Mark Hoffman : Science World Report

Aug 29, 2013 11:28 PM EDT

Humanlike Features of Robots Are Preferred by Most People

A recent University of Auckland study has measured the reactions to different degrees of humanlike features on a robot's display screen.

Aug 29, 2013 04:41 PM EDT

Giant Black Hole at Galactic Core is Peaceful, Devours Only 1% of Captured Matter

New Chandra images of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), which is located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, indicate that less than 1 percent of the gas initially within Sgr A*'s gravitational grasp ever reaches the point of no return, also called the event horizon.

Aug 29, 2013 04:08 PM EDT

Hubble Sees a Cosmic Caterpillar

This light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust resembles a caterpillar on its way to a feast. But the meat of the story is not only what this cosmic caterpillar eats for lunch, but also what's eating it. Harsh winds from extremely bright stars are blasting ultraviolet radiation at this "wann...

Aug 28, 2013 06:16 PM EDT

Virtual Nanotitanium Project Enables Superior Material for Next-Gen Medical Implants

A very promising way to improve the implant materials and to ensure the required properties lies in nanotechnology. Applying the severe plastic deformation to metals, one can obtain new materials with very small grains (so-called ultrafine grained metals), which have also superior properties.

Aug 28, 2013 04:43 PM EDT

Stellar Beauty: Another Look at the Orion Nebula

A new view of the Orion A star-formation cloud from ESA’s Herschel space observatory shows the turbulent region of space that hugs the famous Orion Nebula.

Aug 28, 2013 03:57 PM EDT

Skin and Bones: Research to Help Protect Astronauts

An ESA project is applying an ultra-detailed computer model of the human skeleton and musculature to test techniques to protect astronauts against the gradual wasting effects of weightlessness.

Aug 27, 2013 05:29 PM EDT

How Brain Scans Can be Used to See What a Person Was Reading

By analysing MRI images of the brain with a special mathematical model, it is possible to reconstruct thoughts more accurately than ever before. In this way, researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen have succeeded in determining from brain-scans which letter a test subject was looking at.

Aug 27, 2013 03:23 PM EDT

3D-Printed Rocket Engine Component Sets New Standard in Test

The largest 3-D printed rocket engine component NASA ever has tested blazed to life Aug. 22 during an engine firing that generated a record 20,000 pounds of thrust.

Aug 27, 2013 02:41 PM EDT

How Money Helps Us Trust Each Other

Why money is essential for the functioning of modern society: An international group of researchers from Switzerland, Italy and the U.S. have shown through an experiment how money helps modern societies prosper by fostering cooperation among strangers.

Aug 27, 2013 01:53 PM EDT

How to Construct Well Maintained Fusion Power Plants

The utilisation rates of future fusion power plants could be significantly improved by joint planning of the reactor structure and remote maintenance system, according to research results of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

Aug 26, 2013 05:32 PM EDT

Breakthrough in Control of Nuclear Spin Noise Holds Potential for Revolutionary Tech

A new method for polarizing nuclear spins in extremely small samples, important for MRI imaging, has been demonstrated by physicists at the University of Basel, Switzerland, in collaboration with Dutch researchers. By Monitoring and controlling spin fluctuations, the method may provide a route for e...

Aug 26, 2013 04:45 PM EDT

World’s Smallest Autopilot for Micro Aircraft Demonstrated

The world’s smallest open source autopilot for small unmanned aircraft has been designed, built and tested by esearcher Bart Remes and his team of the Micro Aerial Vehicle Laboratory at the TU Delft faculty of Aerospace Engineering.