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Tree growth is measured to understand tree health, fluxes in carbon sequestration, and other forest ecosystem functions. It is one of the most essential and widely collected woody plant traits. Yet, the traditional method to measure tree growth is awkward and time consuming. Scientists have developed a new, resourceful way to take repeated tree growth measurements safely and accurately.
Graphene used to make graphene-copper composite that?s 500 times stronger | ExtremeTechResearchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have created composite materials using graphene that are up to 500 times stronger than the raw, non-composite material. This is the first time that graphene has been successfully used to create strong composite materials — and due to the tiny amounts of graphene used (just 0.00004% by weight) this breakthrough could lead to much faster commercial adoption than pure graphene, which is still incredibly hard to produce in large quantities.
At this point, we shouldn’t be wholly surprised that graphene — which holds a huge number of superlative titles, including the strongest material known to man — can also be used to create strong composite materials. In this case, the KAIST researchers created a copper-graphene composite that has 500 times the tensile strength of copper (1.5 gigapascals), and a nickel-grapehene composite that has 180 times the tensile strength of nickel (4 gigapascals). This is still some way off graphene’s tensile strength of 130 GPa — which is about 200 times stronger than steel (600 MPa) — but it’s still very, very strong. At 1.5 GPa, copper-graphene is about 50% stronger than titanium, or about three times as strong as structural aluminium alloys.
Supervolcanoes, such as the one sitting dormant under Yellowstone National Park, are capable of producing eruptions thousands of times more powerful than normal volcanic eruptions. While they only happen every several thousand years, these eruptions have the potential to kill millions of people and animals due to the massive amount of heat and ash they release into the atmosphere. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have shown that the ash produced by supervolcanoes can be so hot that it has the ability to turn back into lava once it hits the ground tens of miles away from the original eruption.
Move over, silicon. In a breakthrough in the quest for the next generation of computers and materials, researchers at USC have solved a longstanding challenge with carbon nanotubes: how to actually build them with specific, predictable atomic structures.
The age of discovery isn't over yet. A colossal canyon, the longest on Earth, has just been found under Greenland's ice sheet, scientists announced today (Aug. 29) in the journal Science.
"You think that everything that could be known about the land surface is known, but it's not," said Jonathan Bamber, lead study author and a geographer at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. "There's still so much to learn about the planet."
Australian company Zeo has developed and patented a glue-fee process that creates a strong, versatile new building material out of just cellulose and water. The resulting hardwood-like material known as Zeoform can then be sprayed, molded or shaped into a range of products. And it's not just trees that stand to benefit – Zeoform also promises an eco-friendly alternative to the use plastics and resins.
Russia's defence ministry plans to deploy in 2017 a sophisticated new air missile defence system that can hit targets in space, a senior ministry source told Russian news agencies on Friday.
"The promising S-500 air defence missile system is at the development stage. It's planned to be deployed in 2017," the source was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
The long-range system will be able to destroy targets even if they are in space and cover the whole Russian territory, the source added.
Researchers have made a breakthrough discovery in identifying the world's most sensitive nanoparticle and measuring it from a distance using light. These super-bright, photostable and background-free nanocrystals enable a new approach to highly advanced sensing technologies using optical fibres. This discovery, by a team of researchers from Macquarie University, the University of Adelaide, and Peking University, opens the way for rapid localisation and measurement of cells within a living environment at the nanoscale, such as the changes to a single living cell in the human body in response to chemical signals.
Published in Nature Nanotechnology today, the research outlines a new approach to advanced sensing that has been facilitated by bringing together a specific form of nanocrystal, or "SuperDot™" with a special kind of optical fibre that enables light to interact with tiny (nanoscale) volumes of liquid.
(Phys.org) —Moving toward its goal of building a high-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train line between Tokyo and Osaka, Central Japan Railway Co has resumed testing of its L0 (L Zero) train—demonstrating speeds just above 310 miles per hour (500 km per hour). That makes it the longest and fastest maglev train in the world.
Maglev trains are able to travel very fast all while using less energy than conventional trains because they allow the train to ride on a cushion of air—friction from the wheels on the track is eliminated. Most in the field expect they will require less maintenance costs as well. But what's still not clear is if the lower operating costs will make up for the dramatically greater installation cost. The line between Tokyo and Osaka is expected to cost approximately $90 billion and it won't be completed until 2045 (an initial line is expected to begin operating between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027 reducing travel time from 95 to 40 minutes).
Aug. 28, 2013 — A team of mathematicians has solved a problem first posed more than 40 years ago that has confounded modern mathematicians, until now.
Professor Jim Geelen of the University of Waterloo and his colleagues, Professor Bert Gerards of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica and the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, and Professor Geoff Whittle of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand have proved the famous Rota's Conjecture.
The three men worked for almost 15 years to solve this problem posed by the famous mathematician and philosopher Gian-Carlo Rota in 1970. Earlier this year, in Waterloo, the trio completed the final step in their epic project.
Graphene is a material with seemingly unlimited potential. This remarkable single-layer lattice of carbon atoms has been put forward as the solution to a huge number of engineering problems from semiconductors to solar cells. Even with all that promise, a single layer of graphene is little more than a scientific curiosity. To make anything truly useful with graphene, you have to be able to layer it. This is where the problem comes in, but it’s a problem a group of Nankai University researchers in China hope they’ve finally solved.
New low-temperature chemical reaction explainedIn all the centuries that humans have studied chemical reactions, just 36 basic types of reactions have been found. Now, thanks to the work of researchers at MIT and the University of Minnesota, a 37th type of reaction can be added to the list.
The newly explained reaction—whose basic outlines had been known for three decades, but whose workings had never been understood in detail—is an important part of atmospheric reactions that lead to the formation of climate-affecting aerosols; biochemical reactions that may be important for human physiology; and combustion reactions in engines.
The new analysis is explained in a paper by MIT graduate student Amrit Jalan, chemical engineering professor William Green, and six other researchers, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Scientists confirm existence of largest single volcano on earth | e! Science NewsA University of Houston (UH) professor led a team of scientists to uncover the largest single volcano yet documented on Earth. Covering an area roughly equivalent to the British Isles or the state of New Mexico, this volcano, dubbed the Tamu Massif, is nearly as big as the giant volcanoes of Mars, placing it among the largest in the Solar System. William Sager, a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at UH, first began studying the volcano about 20 years ago at Texas A&M's College of Geosciences. Sager and his team's findings appear in the Sept. 8 issue of Nature Geoscience, the monthly multi-disciplinary journal reflecting disciplines within the geosciences.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-09-made-to-order-materials-focus-nano-strong.html#jCp(Phys.org) —The lightweight skeletons of organisms such as sea sponges display a strength that far exceeds that of manmade products constructed from similar materials. Scientists have long suspected that the difference has to do with the hierarchical architecture of the biological materials—the way the silica-based skeletons are built up from different structural elements, some of which are measured on the scale of billionths of meters, or nanometers. Now engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have mimicked such a structure by creating nanostructured, hollow ceramic scaffolds, and have found that the small building blocks, or unit cells, do indeed display remarkable strength and resistance to failure despite being more than 85 percent air
Researchers have developed a new technique to produce thin films of germanium crystals—key components for next-generation electronic devices such as advanced large-scale integrated circuits and flexible electronics, which are required for gadgets that move or bend.
Unlike conventional methods, the new approach does not require high temperatures or other crystals to act as seeds to grow the germanium crystal. And, the researchers say, the new method can be used to produce germanium films with a very large area, allowing for more potential applications.
"This is the realization of the dreams of crystal-growth researchers," says Taizoh Sadoh of Kyushu University. "This unique method will open new ways to create advanced flexible electronics."
THE HAGUE: Never mind last month's revolutionary testtube beef burger grown from meat stem cells. The Dutch are way ahead with a 'vegetarian butcher' who transforms plants into 'meat'. Dubbed the 'Frankenburger', the lab-grown beef developed at a cost of more than 250,000 euros ($330,000) was unveiled by scientists and served to volunteers in what was billed as a food revolution.
"But we are much more advanced, so-much-so that we have built an unassailable lead over meat produced from stem cells," said Jaap Korteweg, founder of the 'Vegetarian Butcher' .
While the 'cultured beef' in London was made using strands of meat grown from muscle cells taken from a living cow, the Dutch butcher needs only plant matter to make his 'meat' .
Korteweg's shop on a main street in downtown The Hague is packed with a range of products from veggie 'hamburger' patties to 'meatballs' and 'tuna' salad.
Michigan State University research has put the possibility of bomb-detecting lasers at security checkpoints within reach. In the current issue of Applied Physics Letters, Marcos Dantus, MSU chemistry professor and founder of BioPhotonic Solutions, has developed a laser that can detect micro traces of explosive chemicals on clothing and luggage.
"Since this method uses a single beam and requires no bulky spectrometers, it is quite practical and could scan many people and their belongings quickly," Dantus said. "Not only does it detect the explosive material, but it also provides an image of the chemical's exact location, even if it's merely a minute trace on a zipper."
A new study has revealed that the stunning iridescent wings of the tropical blue Morpho butterfly could expand the range of innovative technologies. Scientific lessons learnt from these butterflies have already inspired designs of new displays, fabrics and cosmetics.
Now research by the University of Exeter, in collaboration with General Electric (GE) Global Research Centre, University at Albany and Air Force Research Laboratory, and funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has discovered that the physical structure and surface chemistry of the Morpho butterfly's wings provides surprising properties that could offer a variety of applications ranging from photonic security tags to self cleaning surfaces and protective clothing and to industrial sensors.
By inserting platinum atoms into an organic semiconductor, University of Utah physicists were able to "tune" the plastic-like polymer to emit light of different colors – a step toward more efficient, less expensive and truly white organic LEDs for light bulbs of the future.
Scientists in Spain have reported the first self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself without any intervention. The new material could be used to improve the security and lifetime of plastic parts in everyday products such as electrical components, cars and even houses.
In an advance that could dramatically shrink particle accelerators for science and medicine, researchers used a laser to accelerate electrons at a rate 10 times higher than conventional technology in a nanostructured glass chip smaller than a grain of rice.
