http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Despite rules requiring US flyers to turn off their phones and other electronic devices, many people leave them on, a survey showed Thursday. http://phys.org/news287337368.html Technology Thu, 09 May 2013 16:56:19 EST news287337368 Alone in the single-seat cockpit and high above the American Southwest, pilot Bertrand Piccard could hear only his plane's gear box and the quiet whine of four electric motors. No noisy jet engines. http://phys.org/news286860526.html Technology Sat, 04 May 2013 04:50:01 EST news286860526 (Phys.org) —A combined team of researchers from the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany and Kobe University in Japan has determined that the Brazil nut effect is less pronounced as gravity is reduced. The team describes tests they undertook both in the lab and as part of a simulated reduced gravity environment aboard an airplane in their paper they've uploaded to the preprint server arXiv, and the results they found after analyzing their observations. http://phys.org/news284720534.html Physics Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:02:43 EST news284720534 (Phys.org) —In northwest Australia, the Great Sandy Desert holds great geological interest as a zone of active sand dune movement. While a variety of dune forms appear across the region, this astronaut photograph features numerous linear dunes (about 25 meters high) separated in a roughly regular fashion (0.5 to 1.5 kilometers apart). http://phys.org/news284710428.html Space & Earth Tue, 09 Apr 2013 07:13:59 EST news284710428 United Technologies Corp. is selling a former Goodrich Corp. electric power systems business for about $400 million. http://phys.org/news283542269.html Technology Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:44:36 EST news283542269 (Phys.org) —Physicists William Irvine and Dustin Kleckner of the University of Chicago, have for the first time, created a knotted vortex in a fluid. They describe how they printed 3D airfoils and then accelerated them very quickly in a tank of bubble-filled water to accomplish this feat in their paper published in the journal Nature Physics. http://phys.org/news281602412.html Physics Mon, 04 Mar 2013 07:00:11 EST news281602412 An airplane roaring down the runway and into the air is a familiar sight to most travellers today. In fact, this image has not changed much in 50 years. While significant advances have been made in terms of fuel economy, engine design and noise reduction techniques, the basic tube and wing shape of airplanes, and the material used to build these aircraft, has remained largely the same for years. http://phys.org/news280650668.html Technology Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:31:18 EST news280650668 Researchers from the Swiss Seismological Service have worked together with the Seismology and Geodynamics group at ETH Zurich and with local support in Bhutan to install a temporary seismological network. They plan to use the network to close a gap in geophysical research of the Himalayas. http://phys.org/news280568572.html Space & Earth Wed, 20 Feb 2013 07:43:01 EST news280568572 (Phys.org)—Researchers at MIT have created several new types of ceramics that all demonstrate a high degree of liquid repellency. All are based, they write in their paper published in the journal Nature Materials, on the oxides of the lanthanides, and unlike most ceramics are extremely hydrophobic. http://phys.org/news277971782.html Physics Mon, 21 Jan 2013 06:23:49 EST news277971782 (Phys.org)—Gale-force winds that whip around the Greenland coast are driving ocean circulation, confirms a new study on the cover of the Nov. 30 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. http://phys.org/news275216485.html Space & Earth Thu, 20 Dec 2012 09:02:30 EST news275216485 The head of the US agency that regulates telecommunications is calling for an easing of the ban on using mobile phones and other electronic devices on airplanes during takeoff and landing. http://phys.org/news274123300.html Technology Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:50:01 EST news274123300 Tiny sensors—made of a potentially trailblazing material just one atom thick and heralded as the "next best thing" since the invention of silicon—are now being developed to detect trace elements in Earth's upper atmosphere and structural flaws in spacecraft. http://phys.org/news273948884.html Nanotechnology Wed, 05 Dec 2012 16:54:56 EST news273948884 (Phys.org)—A team of German physicists has successfully demonstrated an ability to perform quantum key distribution (QKD) exchange between an airplane in flight and a ground station, paving the way perhaps to the same kinds of communications between satellites and ground stations which could lead to a global quantum based secure communications network. The team presented their results at the QCrypt convention this past week. http://phys.org/news267167233.html Physics Tue, 18 Sep 2012 06:07:35 EST news267167233 (Phys.org)—An airplane's vortex generators, which look like small fins on its surface, improve the plane's aerodynamics similar to the way in which the dimples on a golf ball improve the ball's aerodynamics: by delaying "boundary layer separation." While this mechanism is widely known, a new study has shown that vortex generators can improve a plane's aerodynamics in a second way, and the researchers demonstrate this way in a wind tunnel for the first time. http://phys.org/news266740392.html Physics Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:40:02 EST news266740392 Engineers rely on sophisticated simulation software to understand how air and other fluids flow over objects like an airplane wing or a golf ball. The software typically maps the air and object to a three-dimensional array (mesh) of small cells and iteratively calculates the forces in each cell over a series of time steps. Such simulations would be useful for predicting the effects of air flow on moving parts of a spinning hard disk drive — a critical step in the testing of new designs. Unfortunately, parts moving at high frequencies are notoriously difficult to simulate because they are shifted by a few nanometers only. http://phys.org/news263115064.html Technology Thu, 02 Aug 2012 08:31:26 EST news263115064 A solar-powered plane landed in Spain Saturday on its way back home after breaking a record with the first intercontinental flight by an aircraft run on the sun's energy, organisers said. http://phys.org/news260943378.html Technology Sun, 08 Jul 2012 05:16:26 EST news260943378 A new type of paint made with carbon nanotubes at Rice University can help detect strain in buildings, bridges and airplanes. http://phys.org/news259504637.html Nanotechnology Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:37:29 EST news259504637 (Phys.org) -- A single-seat carbon-fiber airplane designed for water operations and proposed as a “fun flyer” has taken its first test flight at Finland’s Lake Hepari. The June test flight comes after more than a year since its introduction at an air show in Germany in 2011. The earlier FlyNano was showcased as a single-occupant petrol/electric microlight amphibious aircraft. The new FlyNano has undergone key changes to advance its readiness for takeoff. Gone are the petrol-engine models. The new engine, propeller, controller and batteries combine to produce a stronger model than the earlier structure. http://phys.org/news259211236.html Technology Mon, 18 Jun 2012 05:00:01 EST news259211236 An unmanned Air Force space plane steered itself to a landing early Saturday at a California military base, capping a 15-month clandestine mission. http://phys.org/news259069106.html Space & Earth Sat, 16 Jun 2012 12:38:32 EST news259069106 When the smell of french fries wafts through the airplane cabin, is it from that guy in 24D scarfing down a fast-food meal — or the jet engines? That question certainly could be food-for-thought for imaginative passengers, as airline companies develop a bigger appetite for the fuels described in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. http://phys.org/news258809634.html Chemistry Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:34:24 EST news258809634 An airplane carrying 96 passengers, including President of Poland Lech Kaczyński, the First Lady, nine top NATO generals and dozens of Polish dignitaries crashed near Smolensk, Russia, April 10, 2010, killing all aboard. The Russian government says the crash was an accident, but University of Akron professor Wieslaw Binienda, chair of the Department of Civil Engineering, disagrees. Binienda has spent the past two years combing details of the final report from the Russian investigation into the Smolensk crash, uncovering contradictions and discrepancies in the report and backing his findings with scientific evidence. http://phys.org/news254978771.html Other Sciences Mon, 30 Apr 2012 04:40:01 EST news254978771 Drivers hoping to slip the surly -- and traffic congested -- bonds of Earth moved a step closer to realizing their dream, as a US firm said it had successfully tested a street-legal plane. http://phys.org/news252604629.html Technology Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:57:19 EST news252604629 The Swiss sun-powered aircraft Solar Impulse will attempt to fly from Switzerland to Morocco in coming weeks, in its longest flight to date, organisers said Wednesday. http://phys.org/news252174098.html Technology Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:21:47 EST news252174098 (PhysOrg.com) -- An 800-pound, 45-foot-long paper airplane with a 24-foot wingspan may be the largest paper airplane ever to glide across the sky. After being hoisted to a height of 2,703 feet by a helicopter last Wednesday, the plane was released and glided for an estimated 7-10 seconds, reaching speeds of close to 100 mph. http://phys.org/news252063390.html Technology Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:36:50 EST news252063390 Plane makers and bitter rivals Airbus of Europe, Boeing of the US and Embraer of Brazil announced on Thursday a joint plan to develop affordable biofuels for the airplane industry. http://phys.org/news251654674.html Technology Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:04:44 EST news251654674 (PhysOrg.com) -- In the super-small world of nanostructures, a team of polymer scientists and engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered how to make nano-scale repairs to a damaged surface equivalent to spot-filling a scratched car fender rather than re-surfacing the entire part. The work builds on a theoretical prediction by chemical engineer and co-author Anna Balazs at the University of Pittsburgh. http://phys.org/news245568709.html Nanotechnology Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:32:16 EST news245568709 Imagine controlling an airplane in flight just by holding your iPhone out in front of you: tilting it in the direction you want the plane to travel, or raising it to make the plane fly higher. Or tapping a point on a map on the screen, and having the plane automatically fly to the designated spot. http://phys.org/news239952636.html Technology Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:31:03 EST news239952636 Airlines and aircraft manufacturers are under increasing pressure to keep noise levels low for airport personnel and for people in surrounding neighborhoods. http://phys.org/news235132370.html Technology Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:10:01 EST news235132370 The ash from the recent eruptions of the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle in Chile disrupted airplane schedules, forcing some planes to circle the globe a second time. causing even more delays. A Michigan Technological University researcher and his graduate students are studying how volcanoes like this erupt and what their relation is to earthquakes. They hope to resolve much bigger issues than airplane inconveniences. http://phys.org/news229923232.html Space & Earth Fri, 15 Jul 2011 04:34:09 EST news229923232 (PhysOrg.com) -- A firm from Austria, Austrian Innovative Aeronautical Technology (IAT21) has unveiled a new type of aircraft that flies without wings or rotors, at the Paris Air Show. Though not actually flown at the show, spokesmen for the new aircraft, named D-Dalus (no doubt after the tragic Greek figure Daedalus, who lost his son Icarus when his wings melted as he flew too close to the sun) claim the aircraft is capable of both hovering and flying forward as fast as a jet, all with very little noise. http://phys.org/news228131165.html Technology Fri, 24 Jun 2011 10:46:26 EST news228131165