01/11/2011

A star with spiral arms

For more than four hundred years, astronomers have used telescopes to study the great variety of stars in our galaxy. Millions of distant suns have been catalogued. There are dwarf stars, giant stars, dead stars, exploding ...

Urban light pollution and its impact on nocturnal activity

Researchers in Germany have discovered that urban light pollution not only limits the visibility of stars, but also plays havoc with nocturnal animals that depend on a compass-like pattern of polarised light to function. ...

Pure luxury - thanks to Empa technology

True luxury has only one color – gold. A nanometer-thin layer of pure gold now lends ties and pocket handkerchiefs that authentic gold sheen, thanks to a new Empa-developed process. The yarn, which is coated using a ...

Forecasting the fallout from natural disasters

When Hurricane Irene barreled up the East Coast this August, forecasters had a pretty good idea of the track the storm would take, along with its expected wind, rain and storm surge.

Growing smarter engineers with FarmVille

There are no agriculture majors at Missouri University of Science and Technology, but some engineering students on the campus have taken up virtual planting and harvesting through the social networking game FarmVille on Facebook. ...

page 5 from 7