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I reported on all aspects of astronomy, chemistry, geology, materials, nanotechnology, physics, and space. Archives now available at sciencespot.co.uk
2008
It's all in the marine mix [Dec 2008 - earth]
Mixing of surface waters in the Atlantic Ocean seems to have reverted in the
winter of 2007/2008 to "normal" levels for the first time in almost a decade,
...
Well, wooden you know? [Dec 2008 - materials]
New materials that look and behave like plastics can be produced from a
renewable raw material known as liquid wood. The bioplastics promise to displace
petroleum as a feedstock for certain applications. ...
Running with knives [Dec 2008 - physics]
Stabbing is the most common form of murder in the UK and Ireland. However, while
forensic scientists understand the basics of the process ...
Antarctic smoking gun [Nov 2008 - earth]
A new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience suggests that the temperature rises of recent decades seen in the Arctic and the Antarctic are due to human activities. ...
Nano hotrods go turbo [Nov 2008 - chemistry]
Adding a silver-gold alloy to nanorods fuelled by hydrogen peroxide gives them a significant speed boost, according to US chemists. ...
Double rubble [Nov 2008 - astronomy]
Our Solar System contains a vast belt of rocky asteroids sitting in an orbit roughly between the planets Mars and Jupiter, but astronomers have found a reason for us to be envious of other star systems ...
Oily fungus helps reduce acid rain [Oct 2008 - chemistry,earth]
Researchers in Iran have discovered a fungus that can metabolise and absorb
sulfur from crude oil and so reduce one of the major sources of air pollution
when petroleum products are burned. ...
Radio samples [Oct 2008 - earth]
More than 20 years after Chernobyl, US researchers have travelled to Sweden and
Poland to gain insight into how radioactive elements spewed out by the reactor
fire have undergone "downward migration" into the soil ...
The dark energy illusion [Oct 2008 - astronomy]
What if Copernicus were wrong and the earth actually has a special place in the
universe? Not some metaphysical, philosophical, supernatural special place, but
just special in that the local environment is not the same as other local
environments across the reaches of space? ...
Look at the dust in here! [Sep 2008 - astronomy,physics]
Space is a messy place not least because of all the broken down satellites,
chunks of rock and UFOs, but it is thick with dust as well. Now, origin of some
of this cosmic dust that pervades "empty" space and bombards ...
Volcanic lava goes organic [Sep 2008 - chemistry,materials]
Nanotubes made using volcanic lava as a support and catalyst come of age with a
new paper to be published in the journal Advanced Materials, ...
Quick water, split [Sep 2008 - chemistry,earth]
A team of researchers in Australia and the USA has developed a novel material
that can catalyse one half of the chemical reaction needed to produce hydrogen
cleanly and efficiently ...
Climate change lifesaver [Aug 2008 - earth]
Adding lime to the oceans may help reverse the rise in atmospheric carbon
dioxide, according to a report in the journal Chemistry & Industry ...
Carbon unfurled [Aug 2008 - materials]
Graphene, the chicken wire sheets of carbon, akin to an unrolled single-walled
carbon nanotube, one might say) could be the next big thing in molecular
electronics ...
Black holes and revelations [Aug 2008 - astronomy]
How much does a supermassive black hole weigh? US astronomers think they have
the answer. Two independent techniques have been used to weigh one of the
biggest black holes in the known universe ...
Cheerio! [Jul 2008 - materials]
Anyone who enjoys a delicious bowl of mixed grain Cheerios in the morning,
rather than being force-fed lumpy porridge, will know all about the "Cheerios
Effect". This phenomenon is usually manifest at a particular point during
breakfast when just a few torus-shaped ...
Winging it [Jul 2008 - astronomy]
You might expect that astronomers would know all there is to know about the
composition of our nearby planetary neighbours, but apparently not. By measuring
the charged particles in the planet Mercury's ...
Inconvenient ice sheets [Jul 2008 - earth]
The present environmental crisis over climate change hinges on the validity of
global temperature measurements, observations of local conditions, such as
changes in the ice caps, ...
Pathological proteins produce polymers [Jun 2008 - chemistry]
Deposits of distorted or otherwise errant proteins are key to understanding various brain diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and the prion disease variant-CJD, they are also implicated in the pathology of type II diabetes. However, while such "amyloids" are a medical nightmare, researchers ...
Size matters on a planetary scale [Jun 2008 - astronomy]
Steering well clear of Mars and Phoenix, the Intute Spotlight this month falls on the smallest planet yet discovered beyond our Solar System. An international team of astronomers led by David Bennett of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, found ...
Flush with nanoparticles [May 2008 - chemistry,earth]
What happens to carbon-based nanoparticles when they enter groundwater? Can
municipal water supplies filter them out? And, if they cannot will they cause
health problems? These are crucial questions ...
Ocean oxygen starvation [May 2008 - earth,physics]
Oxygen-poor regions of tropical oceans are expanding as the oceans warm,
limiting the areas in which predatory fishes and other marine organisms can live
or enter in search of food, ...
Carbon spheres to the dinosaurs [May 2008 - earth]
Palaeontologists presume that an asteroid impact led to such enormous and
widespread environmental upheaval that it wiped out the dinosaurs and thousands
of other species when it struck the Earth.
Good-looking models [Apr 2008 - earth]
Climate change sceptics often cite the fact that predictions about global
warming, droughts, increased hurricane activity and other harbingers of doom are
based not on experimental science but merely ...
Filling up with hydrogen [Apr 2008 - chemistry]
Using renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, and tidal, to convert
biomass into hydrogen fuel, could underpin a future "hydrogen economy" based on
fuel cell devices that then convert the hydrogen into water and release the pent
up energy. However, ...
Black hole revelation [Apr 2008 - astronomy]
You wait for one for ages and then three come along all at once. First, the
smallest black hole ever seen with a mass just 3.8 times that of our Sun and a
diameter of about 20 km has been observed in the Milky Way Galaxy binary system
XTE J1650-500 in the southern ...
Timeless puzzle solved [Mar 2008 - earth]
Canadian and UK geologists have revealed one of the inner secrets of rocks half a billion years old that harbour one of the most important fossil beds ...
Life's meteoric insights [Mar 2008 - chemistry]
Life is handed. Science has known that ever since the time of Louis Pasteur tweezing apart crystals of naturally produced tartaric acid into left-handed and right-handed forms. ...
Want optical chips with that? [Mar 2008 - materials]
Ever-smaller and ever-faster microelectronics devices with increased storage space, more communications and other functions, and much-reduced battery usage, are part of the incentive behind research into photonic crystals. ...
Nanoscopic gas cylinders [Feb 2008 - earth, materials]
New materials that act like nanoscopic gas cylinders complete with
temperature-controlled gas taps have been developed by researchers in Canada.
The materials hold the promise ...
Glassy water [Feb 2008 - physics, chemistry]
Water is an odd material. It can dissolve many different types of compounds far
beyond the range of other molecular solvents. It expands when it freezes,
retains much more heat than one might expect, has a much higher surface tension
than it should, and exists in all three states, ...
The bitter-sweet chemistry of quinine [Feb 2008 - chemistry, pharma]
Bitter nitrogen-containing compounds found in the bark of the cinchona tree,
native to South America, include the well-known antimalarial compound quinine.
Quinine has been used as an additive for tonic water and is the compound that
gives this drink its fluorescence.
The sparks of erosion [Jan 2008 - chemistry,earth,physics]
Improved climate models could result from a better understanding of how erosion
occurs as US researchers discover that electricity as well as wind is involved
...
Less than green biofuels [Jan 2008 - earth]
Fuels derived from renewable resources, such as biomass and specifically
cultivated fuel crops are currently being touted as a useful supplement and
ultimate replacement for fossil fuels. The underlying principle in addition to
their sustainability ...
Galactic mashup and the blue blobs [Jan 2008 - astronomy]
Astronomical news almost invariably focuses on unusually shaped objects, pretty
nebulae that resemble earthly creatures, spitting jets from supernovae. However,
odd blue blobs that mark the crash site of a galactic ...
Scientific Discoveries in 2007
Scientific Discoveries in 2006
Scientific Discoveries in 2005
Read earlier scientific
discoveries...
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Spotlight is a joint venture betweenwww.sciencespot.co.uk andDavid Bradley Science Writer