General science advances thread

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The Large Hadron Collider Just Detected Extremely Rare Particle Decays

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have just announced the detection of a rare particle decay “harder to find than the famous Higgs particle.” The strange B meson is certainly a lot less famous than the Higgs boson, but it also has an important role to play in the Standard Model of particle physics.

For the past several decades, particle physics has been governed by the Standard Model, which allows physicists to classify all subatomic particles and make predictions about particles and processes still not yet observed. Its predictions are thus far born out—the existence of the Higgs boson being the most famous example.

 

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Lab grown meat thirty thousand times cheaper than 18 months ago
Next Big Future Lab grown meat thirty thousand times cheaper than 18 months ago

Dutch Professor Mark Post, the scientist who made world's first laboratory grown beef burger believes so-called "cultured meat" could spell the end of traditional cattle farming within just a few decades. A year and a half ago the professor of vascular physiology gave the world its first taste of a beef burger he'd grown from stem cells...

It passed the food critics' taste test, but at more than a quarter of a million dollars, the lab quarter-pounder was no threat to the real deal. Now, after further development, Dr Post estimates it's possible to produce lab-beef for $80 a kilo - and that within years it will be a price-competitive alternative.

A small piece of muscle you can produce 10,000 kilos of meat.
In 2013, it cost $325,000 to make lab grown meat for a burger made from cultured muscle tissue cells. Now the cost is $11 for a quarter pound lab grown patty.

 

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ORNL can make bigger graphene composite fabrication instead of graphene flakes as a step towards commercialization

One of the barriers to using graphene at a commercial scale could be overcome using a method demonstrated by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Graphene, a material stronger and stiffer than carbon fiber, has enormous commercial potential but has been impractical to employ on a large scale, with researchers...

Anyone that doubts government does great things for humanity...Well, the Oak Ridge National laboratory along with many more do just that.

 

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Invisibility cloak built with common materials can hide macroscopic objects
By Dario Borghino
May 18, 2015

A new invisibility cloak developed at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is reportedly able to hide any object that can fit inside a one-inch diameter cylinder. The cloaking device is among the first to rely on common materials like polymers and acrylic paint, and could be used for a practical demonstration of cloaking technology.

 

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Quantum-mechanical monopoles discovered

Researchers at Aalto University and Amherst College, USA, have observed a point-like monopole in a quantum field itself for the first time. This discovery connects to important characteristics of the elusive monopole magnet. The researchers performed an experiment in which they manipulated a gas of rubidium atoms prepared in a nonmagnetic...

 

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The Large Hadron Collider smashes energy record with test collisions - 13 TeV is a new regime - nobody's been here before - The best thing that could possibly happen is that we find something that nobody has predicted at all

On Wednesday night, two opposing beams of protons were steered into each other at the four collision points spaced around the LHC's tunnel.
The energy of the collisions was 13 trillion electronvolts - dwarfing the eight trillion reached during the LHC's first run, which ended in early 2013.
"Physics collisions" commence in June.
At that point, the beams will contain many more "bunches" of protons: up to 2,800 instead of the one or two currently circulating. And the various experiments will be in full swing, with every possible detector working to try to sniff out all the exotic, unprecedented particles of debris that fly out of proton collisions at these new energies.

 

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DARPA can non-mechanically sweep a laser back and forth 100,000 times a second will make far cheaper and more powerful laser scanning

A non-mechanical approach could open the door to a new class of miniaturized, extremely low-cost, robust laser-scanning technologies for military and commercial use Many essential military capabilities—including autonomous navigation, chemical-biological sensing, precision targeting and communications—increasingly rely upon laser-

 

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Scientists create world's first fully-artificial molecular pump
By Richard Moss
May 23, 2015
4 Pictures

All living organisms – human, animal, or otherwise – continuously move molecules around their cells. It's a crucial mechanism of life, vital for feeding cells the proteins they need to function. And now scientists at Northwestern University have created a machine that mimics this pumping mechanism. Their molecular pump is the world's first such machine developed entirely through chemical engineering in the laboratory, and it could one day power artificial muscles and other molecular machines.

 

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Ricoh develops energy-generating rubber
By David Szondy
May 22, 2015


As digital technology becomes more ubiquitous and the Internet of Things takes shape, the question of how to power it all becomes more pressing. Japanese technology firm Ricoh is looking at its new "energy-generating rubber" as one solution. According the company, the new piezoelectric polymer converts pressure and vibration into electric energy with high efficiency, yet is extremely flexible and durable.

 

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First manned flight for Flike personal tricopter
By Darren Quick
May 28, 2015
2 Comments
5 Pictures

Despite always generating plenty of interest, getting a personal flight vehicle off the ground can be a huge undertaking – just ask Malloy Aeronautics, which has been forced to scale its Hoverbike down, selling a one-third-scale drone to raise funds to continue development of the larger, manned Hoverbike. But a Hungarian team is looking onwards and upwards after having achieved the first manned flight of its Flike tricopter concept demonstrator.

 

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Engineers have produced an alloy that springs back into shape even after it is bent more than 10 million times

"Memory shape alloys" like this have many potential uses, but present incarnations are prone to wearing out.
The new material - made from nickel, titanium and copper - shatters previous records and is so resilient it could be useful in artificial heart valves, aircraft components or a new generation of solid-state refrigerators.
The work appears in Science Magazine.
Memory alloys are already used in some situations, including surgical operations. A stent, for example, might be squashed into a small space and then spring into its designed shape to prop open a blood vessel.
But the alloys have never entirely fulfilled their promise and entered the world of "high cycle fatigue" applications.

Small pieces of the alloy were put through 10 million "shape memory" cycles

 

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Lightweight High-Energy Liquid Laser (HELLADS) prepared for live fire tests
By David Szondy
May 30, 2015
3 Pictures

A high-power laser weapon light enough to be carried by tactical aircraft has moved out of the laboratory and onto the testing ground. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems' High-Energy Liquid Laser Defense System (HELLADS) has finished its US Government Acceptance Test Procedure and is on its way to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for live-fire tests.

Audi's R8 e-tron electric sports car now drives itself
By C.C. Weiss
May 30, 2015
16 Pictures

Revealed at this year's Geneva Motor Show, the Audi R8 e-tron is already a technological tour de force. Its combination of battery-powered range and speed is equalled only by the Tesla Model S. At the inaugural CES Asia show, Audi made the R8 e-tron even more high-tech, rolling its autonomous driving suite into the electric coupe. The R8 e-tron piloted driving concept can unleash 456-hp worth of performance on the street ... without a driver stepping on the pedal.

 

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Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Becomes Reality as Agreements Secured for 5-Mile Track in California

Back in August 2013, long before Tesla unveiled its plans to offer autopilot features on every new car via over-the-air updates and even longer before Tesla unveiled its plans for its massive Gigafactory and its range of Tesla Energy static energy storage products, Tesla Motors [NASDAQ:TSLA] CEO Elon Musk introduced the world to the idea of the Hyperloop: a super-fast, brand-new type of mass-transit for the 21st century.
Unveiling his design in a preliminary technical paper called Hyperloop Alpha, Musk set out the idea for a transport system which used a series of partially-evacuated elevated cylindrical tubes, large enough for a specially-designed capsule to fit inside. Powered by solar panels set on top of the roof of the tube and set in motion by a linear electric motor set into the tube itself the capsules would travel on a cushion of air at speeds of up to 800 miles per hour, he theorised.

 

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