June 25, 2011
Good Morning,
Scientists have found a new treatment method for breaking down plants for biofuels. The process is designed to better utilize the energy potential of biomass materials. Check out the second article for more details.
Until Next Time,
Erin
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Hubble finds new fourth moon around PlutoWASHINGTON - NASA says the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered and photographed another moon orbiting Pluto, bringing the total of the dwarf planet's companions to four. The tiny new moon, with an estimated diameter of just 8 to 12 miles, has been temporarily designated P4 and joins the moons Charon, the largest at 648 miles across, and Nix and Hydra, both about 20 to 70 miles wide. The new moon was discovered as Hubble searched for rings around Pluto, which has a diameter of 1,441 miles, a NASA release said Wednesday. "I find it remarkable that Hubble's cameras enabled us to see such a tiny object so clearly from a distance of more than 3 billion miles," said Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who led the observing program. The ring survey was part of preparations for NASA's New Horizons mission, with a space probe scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015. The mission will bring new insights about worlds at the edge of our solar system, NASA said. The new P4 moon is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra which Hubble discovered in 2005. "This surprising observation is a powerful reminder of Hubble's ability as a general purpose astronomical observatory to make astounding, unintended discoveries," said Jon Morse, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Charon was discovered in 1978 at the U.S. Naval Observatory, while Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.
New treatment could improve biofuel yieldsLOS ALAMOS, N.M. - U.S. researchers say they've found a key for unlocking energy potential from non-edible biomass materials such as corn leaves and stalks, or switch grass. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory working with other researchers say a potential pretreatment method can make plant cellulose five times more digestible by enzymes that convert it into ethanol, a useful biofuel. While biomass is an attractive renewable energy source, the fermentable sugars that are extracted and converted live within a cellulose network in plant cells that's tightly packed and held together with strong hydrogen bonds, making it difficult for enzymes to get at, researchers say. Currently, ethanol can only be extracted in usable quantities if the biomass is pretreated with costly, potentially toxic chemicals in an energy-intensive process, a DOE release said Wednesday. Los Alamos researcher S. Gnanakaran and colleagues examined how cellulose changes structurally into an intermediate form that can be enzymatically attacked when pretreated with ammonia. "Our modeling showed, and the experimental evidence confirmed, that the pretreatment reduced the strength of hydrogen bonds in the cellulosic network," Gnanakaran said. This significantly reduced the tightness of the cellulose network and left it more open to conversion into sugar by enzymes, he said. "This work helps address some of the potential cost barriers related to using biomass for biofuels," Gnanakaran said.
Moving black holes create massive energies
PROVO, Utah - The brightest lights in the universe are powered by black holes that spin in place and move within a host galaxy, U.S. astronomers say. Astrophysicists at Brigham Young University say both types of movement power massive jets of energy known as quasars, some of the universe's most persistent bright lights. Quasars emit jets of energy streaming out of galaxies through clouds of debris and gas, the remnants of stars ripped apart by the force from black holes. "The black hole is like a generator spinning around in these magnetic fields," said BYU Professor David Neilsen, lead author of the study. "The way the field lines get twisted around and pulled by the spinning black hole creates electromagnetic tension that gets turned into radiation and energy that goes out." One black hole in the galaxy Centaurus A propels radiation in a jet measuring 1 million light-years long, a BYU release said Wednesday. The spin of black holes has long been believed to play a role in quasar jets, and the new study confirms this theory but also introduces a totally new component: that a black hole's lateral movement within a galaxy also powers the jets. "Rotational kinetic energy contributes, but the simple movement like a billiard ball can also contribute to this," study co-author Eric Hirschmann said. "The two processes don't compete with each other, they combine with each other to give you the overall energy that streams away from the black hole."
Tiny robots could find nuclear plant leaksCAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Small, spherical robots with a camera could someday navigate the underground pipes of a nuclear reactor to check for corrosion or leaks, U.S. researchers say. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said a recent study found three-quarters of U.S. nuclear reactor sites have leaked radioactive tritium from buried piping that transports water to cool reactor vessels, often contaminating groundwater. Identifying corrosion in a reactor's underground pipes is a major challenge for safety inspectors, who can only use indirect methods such as ultra-sonic screening. Now MIT engineering Professor Harry Asada and his colleagues are working on a direct monitoring alternative: small, egg-sized robots designed to dive into nuclear reactors and swim through underground pipes, checking for signs of corrosion. The smooth robots have no external propeller or rudder, relying instead on small ports that expel water under pressure to guide and steer them. A robot outfitted with external thrusters or propellers would easily lodge in a reactor's intricate structures, Asada said. "You would have to shut down the plant just to get the robot out," Asada says. "So we had to make [our design] extremely fail-safe." An on-board camera will capture images of the pipe's interior as it navigates the cooling system, the researchers said.
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