaii, which leases the land on Mauna Kea from the state.

[JokerD]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

FRENCH SCIENTIST BEMUSED BY BUZZ OVER BRA RESEARCH

I didn't know that the French have such fun research projects.

Bah, most of the women over here don't even need bras anyway

[LoweGear]

Now this is an interesting technology. No english subs yet, but the video should say the gist of what it is:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/npZ3_ILHVzs

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[SaintessHeart]

Bras Make Breasts Sag, Study Suggests

For generations, women have been advised that wearing a bra would keep breasts from sagging, prevent back pain and improve posture.

Wrong, wrong and wrong, according to a study conducted by Jean-Denis Rouillon, a sports medicine specialist from the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire in Besancon, France.

"Medically, physiologically, anatomically — breasts gain no benefit from being denied gravity," Rouillon said, as quoted on TheLocal.fr. "On the contrary, they get saggier with a bra."

Rouillon should know: Since 1997, he has been studying the breasts of 330 volunteers ages 18 to 35 using a slide ruler and a caliper to record the changes in breast position as the women aged, CBSNews.com reports.

His meticulous research revealed that women could experience about a 1/4-inch (7-millimeter) lift in the nipples each year they didn't wear a bra, news site Counsel & Heal reports.

The researchers involved in the study suggested that bras — which Rouillon now calls "a false necessity"— discourage the growth of supporting breast tissue, leaving the breasts to sag more quickly.

Other research has challenged the conventional wisdom that breast-feeding causes breast ptosis (sagging). A 2007 study of 132 women revealed that breast-feeding had no effect on the degree of breast sagging.

What did affect breast ptosis, that research revealed, was age, smoking status and the number of times a woman had become pregnant.

Because Rouillon's study focused on younger women, he cautioned that the results can't be generalized to all women.

"It would be dangerous to advise all women to stop wearing their soutien-gorge [bra] as the women involved were not a representative sample of the population," he said, as quoted in French news site The Connexion.

"It would be of no benefit to a 45-year-old mother to stop wearing a bra," Rouillon said.

One of the participants in the study extolled the virtues of going bra-free: "There are multiple benefits: I breathe more easily, I carry myself better and I have less back pain," she told news site France Info.