General science advances thread

Meet Dakotaraptor, The Terrifying New Dinosaur KU Researchers Are Piecing Together

Meet Dakotaraptor, The Terrifying New Dinosaur KU Researchers Are Piecing Together

By Jeremy Bernfeld • Dec 17, 2015

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Dakotaraptor stalked the present-day Dakotas.
Courtesy Robert DePalma

While the Tyrannosaurus rex was at the top of the food chain 66 million years ago, a team of researchers linked to the University of Kansas discovered a giant, fearsome raptor that may have given T. rex a run for its money.

Dakotaraptor, as it’s called, was 17-feet long, six-feet tall at the hips and weighed hundreds of pounds. With a 9.5-inch razor-sharp retractable claw likely used to gut or latch onto prey, it was an unbeatable hunter.

“For all intents and purposes this was the Ferrari of the predators of its day,” says Robert DePalma, who discovered the Dakotaraptor fossils as a graduate student at KU in 2005 while on an excavation in South Dakota. “It could turn on a dime, run very fast. It could easily jump twice or three times its body height. It could kill any herbivorous dinosaur that it encountered. It was a lethal animal.”

For the last decade, DePalma and a team of researchers have been piecing together the roughly dozen fossils he excavated. What emerged was the picture of a frightening predator that stalked the present-day Dakotas millions of years ago.

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Meet Dakotaraptor, The Terrifying New Dinosaur KU Researchers Are Piecing Together

way cool
 
Recently Discovered Titanosaur Is So Huge, It Barely Fits into a Museum

Written by
Becky Ferreira
Contributor

19 December 2015 // 07:00 PM CET

- video at link -
A full-size cast of one of the largest animals ever to walk the planet will be unveiled at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) next month. Measuring 122 feet long and weighing in at about 70 tons, this giant titanosaur lived about 100 million years ago in Cretaceous Argentina. A wealth of its remains were discovered in Patagonia last year, so recently that the species hasn’t even been given an official name yet.

“What they discovered is a cemetery of dinosaurs the likes of which we had never seen in the history of Argentine paleontology," Ruben Cuneo, director of the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio, told US News in the wake of the find.

“Given the length and magnitude this animal will bring along when it's reconstructed, there won't be a building that can contain it. I think we're going to need a new home.”

Indeed, the dinosaur was so colossal that curators couldn’t fit the entire length of its skeleton cast into the fourth floor gallery where it will be on view. The neck actually extends out into the elevator corridor to “greet” visitors, according to the AMNH. This setup should give people an idea of how jaw-droppingly massive this titanosaur was, even when compared to other famous long-necked sauropods, like Brontosaurus and Diplodocus.

Recently Discovered Titanosaur Is So Huge, It Barely Fits into a Museum
 
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Move Over, Graphene: Borophene Could Be the Strongest Material Ever

Jamie Condliffe

Friday 6:22am

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1
http://gizmodo.com/move-over-graphene-the-latest-super-material-is-borop-1748663333
Graphene is the best-known two-dimensional material, with its atom-thick layers proving plenty of fascinating material properties. But now a team of scientists has developed a new material with a similar structure that they’re calling borophene.

The new two-dimensional sheet, developed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy, is made up from atoms of boron. While boron is non-metallic semi-conductor in most of its normal three-dimensional arrangements, the researchers have found that it in fact has some metallic properties when it’s stretched out into a two-dimensional sheet.

But while graphene can be found by simply peeling layers from a stack of graphite, borophene doesn’t seem to appear in nature. Instead, the team has had to manufacture it from scratch, first creating theoretical models of what it should look like, and then synthesizing it in the lab. They did that by vaporizing boron using an intense electron beam, then condensing the gaseous metal onto a thin film of silver. Because the silver and boron don’t react, the team was able to grow a single-atom thick layer of boron. Bingo: borophene.
 
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New microscope creates near-real-time videos of nanoscale processes

MIT engineers have designed an atomic force microscope (AFM) that scans images 2,000 times faster than existing commercial models. Operating at near-real-time-video speed, it can capture structures as small as a fraction of a nanometer from single strands of DNA down to individual hydrogen bonds.
Existing AFMs have similar spatial resolution but function at slow speeds.
In one dramatic demonstration of the instrument’s capabilities (see video), the researchers scanned a 70- by-70-micrometers sample of calcite as it was first immersed in deionized water and later exposed to sulfuric acid. Over a period of several seconds, the team observed the acid eating away at the calcite, expanding existing nanometer-sized pits in the material that quickly merged and led to a layer-by-layer removal of calcite along the material’s crystal pattern.
 
Exceptionally strong and lightweight new metal created
December 23, 2015

At left, a deformed sample of pure metal; at right, the strong new metal made of magnesium with silicon carbide nanoparticles. Each central micropillar is about 4 micrometers across. Credit: UCLA Scifacturing Laboratory
A team led by researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has created a super-strong yet light structural metal with extremely high specific strength and modulus, or stiffness-to-weight ratio. The new metal is composed of magnesium infused with a dense and even dispersal of ceramic silicon carbide nanoparticles. It could be used to make lighter airplanes, spacecraft, and cars, helping to improve fuel efficiency, as well as in mobile electronics and biomedical devices.



Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-12-exceptionally-strong-lightweight-metal.html#jCp

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Researchers found an unconventional phase transition in photonic structures
A team of physicists from ITMO University, Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute and Australian National University have researched the phenomenon of phase transition between photonic crystals and metamaterials - two types of ...
 
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Breakthrough achieved in Ceramics 3D Printing Technology
HRL Laboratories : Breakthrough achieved in Ceramics 3D Printing Technology

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© 2015 HRL Laboratories. Photo by Dan Little Photography.

MALIBU, Calif. January 1, 2016 — Researchers at HRL Laboratories, LLC, have achieved a new milestone in 3D printing technology by developing a process that overcomes the limits of traditional ceramic parts and enables the development of high temperature, high strength ceramic components. According to HRL Sensors and Materials Laboratory Senior Scientist Dr. Tobias Schaedler, "Our team surmounted the challenges inherent in ceramics to develop an innovative material that has myriad applications in a variety of industries."

Schaedler credited HRL’s Senior Chemical Engineer Zak Eckel and Senior Chemist Dr. Chaoyin Zhou with inventing a resin formulation that can be 3D printed into parts of virtually any shape and size. The printed resin can then be fired, converting it into a high strength, fully dense ceramic. "The resulting material can withstand ultrahigh temperatures in excess of 1700°C and exhibits strength ten times higher than similar materials," said Schaedler.

This innovative process enables additive manufacturing of complex shaped ceramic parts. "Ceramics are much more difficult to process than polymers or metals because they cannot be cast or machined easily," said Schaedler. Traditionally, ceramic parts are consolidated from powders by sintering, which introduces porosity and limits both achievable shapes and final strength. "With our new 3D printing process, we can take full advantage of the many desirable properties of this silicon oxycarbide ceramic, including high hardness, strength and temperature capability, as well as resistance to abrasion and corrosion," said Schaedler.
 
Four elements earn permanent seats on the periodic table
Four elements earn permanent seats on the periodic table

U.S., Russian and Japanese scientists credited with official discoveries
By
Andrew Grant
4:58pm, December 31, 2015
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FEWER U’S The official discovery of elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 means that all 118 elements in the periodic table’s first seven rows have been found on Earth or produced in the lab. The four new elements will soon get names replacing the temporary “Uu” placeholder names.

The seventh row of the periodic table is officially full.

On December 30, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry announced that a Russian-U.S. collaboration had attained sufficient evidence to claim the discovery of elements 115, 117 and 118. IUPAC awarded credit for the discovery of element 113 to scientists at RIKEN in Wako, Japan (SN Online: 9/27/12). Both groups synthesized the elements by slamming lighter nuclei into each other and tracking the decay of the radioactive superheavy elements that followed.
 
Scientists create the elusive form of solid Hydrogen named phase V



University of Edinburgh - 7th January 2015

Experiments have given a glimpse of a previously unseen form of hydrogen that exists only at extremely high pressures - more than 3 million times that of Earth’s atmosphere.
Hydrogen - which is among the most abundant elements in the Universe - is thought to be found in this high-pressure form in the interiors of Jupiter and Saturn. It may also be found in the sun.
 
Yep, and yet most farts still stink. What a contrast! Course most farts are really real while science, well, maybe, maybe not. I'm watching the Redskin/Green Bay playoff game and the ref's microphone is not working. Now that is science for ya. Wobbly like the guy in the animation. OK, OK, I apologize in advance Matthew. Just messing with you. Science does in fact have an upside. Cheers
 
"Metal glue" could replace welding and soldering – in some applications

Usually, if you want to join two metal objects together, you either weld or solder them – depending on how big they are. Both processes involve the application of heat, however. This can damage the items (in the case of electronics), or even cause explosions (in the case of things like gas pipes). That's why scientists at Boston's Northeastern University created MesoGlue. It's a glue that bonds metal to metal – or to other materials – and it sets at room temperature.
 
Self-adaptive composite heals itself and returns to its original shape



Self-healing materials that can repair cracks and other damage automatically have been the dream of scientists and engineers for decades, but a team of scientists at Rice University have come up with a new twist. It's a Self-Adaptive Composite (SAC) that is not only self healing, but also has reversible self-stiffening properties that allow it to spring back into shape like a sponge.


Nano-hybrid materials create magnetic effect

Developing novel materials from the atoms up goes faster when some of the trial and error is eliminated. A new Rice University and Montreal Polytechnic study aims to do that for graphene and boron nitride hybrids.


Twitter reports that Gravitational Waves have been found and LIGO Observatory researchers are writing a paper


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Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist at Arizona State university, tweeted that he had received independent confirmation of a rumour that has been in circulation for months, adding: “Gravitational waves may have been discovered!!” The excitement centers on a longstanding experiment known as the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave...
 
The first working Hyperloop could arrive by the end of 2016

New CEO Rob Lloyd is promising a "Kitty Hawk" moment.


The first working Hyperloop could arrive by the end of 2016
q:80

Daniel Cooper , @danielwcooper
01.13.16 in Transportation
Rob Lloyd, the recently minted CEO of Hyperloop Technologies, believes that his firm will have a fully working test loop ready for the end of the year. The executive is here at CES to oversee the breaking ground on the facility, which is being constructed on the outskirts of Las Vegas. If things go according to plan, the two-mile track is expected to be ready for passengers to try out before the end of the holidays. We sat down with Lloyd to talk about the past, present and future of Hyperloop in this wide-ranging interview with Engadget.


That NorCal To SoCal Bullet Is ACTUALLY Happening

The Hyperloop Is Actually Being Built & We Are Psyched
Photo: Zhang Peng/Getty Images.
What's faster than a plane, train, or automobile? A Hyperloop. First outlined by Tesla founder Elon Musk in 2013, the mythical, magical, super-speedy mode of transport looks like it's actually becoming a reality.

The Hyperloop isn't a train. It is a series of tubes that would shoot a pod filled with people from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a matter of 30 minutes. In a car, that trip currently takes five to six hours; on a plane, it's a less-than-90-minute flight.

The depressurized cylinder would shoot pods along at 700 mph. This sounds pretty crazy, but Hyperloop Technologies CEO Rob Lloyd told CNNMoney the basics are simple: You remove the pressure by creating a closed environment and remove the friction by levitating the pods, which allows them to travel at an "incredible speed."
 
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Physicists have managed to tie a quantum knot for the first time
Physicists have managed to tie a quantum knot for the first time

This is nuts.
DAVID NIELD
22 JAN 2016
An international team of scientists has managed to create a quantum knot for the first time - a fundamental breakthrough in quantum physics that could one day help power the supercomputers of the future. These knots aren't quite the same as the ones you might tie to moor a boat to a jetty - they've been made in a superfluid form of quantum matter called Bose-Einstein Condensate, or BEC, and are more like smoke rings than traditional knots.
"For decades, physicists have been theoretically predicting that it should be possible to have knots in quantum fields, but nobody else has been able to make one," said lead researcher, Mikko Möttönen. "Now that we have seen these exotic beasts, we are really excited to study their peculiar properties. Importantly, our discovery connects to a diverse set of research fields including cosmology, fusion power, and quantum computers."
 

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