Gizmorama - November 30, 2015

Good Morning,

Astronomers say that dark matter comes in hair form. And NASA says that Earth may be sprouting some strands into space. With the Earth being so old I thought it might have been a grey matter. Science Humor!

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*- Earth may be growing dark matter 'hairs' -*
PASADENA, Calif. - Apparently, dark matter comes in hair form, and astronomers looking to find the mysterious strands may not have to peer all that far into space.

According to new study by scientists at NASA, planet Earth may be sprouting dark matter hairs in all directions.

Only about five percent of the universe is made up of ordinary or visible matter. The rest is dark energy and dark matter, of which we have no direct evidence. Astronomers can only infer the presence of dark energy and matter.

Astrophysicists have indeed done a lot of inferring over the years. In the 1990s, models suggested dark matter would band into long thread-like streams as it moved through space, interacting with ordinary matter. Now, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory propose the existence of such streams in and around Earth.

"When gravity interacts with the cold dark matter gas during galaxy formation, all particles within a stream continue traveling at the same velocity," Gary Prézeau, describing the formation of dark matter streams, said in a press release.

Prézeau built a model to describe how these streams would behave as they approach and pass through Earth. The results suggest the streams would be bent and pulled into long, thin hairs, sprouting in all directions.

According to Prézeau, these hairs would be thickest at their roots and thinner at the tips.

"If we could pinpoint the location of the root of these hairs, we could potentially send a probe there and get a bonanza of data about dark matter," Prézeau said.

"Dark matter has eluded all attempts at direct detection for over 30 years. The roots of dark matter hairs would be an attractive place to look, given how dense they are thought to be," added Charles Lawrence, chief scientist for JPL's astronomy, physics and technology directorate.

The new research was published this week in the Astrophysical Journal.


*-- New technology for separating nanoparticles from plasma invented --*
SAN DIEGO - Nanoparticles hold promise as a medicine delivery vehicle. Researchers looking to treat a variety of health problems, from cancer to blood infections, have experimented with the technology.

But separating the drug delivery nanoparticles from the blood is exceedingly difficult. New research out of University of California, San Diego, however, may make the process much easier. Engineers there have developed a way to separate plasma and nanoparticles using an oscillating electric field.

Researchers detailed the new process in a new paper published last month in the journal Small.

"This is the first example of isolating a wide range of nanoparticles out of plasma with a minimum amount of manipulation," study author Stuart Ibsen, a postdoctoral fellow in then nanoengineering department, said in a press release. "We've designed a very versatile technique that can be used to recover nanoparticles in a lot of different processes."

Plasma, the viscous substance that binds blood cells, has a hard time letting go of nanoparticles once they are introduced to the bloodstream. Current techniques employ sugar solution, dilution and a centrifuge. But most such methods either don't work well or damage the nanoparticles.

Researchers say the new technique will help scientists track nanoparticles and better understand how they work as they travel through the body. To improve the technology as a drug therapy delivery mechanism, researchers to study the ways blood proteins bind to the nanparticles and diminish their effectiveness. The new tracking and recovery process will help researchers do just that.

"We were interested in a fast and easy way to take these nanoparticles out of plasma so we could find out what's going on at their surfaces and redesign them to work more effectively in blood," said Michael Heller, a nanoengineering professor at UC San Diego.

The technology is powered by a dime-sized electric chip. When the chip's electrodes pulse out an oscillating electric current, the surrounding plasma and nanoparticles begin to reorient themselves. But the nanoparticles' positive and negative charges reorient themselves at a different speed than the plasma, creating a momentary gap during which the particles are pulled toward the chip's electrodes.

When tested in the lab, the technology was compatible with a variety of types of nanoparticles employed in medical research labs.

"It's amazing that this method works without any modifications to the plasma samples or to the nanoparticles," said Ibsen.

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