Our families are worried that my wife works with plutonium. Bah... Pu is pretty much miracle whip compared to your stuff!

Radiation effects on materials are cool, at least to this materials-guy.

Yahoo!

Here is sump'n cool as well!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1381454123.jpg
Say Hello to the Future of Technology - Imgur
" It’s one atom thick and has phenomenal electron mobility – roughly 100 times greater than silicon.

This is because the graphene-based supercapacitor charges 100,000 times faster than regular batteries.

Unlike the average battery, which is made of lithium, a graphene-based supercapacitor can be charged and recharged one million times.

graphene is completely BIODEGRADABLE and safe for the environment because it is carbon based"

Euro-peons more diverse than was thought...

BBC News - European origins laid bare by DNA

New Rogue Planet Found, Closest to our Solar System

planet or starship?

My wife is getting her masters, and is taking a class on epigenetics this semester. Very interesting stuff.

Epigenetics: How our experiences affect our offspring - The Week

This is a BBC show (also on NOVA/PBS, I believe), "The Ghost in Your Genes", that you may find interesting. It's 49min long.
The Ghost In Your Genes - BBC documentary - YouTube

In the show it discusses how the offspring, sometimes multiple generations-on can show the effects of the experiences of their ancestors.

That performance sort of makes sense based just on the length scales involved. Atom-scale things happen WAY faster than mm-scale things. Sure, it charges fast and has high power density but it's still so darn small (thin, low volume). It'll be world-changing if they can scale it up to a useful size.

Weren't we promised some "super batteries" one of these days just a few years ago? Traditional lead-acid chemistry but scaled down so that there were many more thin electrolyte layers to provide fast charging and high power density? (note that that's a similar strategy to the graphene above - shorten the length scale and things get better)

Anyway, materials science is cool - and is our ticket out of many of today's problems!

Likely irrelevant. Plain old copper, one of the more metallic metals, has way more electron mobility than silicon, a semiconductor. That's kind of the reason we use Cu as we do and Si as we do.

I haven't studied graphene, but maybe it has some really cool anisotropy to its conductive and dielectric properties. I'd expect so as it's so sheet-like, like graphite. That opens up some areas to exploit.

These nanomaterials, that have inherently beneficial properties and mechanisms built into their very structure, will be the next revolution.

Compare the computer chip to a primitive computer built of discrete components. The chip is millions (billions?) of features fabricated simultaneously in a few dozen processing steps. The computer built of discrete components is assembled piece by piece, one at a time. Look at the performance difference (due to shortened length scales) and the tremendous manufacturing efficiency provided by building the whole thing at once on a chip.

Today for a battery or a power storage capacitor we put some electrodes/conductors around some electrolytes/dielectrics. Done on an "engineering" scale this is just begging for improvement like the computer chip was. One day we'll just let the materials figure it out themselves...

Graphene and nanotubes are highly orthotropic (not isotropic but symmetric about certain planes). Just like the strength, stiffness, thermal conductivity of carbon fiber reinforced plastics, only moreso.

This is truly society changing stuff! The implications are astounding. Watching the BBC doc seemed to focus on how negative situations such as famine and stress can changed the genetics and actually allow those changes to be passed on but my quations is this....what of positive experiences and high nutritian and health? Can we change not only our selves but influence the chances of our grandchildren to be born with some positive attributes? I don't wanna go to the next step...I don't have to. Its right there...

A plan to turn every lightbulb into an ultra-fast alternative to Wi-Fi – Quartz

using light bulds to transmit Li-Fi instead of Wi-Fi

Sometimes it's the little things . . .

Tiny 'LEGO brick' -style studs make solar panels a quarter more efficient


"In new research, scientists have demonstrated that the efficiency of all solar panel designs could be improved by up to 22 per cent by covering their surface with aluminium studs that bend and trap light inside the absorbing layer."

Ian

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/science/new-technique-holds-promise-for-hair-loss.html?_r=0

The curse of male pattern baldness will be vanquished! Thank God for science!

I wonder how the dating opportunities are reduced for a mouse that has had circumcision skin grafted to its back, which has human hair growing out. Makes the whole "hairy mole" thing seem not so bad...

If a mole were to get a "mole", would it have hair, or would it be hairless?

do naked mole rats (they are hairless) have moles?

BTW - that scientist has big hair

An insecticide-infection connection in bee colony collapses | Ars Technica

Italian scientists discover how a certain insecticide leads to bee colony collapses.

This insecticide will be banned in the EU, unless the chemical companies succeed in derailing the ban.

Sun erupts with solar flare -- one of the strongest it can unleash - NBC News.com




Great Quick Tanning!!!

Physics - Element 115 Confirmed

Element 115 synthesized...

I am interested in the 'island of stability' for the super heavy ones.

What's in it for the rest of us? To me this seems like cosmology and finding all of those galaxies way out on the edge. Sure we develop lots of interesting control systems and detectors to find the really heavy elements/distant galaxies but what then?

Other than the myriad technological advancements required to discover "...the heaviest element" and "...the most distant galaxy", what does this pursuit get us?

For heavy elements - we can't do much chemistry beyond the f electrons. And as a metallurgist working with the actinides - there's some cool stuff happening there. But seriously, out there after 100? You'll never get enough in one place to do anything...

(grumpy metallurgist)

I remeber reading about the concept of the 'island of stability' and that it was theorized that if you can get to element 120 then it becomes very stable and that if the compound is prented with a sufficaint amount of outside energy than space warping begins due it the fact that such a large atom develops very interesting gravitational properties.

well now, iffn you was a materials scientists (like every other metallurgist nowadays), you'd be happy that us monkeys are out there pushing the envelope


that far out, basic research eventually turns into products -- for example, you can now buy quarks to eat (at least in parts of Europe)

Just back from the Los Alamos Smiths - good selection but no quarks. I'll put a note in to the manager. They claim they can get whatever we order...

Muster Mark's Bakery has them in a three-pack.

The ongoing hunt for "dark matter"
 

BBC News - Dark Matter: Experiment to shed light on dark particles

BBC News - LUX results: Dark matter hunt nears final phase

Cheers
JB

70th Anniversary of Graphite Reactor Criticality
 

I drive past this place twice a day...

This is cool.

IBM Watson: The inside story of how the Jeopardy-winning supercomputer was born, and what it wants to do next - Feature - TechRepublic

Now for the 'lighter' (?) side
 

BBC News - Physicists probe urination 'splashback' problem

Cheers
JB

A little more serious
 

Not a lot new of info in the article. I know some of you folks have expressed your thoughts & knowledge re: shale gas extraction. Do you think this has a whole lot of traction vis-à-vis the environmental concerns of fracking?

General Electric: we can clean up fracking with technology - Blue and Green Tomorrow

Cheers
JB

Sure - that will help with one issue from fracking.

Other problems include leaks of methane (seal it!) and traffic/impacts in inhabited areas (directional drilling or buy them off)

At 400,000 Years, Oldest Human DNA Yet Found Raises New Mysteries
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/science/at-400000-years-oldest-human-dna-yet-found-raises-new-mysteries.html?hp
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...ticleLarge.jpg

If they can find a good source of Hydrogen to make syngas, why not stop there and just burn the hydrogen? No polution at all.

That pesky problem of finding cheap hydrogen is the stumbling block.

RF Safe-Stop shuts down car engines with radio pulse

"A British company has demonstrated a prototype device capable of stopping cars and other vehicles using a blast of electromagnetic waves.

The RF Safe-Stop uses radio frequency pulses to "confuse" a vehicle's electronic systems, cutting its engine.

E2V is one of several companies trying to bring such a product to market.

It said it believed the primary use would be as a non-lethal weapon for the military to defend sensitive locations from vehicles refusing to stop.

There has also been police interest."

Source: BBC

Ian

You get lots of hydrogen when making methanol from biomass, but it is best to just continue with the methanol process and use the hydrogen to fuel the refinement. Gaseous fuels are hard to store enough of onboard. Hydrogen is pretty much the best fuel for a combustion engine, otherwise.

Will Lasers replace LEDS?

BMW Laser Headlights Slice Through the Dark - IEEE Spectrum

Another point to be pondered (??)
 

Scorpion sting gives desert mice pain-proof superpower - NBC News.com

Talk about turning the tables!

(FIFY)
Will the BMW manufacturers of headlight lasers/halogens pay for for following egregious (and willfully-knowing) lawsuits, which will eventuallly happen after on-coming drivers are blinded in the USA?