Gizmorama - September 9, 2015

Good Morning,

Researchers working with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider discovered that the device produced tiny droplets that resemble - "the seeds of the cosmos." What?! That must have been the scariest, most amazing day in the lives of those researchers.

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

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*--- Ion collider produces droplets of primordial goo ---*
UPTON, N.Y. - The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider just spit out tiny droplets of a liquid researchers say resembles the seeds of the cosmos, a primordial goo created by the Big Bang, which existed only briefly before cooling into the matter that helped birth stars, galaxies and planets.

Scientists have reported seeing the tiny liquid droplets before, but this time, researchers got a better look at the production process.

What researchers are calling quark-gluon plasma, or QGP, is the product of a collision between helium-3 nuclei and gold ions. When these particles come into contact at high speeds under the right conditions -- extreme temperatures and densities, unfriendly to regular matter -- the product is a "perfect liquid."

The RHIC experiments were carried out by high-energy physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, New York. Sensors at the lab were able to detect a three-point triangle-like spread of scrambled particles. Within the mess of the collision, the three hotspots revealed the new liquid, with particles behaving not at random, as a normal liquid would, but in perfect coordination.

"Physicists initially thought that only the nuclei of large atoms such as gold would have enough matter and energy to set free the quark and gluon building blocks that make up protons and neutrons," Berndt Mueller, associate director of nuclear and particle physics at the lab, explained in a press release. "But the flow patterns detected by RHIC's PHENIX [Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment] collaboration in collisions of helium-3 nuclei with gold ions now confirm that these smaller particles are creating tiny samples of perfect liquid QGP."

The perfect liquid is detailed in several new scientific papers, published in the journal Nuclear Physics A. Another corresponding paper was published in the journal APS Physics.

"This is the first paper that clearly shows multiple particles are correlated to each other in proton-lead collisions, similar to what is observed in lead-lead collisions where quark gluon plasma is produced," Yen-Jie Lee, assistant professor of physics at MIT, said in a statement. "This is probably the first evidence that the smallest droplet of quark gluon plasma is produced in proton-lead collisions."

Lee is part of a group of scientists that produced similar results using the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

Now, researchers in both the United States and Europe will go back to the drawing board. They will continue to observe similar particle collisions for new insights into the nature of this new form of matter, and they will do their best to incorporate the latest surprises into their current models.

"The finding of a nearly perfect liquid in a laboratory experiment recreating the conditions believed to have existed a few microseconds after the birth of the universe is truly astonishing," said Praveen Chaudhari, director of Brookhaven. "The four RHIC collaborations are now collecting and analyzing very large new data sets from the fourth and fifth years of operation, and I expect more exciting and intriguing revelations in the near future."


*-- Australian scientists sending robot after destructive starfish --*
BRISBANE, Australia - Scientists say the invasion of the crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) is responsible for as much as 40 percent of the decline in coral cover among Australia's Greet Barrier Reefs. That's why researchers at the Queensland University of Technology have put a special agent on the job -- the COTSbot.

COTSbot is the first robot designed to eradicate invading starfish. The underwater hunter was designed and built by robotics engineers at QUT. Recently, the bot completed its first trial missions.

While the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) has yet to take out any starfish, it has proven seaworthy. Its mechanical functionality and navigation system performed well during recent tests.

AUVs are increasingly common in marine science, but the sub's software makes COTSbot stand out. Programmers have trained the bot to scan underwater environments and and recognize the presence of the invading starfish. Once identified, the COTSbot's robotic arm delivers a lethal shot.

The bot can search underwater for up to eight hours, and is able to inject as many as 200 starfish. Researchers plan on using the bot as a first line of defense against starfish found among newly invaded reefs.

While the starfish aren't an invasive species, population explosions are damaging to reefs, as the spreading starfish feed on coral tissue and diminish biodiversity.

Human divers are already on the job of thinning out high concentrations of the starfish, and they will continue to tag-team with COTSbot in protecting vulnerable coral.

"We see the COTSbot as a first responder for ongoing eradication programs -- deployed to eliminate the bulk of COTS in any area, with divers following a few days later to hit the remaining COTS," Matthew Dunbabin, a researcher at QUT's Institute for Future Environments, said in a press release.

"The COTSbot becomes a real force multiplier for the eradication process the more of them you deploy -- imagine how much ground the programs could cover with a fleet of 10 or 100 COTSbots at their disposal, robots that can work day and night and in any weather condition."

Dunbabain and his colleagues expect the robot to be deployed and active by December.

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