Issue no. 17, 2009
Published: May 15, 2009 |
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 Europe launches cosmic explorers |
| EU hands down record antitrust fine to Intel |
| Bright white light from organic LEDs |
| Molecule of life emerges from laboratory slime |
| Existing gas power plants could pump out hydrogen |
| Swiss find sweet way to test water purity |
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| Europe launches cosmic explorers |
Two groundbreaking missions to map the geometry of the universe and
study the formation of the earliest galaxies have successfully launched
onboard an Ariane-5 rocket from French Guiana.
The Herschel and Planck satellites, which have been built by the
European Space Agency (ESA), are sent some 1.5 million kilometres
further out from the Sun beyond the Earth. Known as Lagrange point L2,
it is where a space probe can usefully hover, little disturbed by stray
signals from home and without having to use much fuel to keep it in
position.
First to arrive, in roughly two months' time will be Planck - a
microwave observatory. Planck will probe the geometry and contents of
the universe by finely measuring the cosmic microwave background (CMB)
radiation - a remnant of the Big Bang.
More than a month later, Herschel, named after the German-born
astronomer who in 1781 discovered Uranus, will join the group in a much
wider orbit around L2 than Planck. This far-infrared and submillimetre
telescope will study the universe's coolest objects, from the era when
the first stars and galaxies were formed to the present day. |
| PhysicsWorld
May 14, 2009 |
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| EU hands down record antitrust fine to Intel |
EU regulators on Wednesday slapped a record EUR 1.06bn fine on Intel for
antitrust violations and ordered it to halt illegal efforts to squeeze
out arch-foe AMD. Analysts say the move may help AMD recoup some of the
market share lost to its bigger and nimbler rival over past years, but
is not expected to radically transform Intel's operation. The decision
may also force US regulators to act, analysts say, with South Korea and
Japan already accusing the company of antitrust violations.
The European Commission said Intel paid computer makers to postpone or
scrap plans to launch products using AMD chips, paid illegal rebates to
encourage them to use Intel products and paid a retailer to stock only
computers with Intel chips. Intel argued the decision was based on weak
evidence that must be reviewed on appeal to an EU court. The antitrust
fine is the biggest the EU has imposed on a company.
'Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting
to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many
years,' EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.
The Commission ordered Intel to cease all illegal practices immediately
and to pay the fine, which represents 4.151% of the company's 2008
turnover, within three months of being notified of the decision. |
| Reuters
May 13, 2009 |
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| Bright white light from organic LEDs |
In the pursuit of environmentally-friendly lighting, organic LEDs have
long been touted as an attractive option. They could be significantly
more efficient than conventional lighting and they don't contain toxic
mercury. Now, researchers at the University of Dresden have created the
first organic LED that is more efficient than traditional lighting.
Light emitting diodes emit monochromatic light when their electrons
combine with holes to form 'excitons'. Standard LEDs made from inorganic
materials have already found widespread application in screens and
commercial lighting because of their high efficiency. In recent years
researchers have also started to develop a new wave of LEDs using
organic materials such as polymers. As well as being eco-friendly to
dispose of, these LEDs also have the advantage of generating photons
across a range of colours resulting in white light.
One promising way of creating white light is to coat an LED with
phosphor, which converts monochromatic light into red, green and blue
light. The drawback until now has been a lack of efficiency; 80% of the
photons generated remain trapped in the LED emission substrate and the
surrounding phosphor. The team have overcome this problem by optimising
the coupling between these phosphor and polymer layers. By integrating
blue, green and red phosphor into the heart of the emission layer, they
have created a system that allows significantly more photons to escape. |
| PhysicsWorld / Nature
May 14, 2009 |
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| Molecule of life emerges from laboratory slime |
Creating life in the primordial soup may have been easier than we
thought. Two essential elements of RNA have finally been made from
scratch, under conditions similar to those that likely prevailed during
the dawn of life.
RNA consists of a long chain composed of four different types of
ribonucleotides, which each consist of a nitrogenous base, a sugar and a
phosphate. Most people assumed that these three components first formed
separately, and then combined to make the ribonucleotides. However, it
seemed impossible that two of the four bases with particularly unwieldy
chemistry ever reacted spontaneously with the sugar.
But researchers at the University of Manchester tried to work out a new
recipe for RNA that gets by without forcing isolated bases and sugar
molecules to react. The team cooked up ribonucleotides from five small
molecules thought to be present in the primordial soup. The recipe and
conditions that they came up with to mix the five ingredients -
including UV light - produce ribonucleotides via a joint precursor
molecule that contains both the base and the sugar instead of making
each in their free form.
The reaction worked only when phosphate was present right from the
start, although it does not react with the mixture until near the final
stages. It turns out it is needed as a catalyst and as a chemical buffer
early on. The need for UV light suggests life did not begin in a
submarine vent, one possible scenario. Instead, it points towards a warm
pond - an idea first mooted by Charles Darwin, who knew nothing of RNA. |
| New Scientist / Nature
May 13, 2009 |
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| Existing gas power plants could pump out hydrogen |
Kick-starting the hydrogen economy will require cheap ways to produce
vast quantities of the gas. But rather than building a new and costly
plants, societies could modify existing gas powered stations instead,
say Dutch and French chemists. There is currently no way to cheaply
generate the large quantities of hydrogen needed.
But researchers at the University of Amsterdam working with colleagues
at the University of Lyon 1 have developed a catalyst which could be
placed in the combustion chamber of a methane-burning power plant which
would allow it to produce hydrogen with little modification.
The researchers tested the cerium oxide and nickel catalyst using a
mixture of methane and oxygen at 400 to 550 °C to simulate conditions in
a power station. Initially the methane burns up all of the oxygen
present to generate heat. This allows the catalyst to break down the
remaining methane into solid carbon and hydrogen gas with an effective
hydrogen yield of 25 to 30 per cent from the chemical process.
Tests showed that the catalyst remains active for seven hours before it
becomes choked up with solid carbon. Those coke deposits can easily be
burned off to clean up the catalyst. |
| New Scientist / Green Chemistry
May 12, 2009 |
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| Swiss find sweet way to test water purity |
A common sweetener has provided a way to follow water from treatment
plant out into the environment. Researchers at the Swiss Federal
Research Station have shown that between 10 and 20 per cent of water
that was pumped from Swiss ground-water aquifers had made its way there
from domestic waste water.
Caffeine has been used by engineers to trace leaks in faulty sewage
treatment plants for many years. That's because we drink huge amounts of
tea and coffee every day and wastewater treatment plants destroy almost
all of it. So if scientists checking water quality in a lake or local
water supply find caffeine, they know something is wrong. However, some
artificial sweeteners pass through sewage treatment plants unscathed.
They are then passed back into rivers and lakes. The Swiss team realised
that sweeteners could make the ideal tracer for treated waste water.
They sampled water from waste-water treatment plants, rivers, lakes, and
groundwater in Switzerland and tested it for four different artificial
sweeteners. They found one of them, acesulfame potassium, virtually
everywhere. It was the only compound that was abundant and persistent
enough for them to detect in groundwater. This makes acesulfame an ideal
candidate for finding just how far waste water reaches. The sweetener
could also be used to test new methods of treating sewage. |
| New Scientist / Environmental Science and Technology
May 12, 2009 |
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