An energy crisis can trigger years of fuel shortages and high gas prices. Energy shortages in biological cells are even more serious. Consequences include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and aging-related disorders such as ...
Biotechnology
Jun 27, 2018
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3
Aviation's frontier is supersonic. The military is seeking ever-faster aircraft, planes that can fly five times the speed of sound. Fifteen years after the Concorde's last transatlantic flight, Japan Airlines and the Virgin ...
Engineering
Jun 25, 2018
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11
Inside a narrow glass tube sits a substance that can harm or cure, depending on how you use it. It gives off a faint blue glow, a sign of its radioactivity. While the energy and subatomic particles it emits can damage human ...
Materials Science
Jun 21, 2018
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136
A newly discovered supercapacitor has the highest energy density of any comparable system as demonstrated by a team of Molecular Foundry users and staff. These ultracapacitors can be charged and discharged repeatedly. The ...
Materials Science
Jun 20, 2018
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15
Quantum computers could tackle problems that current supercomputers can't. Quantum computers rely on quantum bits, or "qubits." Current computers perform millions of calculations, one after the other. Qubit coupling allows ...
Quantum Physics
Jun 19, 2018
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67
Our galaxy produces and destroys the element aluminum-26 in the process of making magnesium-26. As it forms, it can be momentarily "stuck" in a mirror-image (isomeric) state. Getting stuck lets other reactions occur that ...
Astronomy
Jun 19, 2018
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24
When it comes to plasma winds in a tokamak, researchers are always looking for the Goldilocks solution—one that is just right. Winds that are too high or too low can reduce plasma efficiency. Researchers at the DIII-D National ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 4, 2018
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4
The hot ionized gas called a plasma is confined in a bagel-shaped tokamak by a strong magnetic field, part of which is generated by a strong electric current flowing through the plasma. Periodically, a sawtooth instability ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 4, 2018
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3
In proton-proton smashups, more neutrons scatter to the right than the left relative to the proton spin direction. That was the accepted wisdom, and scientists thought the pattern would hold even when the protons struck larger ...
General Physics
Jun 4, 2018
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24
A closed-loop biorefinery could dramatically lower the cost of biofuels and related products. In this approach, the refinery produces the solvents it needs, rather than "importing" them. Scientists at the Joint BioEnergy ...
Materials Science
Jun 4, 2018
0
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