Planets can create nuclear power on their own, naturally, without any intelligence or technology. Earth already did: 1.7 billion years ago.
Composite particles with submicron sizes can be produced by irradiating a suspension of nanoparticles with a laser beam. Violent physical and chemical processes take place during irradiation, many of which have been poorly understood to date. Recently completed experiments, carried out at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, have shed new light on some of these puzzles.
When a laser beam strikes agglomerates of nanoparticles suspended in a colloid, events occur that are as dramatic as they are useful. The tremendous increase in temperature leads to the melting together of nanoparticles into a composite particle. A thin layer of liquid next to the heated material rapidly transforms into vapor, and whole sequences of chemical reactions take place under physical conditions that change in fractions of a second. Using this method, called laser melting, scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow not only produced new nanocomposites, but also described some of the poorly understood processes responsible for their formation.
“The laser melting process itself, consisting of irradiating particles of material in suspension with unfocused laser light, has been known for years. It is mainly used for the production of single component materials. We, as one of only two research teams in the world, are trying to use this technique to produce composite submicron particles. In this area, the field is still in its infancy, there are still many unknowns, hence our joy that some puzzles that perplexed us have just been unraveled,” says Dr. Żaneta Świątkowska-Warkocka, a professor at IFJ PAN, the co-author of a scientific article just published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Two of America’s top chipmakers have been ordered to stop selling some of their technology to China that can be used for artificial intelligence.
Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD) said Wednesday that they had been told by the US government to halt exports of certain high-performance chips to the world’s second largest economy.
In a regulatory filing, Nvidia said that it had been told by US officials that the requirement was due to a potential risk of the products being used by, or diverted to, a “military end user.”
Fibre optic solar lighting
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Firm sees income top €4bn for first time
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(PhysOrg.com) — Sometimes total electrical isolation is a good thing — and that’s the idea behind a power-over-fiber (PoF) communications cable being developed by engineers at Sandia National Laboratories.
It’s common to isolate communications between systems or devices by using fiber optic cables, said Steve Sanderson of Sandia’s mobility analysis and technical assessment division. But when power also is required, sending it down a copper wire can at times be a safety issue, and substituting it with battery power may not be suitable or practical, he said.
Sanderson, Titus Appel and Walter Wrye, a former Sandia intern, are co-inventors of a hybrid cable design that uses fiber to send and regulate optical power to the communications electronics integral to the cable. A patent is pending on the design.
North American robot sales continued to set records for year-over-year growth, according to the Association for Advancing Automation. FANUC also saw strong demand.
By Thomas Frey | Sep 1, 2022 | Artificial Intelligence
When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007, no one understood at the time how disruptive that device would be to existing technology. Now with rumors of Apple launching their augmented reality (AR) smart glasses products next year, people are speculating about how disruptive this technology will be.
Since iPhones are one of Apple’s primary revenue streams, they may be cautious about releasing a product that may encroach on their own turf. However, as we’ll suggest below, it may not be an either/or situation for users.
Astronomers discover seven new pulsars
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Using the Large Phased Array (LPA) radio telescope of Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory (PRAO) in Russia, astronomers have detected seven new pulsars and determined their basic parameters. The finding is reported in a paper published August 18 on the arXiv pre-print repository.
Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars emitting a beam of electromagnetic radiation. They are usually detected in the form of short bursts of radio emission; however, some of them are also observed via optical, X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes.
Now, a group of Russian astronomers led by PRAO’s Sergey Tyul’bashev reports the detection of seven new pulsars. The discovery was made with LPA as part of a daily sky survey conducted in a test mode, covering a full day in right ascension and 50 degrees in declination. The new pulsars were detected at a frequency of 111 MHz.
De novo microbial biosynthesis of vindoline and catharanthine using a highly engineered yeast and in vitro chemical coupling to vinblastine is carried out, positioning yeast as a scalable platform to produce many monoterpene indole alkaloids.