Copernicium 112
Courtesy GregRobson
Heaviest named element is finally official
Copernicium was officially named February 19, 2010 as element number 112. This element was first created on February 9, 1996 by firing accelerated zinc-70 nuclei at a target made of lead-208 nuclei in a heavy ion accelerator.
This was no easy process: You can’t just shoot one atom at another and expect the atoms to buddy up. In 1996, Sigurd Hofmann and his team had to figure out a way to get all the protons together — and stick. They used a machine, called the Universal Linear Accelerator, that can accelerate atoms up to 10 percent the speed of light. After a week of working on these high-speed collisions, Hofmann’s team found copernicum — even though it quickly vanished. Science News
Copernicium (Cn) takes its place on the periodic chart with a group of metals including zinc, cadmium, and mercury. With two electrons in its outer shell, it has 112 protons and atomic weight of 285.
Tags : Photon computing
Diamond nanowires emit photons: A Harvard-based team has manufactured a matrix of diamond nanowires with defects called nitrogen vacancies. When stimulated with green light, these defects emit one red photon at a time. Such a construct is promising for the new field of quantum computing
Courtesy Zina Deretsky, NSF
Most computers and communications rely upon controlling the flow of electrons. Such devices would be faster and more secure if they used particles of light (photons).
A research team led by Marko Loncar just published how a "diamond nanowire device acts as a nanoscale antenna that funnels the emission of single photons from the embedded color center into a microscope lens."
"This exciting result is the first time the tools of nanofabrication have been applied to diamond crystals in order to control the optical properties of a single defect," said Loncar.
Faster and more secure
Not only is communicating through optical fibers more efficient, there is no easy way for eavesdroppers to "tap the line".
"The resulting device may prove easy to couple into a standard optical fiber. This novel approach is a key technological step towards achieving fast, secure computing and communication." nsf.gov/news
Learn more about diamond-based nanowire devices
Digging deep into diamonds Harvard Gazette
RHIC collision of gold ions: The tracks indicate the paths taken by thousands of subatomic particles produced in the gold ion collisions at RHIC.
Courtesy Argonne National Laboratory A heavy isotope of antihydrogen was created at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) on Long Island, New York. This antihydrogen isotope was heavier than the previous antimatter record-holder, antihelium. I say "was", because it only lasted a few hundred trillionths of a second.
Super smash-up
To make the antimatter, physicists smashed two gold nuclei against each other with enormous energies. The data resulting from the collision "literally looked like haystacks". Sophisticated software was used to make sense out of the debris and pick out the new antimatter.
To form the new antihydrogen isotope, first an antistrange quark binds with an antiup and antidown quark to make an antilambda -- an antineutron-like particle. The antilambda, which is fractionally heavier than a neutron, must then combine with a conventional antineutron and an antiproton. The chances of this happening are very slim: out of 100 million collisions, RHIC generated just 70 of the new antihydrogen isotopes.
Why?
Studying the properties of antinuclei such as these might help physicists study the primordial form of matter that existed in the universe shortly after the Big Bang and why the Universe is full of matter rather than antimatter.
Source article
Heavy antimatter created in gold collisions Scientific American
Solar cells made from common materials
Solar cells for everyone
Courtesy Dominic
Solar cells produce less than 1/1000 of the Earth's electricity. This is mainly because they are expensive and are made from rare, hard to obtain materials.
An IBM research team, managed by David Mitzi, is working on photovoltaic cells that are made from common materials.
The new solar cells are also cheaper to manufacture, using a “printing” technique that uses a hydrazine solution containing copper and tin with nanoparticles of zinc dispersed within it. The solution is then spin-coated and heat treated in the presence of selenium or sulfur vapor. PhysOrg
9.6% Efficiency
This new material, called kesterite, was 6.8% efficient in 2009. IBM increased the efficiency to 9.8% and is planning to increase the efficiency above 11 per cent, which is equal to or better than the traditional solar cells.
Abstract of published paper: High-Efficiency Solar Cell with Earth-Abundant Liquid-Processed Absorber Advanced Materials
Crew of the Starship Enterprise all dead
in Earth and Space Science, Structure of Matter, and Energy Transformations
Space travel kills you: Well, probably not you, but it would kill these two BFFs.
Courtesy JGordonHeyo, Buzzketeers. Any Starketeer Treketeers out there?
Yes? Well check this bit of fun science out: a Professor at Johns Hopkins says that traveling at near-light speeds in a space ship (as folks often do in science fiction) would have the delightful effect of almost instantly killing everyone on board.
Aw, whoops. Did I say "fun"? I meant the opposite of fun.
See, it'd obviously be no good to run into a big chunk of rock while flying around super fast in outer space, but (fortunately) big chunks of rock are really pretty rare way out in space. That's not the problem. The problem is the tiny stuff. The really, really tiny stuff.
Here on Earth, each cubic centimeter of air has about 30 billion billion atoms in it. (That's right—two "billions.") In outer space, however, each cubic centimeter of space might have 2 atoms in it. Two lonely, harmless little hydrogen atoms, drifting around, looking for friends. That low-density of matter is no problem for a low-speed ship—it'd just zoom right through them—but for a ship approaching the speed of light, they could be a huge problem, according to this professor.
Because the ship would be going so fast, the hydrogen atoms would "appear highly compressed, thereby increasing the number of atoms hitting the craft." There's something here about Einstein's special theory of relativity here, but, you know, blah blah blah.That stuff is complicated. I think if it like going running on a buggy night—if you run fast through a cloud of bugs, more of those bugs are going to hit you, and harder. (The moral there being: run with your mouth closed, and run slowly, especially if you're naked.)
So, because so many of the hydrogen atoms are hitting the ship, and because the ship is going so fast, it would be like turning a giant particle accelerator on the ship (except, in this case, the ship is being accelerated into the particles, not the other way around, but the effect is the same). It would be like getting hit with approximately the same amount of energy as if you stepped into the beam of the Large Hadron Collider. Even with a 4-inch-thick aluminum hull, 99% of the hydrogen would blast through the ship as radiation, frying the electronics and killing the crew in seconds. Sad.
You can't wrestle a particle beam, Kirk.
Still, maybe there are some Trekkies and physicists out there who can make us all feel a little better about this? The Johns Hopkins professor clearly knows a ton about radiation, but maybe he's not such an expert on space, or about the physics of Star Trek. I'm certainly not. Don't they warp space on that show? So that they aren't traveling though billions of miles of space (and all that dangerous hydrogen), but are skipping from one spot to another? Something like that? Help me out here. The image of Spock dying of radiation poisoning (again) makes me cry salty tears.
Liquid Glass
Courtesy HustvedtSoon almost every product you purchase will be coated with liquid glass. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, is highly flexible and breathable, and is easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth.
Nanopool, who makes "Liquid Glass" says it is available in Germany now, and will be in the UK early in 2010.
Quantum force bonding
Using their secret process, NanoPool extracts silicon dioxide molecules from glass and mixes them with water or ethanol. When sprayed on various materials, a 100 nanometer coating offers protection against bacteria, graffiti, stains and is food safe and environmentally friendly.
Source:
Spray-on liquid glass is about to revolutionize almost everything PhysOrg.com
Graphene
Courtesy Carbophiliac
Graphene is great
Graphene is a single atom thick layer of carbon atoms in a honeycomb like arrangement (read more about graphene here in ScienceBuzz.org)
Graphene transistors are the fastest
Transistors are like valves that can turn the flow of electricity off and on. Computers can use transistors and logic circuits to solve all kinds of problems. These problems can be solved faster if the transistors can turn on and off faster. Transistors made out of graphene now can switch on and off 100 billion times per second (100 GigaHertz). State-of-the-art silicon transistors of the same gate length have a switching frequency of about 40 GigaHertz.
IBM develops next-generation transistors
IBM just announced their breakthrough in the magazine Science.
Uniform and high-quality graphene wafers were synthesized by thermal decomposition of a silicon carbide (SiC) substrate. The graphene transistor itself utilized a metal top-gate architecture and a novel gate insulator stack involving a polymer and a high dielectric constant oxide. The gate length was modest, 240 nanometers, leaving plenty of space for further optimization of its performance by scaling down the gate length. ScienceDaily
Black light magic
![Fluorescent minerals: Click "hgrobe" link for mineral identification](http://www.sciencebuzz.org/sites/default/files/images/Fluorescent_minerals_hg.thumbnail.jpg "Fluorescent minerals: Click "hgrobe" link for mineral identification")
Fluorescent minerals: Click "hgrobe" link for mineral identification
Courtesy hgrobe Last week, while volunteering at Collector's Corner at the Science Museum of Minnesota, a visitor asked me if we had a black light. I explained that black lights worked best in black (dark) rooms so we put our black light in a black box. By holding minerals under the black light within the black box, one can sometimes see colors not visible when viewed normally.
The beautiful colors seen are a result of fluorescence. Fluorescence happens when electrons absorb energy from the high energy light and re-emit light of a lower, visible wavelength. Black lights get their name because the ultraviolet light from them is invisible. It has a lot of energy, though. Too much exposure to ultraviolet light will result in sunburn or eye damage.
Fluorescence is useful in research
Fluorescent cells: Bovine pulmonary arthery endothelial cells
Courtesy U S Govt Fluorescence allows tracking or analysis of biological molecules. By attaching variously colored "tags", beautiful and useful images are allowing scientists to better understand what is happening, and where. In this image of endothelial cells, nuclei are stained blue with DAPI, microtubles are marked green by an antibody and actin filaments are labeled red with phalloidin. Last year the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien for their work with fluorescence.
More fluorescence fun
I just saw a BoingBoing post about fluorescence. Click the link to see more, but I embedded one of the You Tube videos below.
Tonic water fluorescence
This just in...instant weight loss without dieting courtesy of space and Albert Einstein!
in Earth and Space Science, Physical Science, Earth Structure and Processes, Scientific World View, Structure of Matter, Math, Scientific Inquiry, The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate, Scientific Enterprise, The Universe, Motion, Forces of Nature, and Historic Perspectives
GOCE Satellite: The Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer
Courtesy ESACan it be true? Yes, for a mere $5,544 dollars round-trip airfare to Greenland! In March 2009, the European Space Agency launched the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) into orbit around our planet, which is now transmitting detailed data about the Earth’s gravity. The GOCE satellite uses a gradiometer to map tiny variations in the Earth’s gravity caused by the planet’s rotation, mountains, ocean trenches, and interior density. New maps illustrating gravity gradients on the Earth are being produced from the information beamed back from GOCE. Preliminary data suggests that there is a negative shift in gravity in the northeastern region of Greenland where the Earth’s tug is a little less, which means you might weigh a fraction of a pound lighter there (a very small fraction, so it may not be worth the plane fare)!
In America, NASA and Stanford University are also working on the gravity issue. Gravity Probe B (GP-B) is a satellite orbiting 642 km (400 miles) above the Earth and uses four gyroscopes and a telescope to measure two physical effects of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity on the Earth: the Geodetic Effect, which is the amount the earth warps its spacetime, and the Frame-Dragging Effect, the amount of spacetime the earth drags with it as it rotates. (Spacetime is the combination of the three dimensions of space with the one dimension of time into a mathematical model.)
Quick overview time. The Theory of General Relativity is simply defined as: matter telling spacetime how to curve, and curved spacetime telling matter how to move. Imagine that the Earth (matter) is a bowling ball and spacetime is a trampoline. If you place the bowling ball in the center of the trampoline it stretches the trampoline down. Matter (the bowling ball) curves or distorts the spacetime (trampoline). Now toss a smaller ball, like a marble, onto the trampoline. Naturally, it will roll towards the bowling ball, but the bowling ball isn’t ‘attracting’ the marble, the path or movement of the marble towards the center is affected by the deformed shape of the trampoline. The spacetime (trampoline) is telling the matter (marble) how to move. This is different than Newton’s theory of gravity, which implies that the earth is attracting or pulling objects towards it in a straight line. Of course, this is just a simplified explanation; the real physics can be more complicated because of other factors like acceleration.
Albert Einstein
Courtesy noneSo what is the point of all this high-tech gravity testing? First of all, our current understanding of the structure of the universe and the motion of matter is based on Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity; elaborate concepts and mathematical equations conceived by a genius long before we had the technology to directly test them for accuracy. The Theory of General Relativity is the cornerstone of modern physics, used to describe the universe and everything in it, and yet it is the least tested of Einstein’s amazing theories. Testing the Frame-Dragging Effect is particularly exciting for physicists because they can use the data about the Earth’s influence on spacetime to measure the properties of black holes and quasars.
Second, the data from the GOCE satellite will help accurately measure the real acceleration due to gravity on the earth, which can vary from 9.78 to 9.83 meters per second squared around the planet. This will help scientists analyze ocean circulation and sea level changes, which are influenced by our climate and climate change. The information that the GOCE beams back will also assist researchers studying geological processes such as earthquakes and volcanoes.
So, as I gobble down another mouthful of leftover turkey and mashed potatoes, I can feel confident that my holiday weight gain and the structure of the universe are of grave importance to the physicists of the world!
I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin...
Courtesy ROOTS UPI don't need scientists to tell me there are hints of dark matter on Minnesota's Iron Range. Have you heard that Bob Dylan song, North Country Blues? If you believe Bob, the Iron Range can be a pretty depressing place. A dark place, full of dark matter. Are you following me here?
It turns out that Bob Dylan grew-up not far from a very deep hole in the ground known as the Soudan mine. It used to be an iron mine, but as he points out in that song I mentioned, "The shaft was soon shut, and more work was cut, and the fire in the air, it felt frozen." Hmmm...what did he mean by "fire in the air"?
He may not have been referring to the Soudan mine in particular, but it seems a little bit odd that around the time he released Down in the Groove, a terrible album, this half-mile deep mine was reopened by scientific researchers as a high-energy physics laboratory. Deep beneath the ground, shielded from outside particle interference by the surrounding geologic formations, researchers began studying things like neutrinos and proton decay, searching for WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) and conducting something called a Cryogenic Dark Matter Search.
So Bob Dylan and a bunch of scientists, all hanging out on the Iron Range, all thinking about the nature of the universe. I'm telling you, this is no coincidence. I don't mean to imply that Bob Dylan writes his songs inside a physics laboratory a half mile beneath the Iron Range, but wouldn't that just make so much sense?
Recently a team of scientists working in this very underground lab announced that they may have detected particles of dark matter, invisible material that could lead to huge breakthroughs in both physics and astronomy. HUGE BREAKTHROUGHS. I would explain more, but to be honest, I don't really understand physics. Perhaps one of you can chime in?
Bob Dylan also recently released a new album of Christmas songs. Are these events related? You tell me.
SERIOUSLY, LEARN MORE
This MinnPost article explains more about the recent scientific discovery. You can also look back at this Science Buzz post about dark matter, or follow-up on this conversation with physicist Prisca Cushman, who knows all about WIMPS and Dark Matter, and may even know Bob Dylan. On that note, this is pretty funny.
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