Spetember 7, 2011
Good Morning,
A new, single molecule electric motor has been developed, the smallest ever made. When fully developed, the motor could have a huge impact on medicine and engineering. Find out how it works, and just how small the motor is in the third article.
Until Next Time,
Erin
Questions? Comments? Email me at: mailto:gizmo@gophercentral.com
Email your commentsP.S. You can discuss this issue or any other topic in the new Gizmorama forum. Check it out here...
http://gizmorama.gophercentral.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Weather threatens moon mission launchCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA says clouds and thunderstorms in Florida could disrupt the launch of twin satellites on a mission to study the moon's gravitation field. The twin Grail probes are scheduled to be launched Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral, Fla., but storms are expected in the area for the next two days, making a delay a distinct possibility, SPACE.com reported Tuesday. "We're going to be sandwiched in between probably two areas of thunderstorms," Grail launch weather officer Joel Tumbiolo said. "Right now, the forecast for the beginning of the launch window is a 60 percent chance of violation." If Thursday's launch is delayed, the same weather will probably affect chances of a Friday launch as well, he said. But, he said, the forecast is for conditions to be more favorable on Saturday and Sunday. "Those days look improved, so we're looking forward to that," Tumbiolo said.
Clouds affect, don't start climate changeCOLLEGE STATION, Texas - Clouds can amplify climate change but are not a root cause of it, a U.S. researcher says in a study that rebuts claims that clouds are prime climate suspects. Texas A&M researcher Andrew Dressler says decades of data support the view that clouds are primarily acting as a so-called "feedback" that amplifies warming from normal climate cycles and human activity. Cycles such as El Nino and La Nina, when waters in the central Pacific Ocean tend to get warmer or colder, have a huge impact on much of the world's weather systems for months or even years. Texas is currently experiencing one of the worst droughts in the state's history, believed to be a direct result of La Nina conditions that have lingered in the Pacific Ocean for many months, a university release said Tuesday. Clouds play a very small role in initiating these climate variations, Dressler said, and human activity remains a strong factor in climate warming. "The bottom line is that clouds have not replaced humans as the cause of the recent warming the Earth is experiencing," Dressler said. "Over a century, however, clouds can indeed play an important role amplifying climate change."
Smallest electric motor is single moleculeMEDFORD, Mass. - The world's first electric motor consisting of a single molecule has been developed, pointing to advancements in medicine and engineering, U.S. scientists say. Chemists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences say their electric motor measures a mere 1 nanometer across, while a single strand of human hair is about 60,000 nanometers wide. "We have been able to show that you can provide electricity to a single molecule and get it to do something that is not just random," E. Charles H. Sykes, associate professor of chemistry, said in a university release Tuesday. "There has been significant progress in the construction of molecular motors powered by light and by chemical reactions, but this is the first time that electrically driven molecular motors have been demonstrated," he said. The team used a scanning tunneling microscope to provide an electrical charge to a butyl methyl sulfide molecule that had been placed on a conductive copper surface. By controlling the temperature of the molecule they could directly impact the rotation of the molecule, they said. "Once we have a better grasp on the temperatures necessary to make these motors function, there could be real-world application in some sensing and medical devices which involve tiny pipes," Sykes said. "Friction of the fluid against the pipe walls increases at these small scales, and covering the wall with motors could help drive fluids along," he said.
New images of Apollo landing sites takenGREENBELT, Md. - NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 mission landing sites, the agency said. Clearly visible in the images are the twists and turns of the paths taken by the astronauts of the three missions as they explored the lunar surface decades ago, a NASA release said Tuesday. At the Apollo 17 site, tracks laid down by the lunar rover are clearly visible, as are the last foot trails left on the moon during the 1972 mission. "We can retrace the astronauts' steps with greater clarity to see where they took lunar samples," Noah Petro, a lunar geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said. The higher resolution of these images was made possible by adjusting the orbiter's orbit, the scientists said. "Without changing the average altitude, we made the orbit more elliptical, so the lowest part of the orbit is on the sunlit side of the moon," Goddard's John Keller, deputy LRO project scientist, said. "This put LRO in a perfect position to take these new pictures of the surface." "These images remind us of our fantastic Apollo history and beckon us to continue to move forward in exploration of our solar system," Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, said.
------------------------------------------------------------
Check out Viral Videos on the Net at EVTV1.com
http://www.evtv1.com/
EVTV1.com