TOP 100 CAMPING SITES
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| Full-Figured Statuette, 35,000 Years Old, Provides New Clues to How Art Evolved The small, sexually explicit carving, found in a cave last year, is thought to be “one of the oldest known examples of figurative art” in the world. nytimes.com |
Hello Moon, Goodbye Rennie [More] rss.sciam.com |
An Iron Key to High-Temperature Superconductivity? Hideo Hosono's research group at the Tokyo Institute of Technology was not looking for a superconductor in 2006. Rather the team was trying to create new kinds of transparent semiconductors for flat-panel displays. But when the researchers characterized the electronic properties of their new substance--a combination of lanthanum, oxygen, iron and phosphorus--they found that below four kelvins, or –269 degrees Celsius, it lost all resistance to carrying an electric current; that is, it superconducted.Although 4 K is far below the current laboratory record of 138 K (let alone the holy grail of “room temperature,” or about 300 K), experimentalists with a new superconductor are like yachtsmen with a new boat design. The sailors want to know how fast they can make it go; the physicists, how hot any variant of the material can superconduct. Superconductors’ uses in industry are hobbled by the need for expensive, complicated, space-hogging cooling systems. Any increase in operating temperature could ease those drawbacks for existing devices and make completely fresh applications technically and economically viable. Engineers envisage, for instance, lossless power cables carrying huge currents and compact superstrong magnets--for magnetic resonance imaging, levitated trains, particle accelerators and other wonders--all without the exorbitant expense and trouble of the liquid-helium cooling systems required by the old, cold, conventional super­conductors. [More] Presented By:Drain the Ocean - Sunday August 9 9P e/pThis is a world you have never seen before, a world normally hidden under miles of water...the landscape of the ocean bed. Click to learn more www.natgeotv.com/draintheocean Ads by Pheedo rss.sciam.com |
Critically endangered Angolan antelope gets a second chance Travel to the African nation of Angola and you'll see representations of the giant sable antelope ( Hippotragus niger variani ) everywhere you turn: on the country's currency, on stamps, and on company logos. But unless you look really hard, you probably won't find any actual giant sable antelopes. Fewer than 100 of the iconic animals are believed to exist following the devastation of Angola's bloody 27-year civil war. Now a new project hopes to reverse that and create some hope for this critically endangered species. [More] rss.sciam.com |
John Rennie's 7 Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense [More] rss.sciam.com |