gizmag: Science and Education

MAVEN: NASA's post-Phoenix Mars probe

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:27:07 +1000

After the Phoenix lander has finished scraping away at Martian soil, the MAVEN spacecraft will examine the atmosphere of the red planet. The US$485 million Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN program is the second stage of NASA’s Mars Scout program, following the successful Phoenix mission. The MAVEN craft will study the planet’s atmospheric gases, upper atmosphere, solar wind, ionosphere, planetary corona, solar EUV and SEPS, and investigate past climate change...

Tags: Climate Change, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Space Travel

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Scientists lay foundations for exascale computing

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:49:21 +1000

Having crashed through the petaflop barrier of a thousand trillion calculations per second back in June, scientists are continuing work into achieving the next benchmark in supercomputer performance - exascale computing. Georgia Institute of Technology's Professor Karsten Schwan is one of two scientists working in the field to receive a 2008 HP Labs Innovation Research Award to further research into solving the problems thrown-up by computing on this scale...

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Durham Uni Smartdesk envisages the classroom of the future

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 02:00:45 +1000

September 18, 2008 A century ago, most school children sat on the floor, with tables and chairs following and eventually giving way to rudimentary desks. A century from now, one wonders how far we’ll have progressed in creating an environment most conducive to nurturing the minds of our most precious resource. Researchers at the Technology-Enhanced Learning Research Group (TEL) at Durham University in the United Kingdom are designing new learning environments using interactive multi-touch desks that look and act like a large version of an Apple iPhone. ..

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First images from NASA's Gamma-ray telescope

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:14:52 +1000

After two months of calibration and testing, NASA’s Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope has started to deliver the goods, providing scientists with an all-sky image of the Milky Way. The all-sky image combines 95 hours of “first light” observations from the Large Area Telescope, which is 30 times more sensitive than any previous space-based gamma-ray instrument. ..

Tags: NASA, Satellite

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Robots reinvigorate computer science classrooms

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 06:36:59 +1000

Education has long been based around the three R's, but now for computer science students throughout the U.S., a fourth R is making ground - Robotics. A program that began in 2006 through the Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE) using robots as the circuit breaker in introductory computer science courses is being expanded to 28 more high schools and universities. Gizmag spoke to Dr. Tucker Balch, director of IPRE, to learn more...

Tags: Bluetooth, iRobot, Robot

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The ORION PLUS helium ion microscope

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:03:22 +1000

Carl Zeiss SMT has introduced an improved version of its helium ion microscope at the Microscopy and Microanalysis 2008 exhibition: the ORION PLUS. By focusing helium ions into a beam, instead of electrons, the microscope can offer higher focus with lower sample damage...

Tags: Microscope, Nanotechnology

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New insight into Martian environment

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:27:54 +1000

NASA’s $720 million Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has provided groundbreaking insight into the environmental makeup of the planet during its earliest geological age. Images from the MRO reveal that the Red Planet was originally a muddy brown, with vast lakes and flowing rivers covering a predominantly clay surface. ..

Tags: NASA, Space Travel

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European Synchrotron Radiation Facility succesfully analyzes zeolites

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:16:16 +1000

June 27, 2008 In a world first, scientists at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility have determined the distribution of aluminum in zeolites, an important step towards understanding the versatile volcanic material used in water purification, nuclear waste removal, and the spin cycle of your washing machine. ..

Tags: research watch

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SkyScout Personal Planetarium for $299.99 at Amazon

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:44:13 +1000

June 11, 2008 There are few things that reinforce the unfathomable wonder of our existence as much as pointing a telescope at the night sky and that goes double if you happen to be using a Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium. As we have written before, SkyScout technology uses GPS to provide information and history on what you are looking at through the viewfinder – an invaluable educational tool your child, available for $299.99 (51% off) for the next 22 hours at Amazon...

Tags: Education

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Touchdown! Phoenix spacecraft lands on Mars

Mon, 26 May 2008 12:07:12 +1000

May 26, 2008 NASA has announced the successful touchdown of the Phoenix spacecraft on arctic plains in the north of the Red Planet. The completion of the 10 month journey was confirmed with the detection of a radio signal from Phoenix (a signal which takes more than 15 minutes to reach Earth) indicating that it had reached the Martian surface. The spacecraft reached speeds of approximately 12,000 mph before entering the top of the planet's atmosphere and beginning its decent towards a soft touchdown on its three-legs made possible by parachute deployment and finally, the use of controlled thrusters. Launched on August 4, 2007, Phoenix is the sixth lander to touch down on Mars with only five of the 11 previous international attempts having succeeded including the first successful landing of the Viking program in 1976...

Tags: NASA, Space Travel

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Space engineers to explore next gen lunar rovers

Thu, 01 May 2008 13:03:38 +1000

May 1, 2008 The development of a new generation of lunar rovers has been given a boost thanks to funding for an exchange program between the Surrey Space Centre and the University of Beijing. The exchange will pave the way for future moon projects such as the UK‘s proposed Moonraker lander mission and the second phase of China's Chang'e programme. ..

Tags: Space Travel

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FIRST crowns science and tech champions

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:27:03 +1000

April 22, 2008 FIRST, an organization inspiring kids to engage in science and technology, has crowned this year’s champions at its annual science showdown. The 2008 FIRST Championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta recognized winners across three categories: Robotics Competition, Tech Challenge, and LEGO League...

Tags: Education, Robot

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The world's most powerful laser

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:44:01 +1000

April 17, 2008 A team of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin has demonstrated the highest powered laser in the world. With greater than one quadrillion watts of laser power, the level of output achieved on March 31 by the Texas Petawatt laser is equivalent to more than 2,000 times the output of all power plants in the United States and brighter than the Sun's surface, according team leader and physicist at The University of Texas at Austin, Dr.Todd Ditmire...

Tags: Astronomy, research watch

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Laser Triggers Electrical Activity in Thunderstorm

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:46:04 +1000

April 14, 2008 A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time, according to a new paper in the latest issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal. They did this by aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm. The laser beams were supplied by the Teramobile - a nine-ton portable terawatt and femtosecond laser which fits inside a standard six-meter freight container. Its pulses have an instantaneous power of 5 terawatts (5TW = 5 x 1012W or the power equivalent of a thousand nuclear reactors) and a duration of approximately 100 femtoseconds (1013 s.)...

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The Fukang Pallasite for sale

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:13:20 +1000

April 9, 2008 Meteorite enthusiasts the world over know of the Fukang Meteorite. Discovered in the Gobi desert (near Fukang) in China eight years ago, the extremely rare and beautiful Pallasite meteorite is thought to have originated at the mantle-core boundary of very large differentiated asteroids that were destroyed during the early formation of the solar system over 4.5 billion years ago, give or take a hundred millennia or so. Fukang’s unique crystalline structures formed as the metal matrix cooled, with no gravitational influence, at a rate of only a few degrees per million-year period. Now the “main mass” of the meteorite, a distinction considered highly desirable by meteorite collectors, is to be sold at auction by international fine art auctioneers Bonhams on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at its salerooms in New York...

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Mathematica Player Pro - new Application Delivery System for Mathematica

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:52:46 +1000

April 2, 2008 Wolfram has a new runtime environment for Mathematica applications named Mathematica Player Pro. Player Pro gives access to any Mathematica-6-based files, allowing full interaction with Mathematica's capabilities such as performing adaptive visualization, controlling dynamic interface elements and connecting to real-time data. Developers can now build applications in Mathematica and deploy them cost-effectively via Player Pro. Until now, developing with Mathematica has almost always meant deploying with Mathematica but using the free Player and Player Pro, it’s now possible to deploy to almost anyone...

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Researchers develop health-screening nanodevice

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:15:23 +1100

March 28, 2008 Arizona State University researcher Wayne Frasch has designed a method of DNA detection that is faster and more portable than any other current model. The result is a biosensing nanodevice that could transform security screening and health testing. ..

Tags: Microscope

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Hubble breakthrough boosts search for life outside our solar system

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:35:23 +1100

March 26, 2008 In another first for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST), an organic molecule has been detected in the In another first for atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a star 63 light-years (or somewhere in the vicinity of 370 trillion miles) away. Given that the molecule found was methane, a key chemical player in the "primeval soup" from which life was formed on this planet, the discovery represents a significant breakthrough in the search for life outside our solar system...

Tags: Astronomy, NASA

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The largest explosion ever seen

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:30:17 +1100

March 22, 2008 Gamma-Ray Bursts are the most powerful explosive events in the Universe. They thankfully occur in far-off galaxies and hence are usually faint, but on the morning of March 19, 2008 the Swift satellite found a burst which was so bright it could be seen without binoculars or a telescope even though it was seven thousand times further away than the Andromeda galaxy. Put simply, it could be seen with the naked eye from a distance of over twenty billion light years from Earth. It turned out to be a great day for GRB hunters. The Swift satellite typically finds only two GRBs a week, but for the first time found five bursts within 24 hours. The second burst of the day was the new record holder. The enormous energy released in the explosion – brighter than the light from all of the stars in five million Milky Way Galaxies – was caused by the death of a massive star which collapsed to form a black hole. ..

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NASA may support UK in ground-breaking MoonLITE mission

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:09:09 +1100

February 20, 2008 A new report has outlined the possibility of US support for the planned UK-led MoonLITE mission, a project that aims to use a solar-powered spacecraft to fire four suitcase-sized “penetrators” at the surface of the moon at speeds of 300m/s. The penetrators would be deployed to the far side of the Moon, and one of the poles, where they would sink to depths of up to two metres beneath the moon’s surface, and analyse “Moonquakes”, study heat flows, and determine the chemical and physical structure of the Moon’s interior. ..

Tags: NASA, QinetiQ, Space Travel

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Hubble detects galaxy from the infancy of the universe

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:09:57 +1100

February 18, 2008 The Hubble telescope’s Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer has detected an infant galaxy from the “dark ages” of the universe. Named A1689-zD1, the galaxy originated just 700 million years after the Big Bang, and is believed to be one of the galaxies responsible for reheating the cold clouds of hydrogen that formed as a result of the rapid expansion of the universe...

Tags: Camera, NASA

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New digital microscopes from Celestron

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:49:26 +1100

January 11, 200 Celestron, the people who brought us the SkyScout Scope refractor telescope has released two new microscopes, a USB-powered handheld digital microscope (HDM) and a new LCD Digital Microscope (LDM) aimed at hobbyists. The HDM allows you to view and capture still or video images at 20 to 400 times magnification power and view on your computer screen via the USB cable while the LDM has a high-resolution 3.5” (88mm) LCD screen so users can view the images and video they have captured and saved. ..

Tags: Digital Cameras, Microscope

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Antarctic record for scientific balloons

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:17:53 +1100

January 7, 2007 A record three long-duration, sub-orbital flights were launched and operated in Antarctica during this current Southern-Hemisphere summer, marking a new milestone for the almost 20-years of scientific ballooning in the region. The achievement was the result of a partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with NSF providing infrastructure and logistics and NASA providing the satellite communications link...

Tags: NASA

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Researchers reveal the biggest digital survey of the Milky Way to date

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:14:09 +1100

December 31, 2007 More than 50 astronomers from the UK, Europe, USA and Australia have joined forces to produce the first comprehensive optical digital survey of the plane of the Galaxy. The Initial Data Release (IDR) from the INT Photometric H-Alpha Survey (IPHAS) includes around 200 million unique objects available via an online database, forming a huge resource designed to boost our understanding of stellar evolution and further the study of stellar demographics of the Milky Way and of its three-dimensional structure. ..

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Education news goes paperless in Houston

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:24:36 +1100

December 20, 2007 Texas students have access to a customized education portal from the Houston Chronicle that includes an online daily newspaper and numerous education-specific programs. By making the news paperless the Chronicle estimates in the first year of the program it will eliminate nearly one million hard copies delivered to schools...

Tags: Education

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