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Physics and Technology news on Ceramics
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| (PhysOrg.com) -- With the holiday season approaching, a Cornell environmental analyst has made an illuminating discovery: Many Christmas light sets contain such high levels of lead that they exceed limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for windowsills or floors.
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| The universe is full of water, mostly in the form of very cold ice films deposited on interstellar dust particles, but until recently little was known about the detailed small scale structure. Now the latest quick freezing techniques coupled with sophisticated scanning electron microscopy techniques, are allowing physicists to create ice films in cold conditions similar to outer space and observe the detailed molecular organisation, yielding clues to fundamental questions including possibly the origin of life. Researchers have been surprised by some of the results, not least by the sheer beauty of some of the images created, according to Julyan Cartwright, a specialist in ice structures at the Andalusian Institute for Earth Sciences (IACT) of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) and the University of Granada in Spain.
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| Thanks to ESA and UK technology transfer support, a British company has developed a device based on the gamma-ray detection equipment used in ESA`s Integral astronomy satellite to detect and identify the radioactive material mixed with conventional explosives in ‘dirty bombs`.
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| Noise from commercial and military jet aircraft causes environmental problems for communities near airports, obliging airplanes to follow often complex noise-abatement procedures on takeoff and landing. It can also make aircraft interiors excessively loud.
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| (PhysOrg.com) -- New and interesting information is coming out of an archaeological dig at Mt. Lykaion in Greece - an interdisciplinary project University of Arizona students and faculty have worked on since 2004.
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| Pregnant women who take high levels of daily calcium supplements show a marked reduction in lead levels in their blood, suggesting calcium could play a critical role in reducing fetal and infant exposure.
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| Quicker microwave meals that use less energy may soon be possible with new ceramic microwave dishes and, according to the material scientists responsible, this same material could help with organic waste remediation.
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| The semiconductor silicon and the ferromagnet iron are the basis for much of mankind's technology, used in everything from computers to electric motors. In this week's issue of the journal Nature (August 21st) an international group of scientists, including academic and industrial researchers from the UK, USA and Lesotho, report that they have combined these elements with a small amount of another common metal, manganese, to create a new material which is neither a magnet nor an ordinary semiconductor.
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| (PhysOrg.com) -- Forget 9-volts, AAs, AAAs or D batteries: The energy for tomorrow`s miniature electronic devices could come from tiny microbatteries about half the size of a human cell and built with viruses.
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| Researchers here have found a way to convert ethanol and other biofuels into hydrogen very efficiently. A new catalyst makes hydrogen from ethanol with 90 percent yield, at a workable temperature, and using inexpensive ingredients.
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| (PhysOrg.com) -- The proliferation of solar, wind and even tidal electric generation and the rapid emergence of hybrid electric automobiles demands flexible and reliable methods of high-capacity electrical storage. Now a team of Penn State materials scientists is developing ferroelectric polymer-based capacitors that can deliver power more rapidly and are much lighter than conventional batteries.
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| When it comes to the attractiveness of orthodontic braces, less metal is better, according to a recent survey.
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| University of Calgary archaeologists join the Blackfoot in studying unusual woodland-style settlement on Canadian plains A fortified village that pre-dates European arrival in Western Canada and is the only one of its kind discovered on the Canadian plains is yielding intriguing evidence of an unknown First Nations group settling on the prairies and is rekindling new ties between the Siksika Nation (Blackfoot) and aboriginal groups in the United States.
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| What looks like a fertilized egg, flows like water, gets stuffed with catalysts and exotic nanostructures and may have the potential of making the current retail gasoline infrastructure compatible with hydrogen-based vehicles of the future - not to mention also contributing to arenas such as nuclear proliferation and global warming?
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