New Scientific Discoveries, Part Deux

[Gfted1]

This Helmet Will Make F-35 Pilots Missile-Slinging Cyborgs.

[Gfted1]

Watch the Biggest Ever Drone Swarm Take to the Sky.

[Raithe]

Metallic Glass Recipe Generation Breakthrough

 

 

Australian researchers have created an instruction manual or recipes for making Metallic glass that could help make this wonder metal fulfill its incredible promise.

Metallic glass sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it? Kinda like a foamy black hole. Glass is generally considered to be delicate and brittle; it’s the epitome of breakable. Metal is none of these. But what makes glass a glass? Primarily, it’s all about the arrangement of atoms. They are not laid out in an ordered structure. This is why it’s called an amorphous solid. Metal on the other hand is non-amorphous..a crystalline solid with an orderly arrangement of atoms forming crystal lattices.

 

A metallic glass then does not have this orderly arrangement of atoms like every other metal you’ve probably ever seen. It’s an amorphous metal.

This was discovered in 1960 by Caltech in the U.S. It was created by rapidly cooling an alloy of various metals. The rapid cooling is critical because it prevents the atoms from moving into an orderly arrangement and locks it into its glassy amorphous configuration. And when I say rapid I mean rapid. Back then it had to be cooled at the equivalent of a million degrees per second. Because of that requirement they could only make ribbons or wires of metallic glass that had to be small in at least one dimension to support such a cooling rate . Over the years other alloys permitted a much slower cooling like 10,000 degrees or 100 degrees per second. Some alloys even allowed 1 degree per second. This permitted progressively larger samples of metallic glass to be made but is still ultimately a limiting factor.

Making metal amorphous though, changes its properties in incredibly useful ways.

 

First and foremost, these alloys are amazingly strong and light. Some have been shown to be an astounding 3 times as strong as titanium. Add to that a high elasticity and resistance to scratching, wear, and corrosion and you have a remarkable material on your hands. It’s no wonder it’s been called the most significant discovery in materials science since the discovery of plastics half a century ago. If the Movie The Graduate is ever remade, perhaps it would change it’s iconic line from..”One word: Plastics” to…”Two words: Metallic Glass”.

 

Its mechanical properties are only part of its yumminess. Creating products with it could offer tremendous benefits compared to the way regular metals are manipulated. Machining conventional metal using modern methods can be very expensive and wasteful. Metallic glasses on the other hand have been shown to be much easier to manipulate. That’s because it become a viscous deformable solid at certain (supercooled) temperatures. That means between the glass transition and crystallization temperature. This offers many advantages over the classic melt-casting techniques we’ve all seen videos of.

• Casting defects are reduced
• Mold tools suffer less damage due to lower temperatures
• Greater control of geometry and tolerances are also allowed

This means that metallic glass industry has the potential to be quite viable commercially and much more efficient than much of conventional metal working. William L. Johnson, Professor of Materials Science at California Institute of Technology says that it could even become a “disruptive technology in the metals industry”
I love disruptive technologies.

 

As usual, cool new technologies develop far too slowly for my tastes. This may be about to change. Researchers in Sydney have come up with a novel model of the atomic structure of metallic glass. This allows them to predict which combination of metals have the potential to become metallic glass. This could be a tremendous benefit since metallic glass is often made of varying percentages of multiple metals like lanthanum, magnesium, zirconium, palladium, iron, copper, and titanium. The combinations and permutations of these metals and others is so high that laboratory testing is a very slow, hit-or-miss affair.

 

Based on this model, the scientists have already been able to successfully predict no fewer than 200 new metallic glass alloys just based on titanium, magnesium, silver, copper, and zinc.

 

Of course, there are still hurdles to be overcome before metallic glass can reach its full potential. One is that it is often seen to age quickly. Exposure to constant stresses can sometimes make it prematurely and unexpectedly brittle. This too may be a thing of the past however. Chinese researchers at the Institute of Physics in Beijing recently found an interesting solution to this problem by giving the glass a cryogenic bath. They dip it into a super-low temperature liquid and let it cool back to room temperature about a dozen times. The scientists contend that the premature aging is caused by the random arrangement of atoms in the amorphous solid not being random enough (what they call the “intrinsic non-uniformity of the glass structure”). Essentially there are some orderly structures here and there throughout the material. They claim the cryo-bath makes the the metallic glass even more random decreasing the material’s internal stability. The result is what they call a “game-changing ” ultimate solid.

 

The applications, as you may imagine are pretty extensive. Such a metal in widespread production would dramatically change the space race where weight and strength are king. Spacecraft body construction and space debris shields are the obvious low-hanging fruit. Chinese researchers compare this to turning a spacecraft from the trucks they are today to the equivalent of race cars. Space vehicles aren’t the only space applications. This can also be used for structures on the Moon or Mars.

Other potential applications include:.

• Hydrogen storage materials in next generation batteries (if the hydrogen economy ever materializes).
• Armour-piercing projectiles that can pierce bulletproof vests or even tanks.
• Personal electronic devices that contain incredibly strong components and have their frames and casings made of metallic glass

Many medical applications are also likely as well. The one that caught my attention is a metallic glass that has been created from titanium, paladium, copper, and zirconium. It’s non-carcinogenic (which is always nice) plus it has high wear resistance and won’t undergo shrinkage on solidification. The stand-out attributes though are a strength three times that of titanium and an elastic modulus comparable to bones. They’ve even worked out a way to attach it directly to bones using lasers.

 

Check…I am now potentially one step closer to being Wolverine (except I can’t grow cool sideburns)

[Gfted1]

This Cloaking Device Is Less Harry Potter, More Predator.

 

Scientists Discover Gene That Could Help Plants Survive Drought.

[ShadySands]

Insanely Fuel Efficient Engine Could Go To Mars And Back On One Tank Of Fuel

 

 

An ion engine that smashes the fuel efficiency record has been registered for an innovation patent. Inventor Patrick Neumann told University of Sydney student newspaper Honi Soit the drive could go to “Mars and back on a tank of fuel”, but its first application may be shunting networks of small satellites around in Earth orbit.

 

Neumann says the idea for the ion engine came to him as a third year student assisting a postdoc as part of a program to connect undergrads with real research. Neumann measured the speed of titanium ions released by a pulsed electric arc, similar to an arc welder. “The titanium was coming out at 20 kilometers per second [12.4 miles per second] and I thought 'you could use that for thrust',” he told IFLScience. In subsequent work Neumann proved his hunch right, eventually testing the suitability of 11 materials.

 

The results were dramatic. One measure of thruster efficiency is specific impulse, commonly called “bounce per ounce,” and is measured in seconds. The existing record is NASA's High Power Electric Propulsion (HiPeP) with 9,600 seconds, but fueled by magnesium Neumann's drive managed an estimated 14,600 seconds of specific impulse. He says “Other metals have lower efficiency, but higher thrust. So you would need more fuel to get to Mars, but could get there faster.”

 

 

Ion thrusters such as the one that took Dawn to Ceres are only suitable for use in vacuums, and Neumann says even getting off the Moon or larger asteroids will remain a job for rockets. However, he says his drive could be suitable for lifting a spacecraft from low gravity objects like Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos.

 

“Using very rough, very early calculations we think 20 kilograms [44 pounds] of magnesium could get a 100 kilogram [220 pound] ship to Mars and back. It would take three to five years and there will be some weight for the craft, solar panels and communications, but we think there would be 20 kilograms left over for the payload,” Neumann told IFLScience. “With a higher thrust fuel in a Neumann Drive you could do it in nine to 11 months, but the fuel tank would be empty when you got there.” In the second case a return journey would require either scavenging material locally or parking fuel in Mars orbit, or on a refuelling station established at Phobos or Deimos, preparatory to the voyage.

[Gfted1]

Physicists Smash Quantum Teleportation Record With 60-Mile Fiber Jump.

[teknoman2]

At 11:30 EST monday, NASA will make a big anouncement about Mars on live tv and you can watch the press conference online too from their site

[Gfted1]

At 11:30 EST monday, NASA will make a big anouncement about Mars on live tv and you can watch the press conference online too from their site

 

Water flows on present-day Mars.

[Keyrock]

Mars waterpark and resort when? 

 

[Gfted1]

The coolest science stories from the last three months (15 Photos).

[Gorth]

Physicists Smash Quantum Teleportation Record With 60-Mile Fiber Jump.

It should be mentioned that no cats were hurt in this quantum experiment.

[Gfted1]

Human 'mini brains' grown in labs may help solve cancer, autism, Alzheimer's.

[Gfted1]

Scientists Can Now Predict Intelligence From Brain Activity.

[Gfted1]

World's Largest Fusion Reactor is About to Switch On.

[Gfted1]

Diamond Nanothreads Could Support Space Elevator.

[Wrath of Dagon]

These idiots will destroy earth one of these days, I just know it: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/cern-lhc-large-hadron-collider-hits-1-pev-milestone-with-heavy-ions-doomsday-talk/

[Namutree]

These idiots will destroy earth one of these days, I just know it: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/cern-lhc-large-hadron-collider-hits-1-pev-milestone-with-heavy-ions-doomsday-talk/

At least in that case we'd go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Yeah, may be the Big Bang.

[ShadySands]

Acceptance Of Profound-Sounding "Bullsh*t" Linked To Lower Intelligence

 

As Marcello Truzzi, a renowned skeptic and professor of sociology in the United States, once said: “An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.” This notion unfortunately doesn’t stop people the world over from believing things that are demonstrably untrue, and a new study published in the journal of Judgment and Decision Making shows that those who are more receptive to what the authors term as “bull****” tend to be both less reflective and less intelligent than their peers.

[pmp10]

Wendelstein 7-X achieves first plasma.

 

No, it's not a German terminator sent from the future.

[Gfted1]

New results from world's most sensitive dark matter detector.

[Elerond]

Men’s Interest in Babies Linked With Hormonal Responses to Sexual Stimuli

 

There was no evidence of a relationship between baseline testosterone levels and interest in babies, indicating that the results were not related to testosterone function more generally but were specific to reactivity to sexual stimuli.

“Young men who don’t like babies as much get more physiologically aroused by visual sexual stimuli; this makes sense from a life history perspective,” says Maestripieri. “These men ‘live on the fast lane.’ They are attracted to and aroused by novel sexual partners and are ready to take advantage of new sexual opportunities when they present themselves.”

“By contrast, young men who like babies more are less sexually aroused by novel sexual stimuli (for example, erotic content), but they presumably enjoy sex more in the context of stable monogamous relationships with partners they know well.

“We think that showing these mind-body connections is very novel and very exciting,” Maestripieri concludes.

 

 

So basically men that like porn don't like babies?

[Gfted1]

Two atoms make quantum memory, processing gate, and test of entanglement.

[Raithe]

RealClearScience - Top 10 Junk Science of 2015

 

 

As 2015 comes to a close, editors at science websites across the Internet look back at the year that was to bring you the best, presenting the stories that amazed, uplifted, and taught us something new. Here at RCS, we do something a little different.

 

We bring you the worst.

 

Science is a way of thinking, a logical and reasoned method to approach the world in which we live. As many people as there are who adopt this worldview, there are also those who shun it. These are their stories -- the worst junk science of 2015.

[Raithe]

Not something new but...