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A team led by Jun Ye, a physicist at JILA - a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado at Boulder - demonstrated an optical technique for simultaneously identifying tiny amounts of a broad range of molecules in the breath, potentially enabling a fast, low-cost...

A violent fate awaits a white dwarf star that wanders too close to a moderately massive black hole. According to a new study from the University of California at Santa Cruz, the black hole's gravitational pull on the white dwarf would cause tidal forces sufficient to disrupt the stellar remnant and reignite nuclear...

It has been proposed that thin face sheets of wide-aperture deformable mirrors in adaptive-optics systems be made from a composite material consisting of cyanate ester filled with graphite. This composite material appears to offer an attractive alternative to low-thermal-expansion glasses that...

An improved apparatus has been invented for use in determining the osmotic second virial coefficient of macromolecules in solution. In a typical intended application, the macromolecules would be, more specifically, protein molecules, and the protein solution would be pumped through a...

NASA introduced a new book, "Touch the Invisible Sky," at a ceremony at the National Federation of the Blind. Images of nebulae, stars, and galaxies from the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope, and ground-based telescopes are brought to the fingertips of the blind. Each image is embossed...

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a method to detect and destroy proteins, including dangerous ones such as anthrax, using light. The process exposes the proteins to invisible, near-infrared light, rendering them harmless. The technique lends itself to creating new antibacterial and...

A document describes a sunshade assembly for the spaceborne telescope of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph mission. During operation, the telescope is aimed at target stars in the semi-hemisphere away from the Earth's Sun. The observatory rotates about its pointing axis during a single star...

A paper describes the Microwave Temperature Profiler (MTP) for making measurements of the planetary boundary layer thermal structure — data necessary for air quality forecasting as the Mixing Layer (ML) height determines the volume in which daytime pollution is primarily concentrated....

To be certain that a candidate sensor system will perform as expected during missions, we have developed a field test system and have executed test flights with a helicopter- mounted sensor platform over desert terrains, which simulate Lunar features. A key advantage to this...

A method of using an electronic nose to detect an airborne mixture of known chemical compounds and measure the temporally varying concentrations of the individual compounds is undergoing development. In a typical intended application, the method would be used to monitor the air in an...

Abdominal obesity is a known independent risk factor for heart disease. Based on results of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer cohort study (Epic-Norfolk), researchers have found that using the waist-hip ratio rather than waist measurement alone is a better predictor of heart disease risk. The research was based on...

The world's most powerful medical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine at the University of Illinois at Chicago has passed safety tests and will soon offer doctors a real-time view of biological processes in the human brain. The MRI, called the 9.4 Tesla (9.4T), will allow physicians to observe metabolic processes in real...

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a tool to quantitatively measure elusive atmospheric chemicals that play a key role in forming photochemical smog. The device measures atmospheric hydroperoxyl radicals - short-lived, highly reactive intermediates involved in forming...