Bulb | SilverScorpio.Com

Findings from India’s Chandrayaan to provide new understanding of lunar surface

September 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, September 18 (ANI): India’s Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) has gathered data for a total of 30 solar flares, giving the most accurate measurements to date of magnesium, aluminum, silicon, calcium, and iron in the lunar surface.

Although contact was lost with Chandrayaan-1 last month, the enhanced performance of the C1XS instrument, which exceeded its design specification, means that the science team will be able to determine the geochemistry of new areas of the lunar surface, adding some vital pieces to the jigsaw of the mineralogy of the lunar surface.

The miniature C1XS instrument investigated the lunar surface using an effect whereby X-ray illumination from the Sun causes rocks to fluoresce, emitting light at a different wavelength.

This re-emitted light contains spectral peaks that are characteristic of elements contained in the rock, revealing its composition.

Solar flares act like a flash bulb, giving added illumination and allowing C1XS to ‘see’ more elements.

During normal conditions, C1XS could detect magnesium, aluminum, and silicon and collected data on the levels of these elements, enabling detailed mapping of areas of the lunar surface during its operational period.

During the 30 solar flares, C1XS detected calcium and iron (and sometimes titanium, sodium, and potassium) in key areas in the southern hemisphere and on the far side of the Moon.

The spectral resolution of 50 km was much better than previous missions.

According to Professor Grande, “The C1XS team will be analyzing the data collected during the Chandrayaan-1 mission over the next few months, and the results will help us further our knowledge of the Moon and planetary formation.”

In addition, the design of the instrument has been proved very successful in that it withstood passage through the Earth’s radiation belts and went on to produce these wonderful high-resolution spectra. We were able to separate clear peaks for each of the target elements, allowing us not only to identify where they are present but give an accurate estimate for how much is there,” he said.

“The technology developed for C1XS opens up some exciting opportunities for future missions,” he added. (ANI)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: accurate measurements, addition, aluminum, ANI, bulb, calcium., Chandrayaan, characteristic, composition, contact, date, design, Earth, effect, estimate, Far Side Of The Moon, findings, flash, Flash Bulb, fluoresce, formation, geochemistry, hemisphere, illumination, India, instrument, iron, jigsaw, key areas, knowledge, London, lunar, lunar surface, magnesium, mapping, mineralogy, mission, month, moon, Operational Period, passage, performance, period, planetary formation, potassium, Professor Grande, radiation, radiation belts, ray, Ray Spectrometer, resolution, Resolution Spectra, rock, Science, science team, September, side, silicon, sodium, solar, solar flares, southern hemisphere, specification, spectra, spectral, Spectral Peaks, spectral resolution, spectrometer, Sun, surface, target, team, Technology, titanium, total, understanding, Vital Pieces, wavelength, x-ray

Oz ‘Fanatics’ claim responsibility for fire prank on English team

August 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Leeds (UK), Aug.9 (ANI): Australian cricket fans have claimed responsibility for a hotel fire alarm that roused the England team from their beds the morning of their batting collapse on the first day of the fourth Ashes Test at Headingley.

The Fanatics – Australian supporters who follow the Test team around the world – claim they set off the fire alarm at the Radisson Hotel in Leeds about 4.30 a.m. on Friday.

England’s Test team was evacuated with other guests and staff while two fire engines from West Yorkshire Fire Service searched the premises for the source of the alarm.

Players were left standing in the street in their pyjamas for more than 20 minutes until the all clear was given for them to return to their beds.

Warren Livingston, head of the Fanatics, told The Sunday Mail one of the 100-strong group had managed to set the alarm off with the intention of disrupting the English team’s sleep, saying it was “good old fashioned Aussie high jinks”.

“Yes it was one of our guys who did it as a bit of a prank. I got a text message after it happened. At first, I thought, ‘good onya’, we’re just doing our bit for Australia,” news.com.au quoted Livingston, as saying.

“But I can’t condone this sort of thing. I don’t want any trouble. We’ve all had a big laugh and it might have made a difference to the way they batted,” he added.

If the claim is found to be true, English cricket fans and authorities will not view the situation with any humor.

Earlier, British media reports said the alarm may have been set off by a guest who had rinsed her underwear in a bathroom sink and then left it close to a light bulb to dry.

When the underwear started to smoulder, the woman was reported to have thrown it back in the sink, but not before the room had filled with smoke and the fire alarm went off.

England’s wicket-keeper Matt Prior blamed the incident for his team’s batting collapse in the first innings of the Test. (ANI)

Filed Under: Sports News Tagged With: alarm, ANI, ashes, Aug, aussie, Australia, Australia news, Australian cricket, Australian Supporters, bathroom, Bathroom Sink, batting, bit, bulb, claim, collapse, com, Cricket, cricket fans, day, difference, Doing Our Bit, England, england team, english, english cricket, fanatics, fire, fire alarm, fire engines, fourth ashes test, Friday, group, guest, head, headingley, High Jinks, hotel, Hotel Fire, humor, incident, innings, intention, laugh, Leeds, leeds uk, mail, matt, message, morning, NEWS, news com au, onya, Oz, prank, pyjamas, Radisson, responsibility, room, service, sink, situation, sleep, smoke, smoulder, sort, source, staff, street, sunday, sunday mail, team, test, test team, text, thing, trouble, U.K, underwear, Warren Livingston, way, west, West Yorkshire Fire Service, wicket keeper, woman, world, yorkshire

Laser technology creates new forms of metal and enhances aircraft performance

July 16, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 16 (ANI): A team of scientists is using laser light technology to create new forms of metal and enhance aircraft performance.

The laser light technology is being used by AFOSR (Air Force Office of Scientific Research) funded researchers at the University of Rochester to help the military create new forms of metal that may guide, attract and repel liquids and cool small electronic devices.

Dr. Chunlei Guo and his team of researchers for the project discovered a way to transform a shiny piece of metal into one that is pitch black, not by paint, but by using incredibly intense bursts of laser light.

The black metal created, absorbs all radiation that shines upon it.

“With the creation of the black metal, an entirely new class of material becomes available to us, which may open up a whole new horizon for various applications,” said Guo.

“To do this, we looked at the reverse process of light absorption or light radiation and transformed the incandescent lamp into a bulb that glows twice as brightly as a regular light source, while consuming the same amount of energy,” Guo added.

The key to creating this super-filament is an ultra-brief, ultra-intense beam of light called a femtosecond laser pulse.

The laser burst lasts only a few quadrillionths of a second.

That intense blast forces the surface of the metal to form nano-structures and micro-structures that dramatically alter how efficiently light can radiate from the filament.

In addition to increasing the brightness of a bulb, Guo’s process can be used to tune the color of the light as well.

In addition to this research, Guo and his team have been working on creating technology that may enable the Air Force to create an additional kind of metal.

They are able to do this by using the femtosecond laser once again to alter the surface of metal and create unique nano- and micro-scale structures on the metal.

The unique nano-structures which are created from the laser affect the way liquid molecules interact with metal molecules.

The liquid spreads out over the metal because the nano-structures attach themselves to the liquid’s molecules more readily than the liquid’s molecules bond to each other.

The end result is the formation of a new kind of metal that can cool the plane’s electronic brain and heat pumps and allow the craft to retain dominance over any enemy that is also in flight. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: absorption, addition, AFOSR, air, aircraft, Aircraft Performance, amount, ANI, beam, beam of light, blast, Bond, brain, bulb, burst, Chunlei, Chunlei Guo, class, color, consuming, craft, Creating Technology, creation, dominance, end, enemy, energy, femtosecond, femtosecond laser pulse, filament, flight, force, formation, glows, Guo, heat, horizon, incandescent, Incandescent Lamp, intense beam, Intense Bursts, interact, July, key, kind, lamp, laser, Laser Light Technology, laser technology, light, light absorption, Light Radiation, liquid, material, metal, Micro Structures, Nano, Nano Structures, New Horizon, office, paint, performance, piece, pitch, plane, process, project, pulse, radiate, radiation, Research, result, rochester, scale structures, scientific, Second, Shiny Piece, source, surface, team, Technology, University, University of Rochester, Washington, way

Physicists create world’s smallest incandescent lamp

May 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 7 (ANI): A team from the UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) Department of Physics and Astronomy has created the world’s smallest incandescent lamp.

The team that developed the lamp was led by Chris Regan, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, and includes Yuwei Fan, Scott Singer and Ray Bergstrom.

The UCLA team is using their tiny lamp to study physicist Max Planck’s black-body radiation law, which was derived in 1900 using principles now understood to be native to both theories.

The incandescent lamp utilizes a filament made from a single carbon nanotube that is only 100 atoms wide.

To the unaided eye, the filament is completely invisible when the lamp is off, but it appears as tiny point of light when the lamp is turned on.

Even with the best optical microscope, it is only just possible to resolve the nanotube’s non-zero length.

To image the filament’s true structure, the team uses an electron microscope capable of atomic resolution.

With less than 20 million atoms, the nanotube filament is both large enough to apply the statistical assumptions of thermodynamics and small enough to be considered as a molecular – that is, quantum mechanical – system.

“Because both the topic (black-body radiation) and the size scale (nano) are on the boundary between the two theories, we think this is a very promising system to explore,” Regan said.

“The carbon nanotube that is used as the lamp filament is ideal for their purposes because of its smallness and extraordinary temperature stability,” he added.

The UCLA research team’s light bulb is very similar to Thomas Edison’s, except that their filament is 100,000 times narrower and 10,000 times shorter, for a total volume only one one-hundred-trillionth that of Edison’s. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: angeles, ANI, astronomy, Black Body Radiation, boundary, bulb, California, California Nanosystems Institute, carbon, carbon nanotube, Chris Regan, department, department of physics, edison, electron, electron microscope, eye, fan, filament, image, incandescent, Incandescent Lamp, institute, lamp, Lamp Filament, law, length, los, max-planck, May, member, microscope, Nano, NanoSystems, Nanotube, Optical Microscope, physicist, Physicist Max Planck, physicists, physics, point, Promising System, quantum, radiation, Ray Bergstrom, regan, Research, resolution, scale, Scott Singer, size, stability, Statistical Assumptions, structure, system, team, temperature, thomas, Thomas Edison, Tiny Lamp, topic, True Structure, ucla, Ucla Research, ucla team, ucla university, University, volume, Washington, world, Yuwei

Now, ultra small, energy efficient computer chip

April 24, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 23 (ANI): Scientists from University of California, Davis have developed an ultra small chip that provides breakthrough speeds for a variety of computing tasks.

The 167-processor chip, known as AsAP, is fully reprogrammable, extremely energy-efficient, highly configurable. It can be widely adapted to a number of applications.

The maximum clock speed for the 167-processor AsAP is 1.2 gigahertz (GHz), but at slower speeds its energy efficiency soars.

Moreover, twelve chips working together could perform more than half-a-trillion operations per second (.52 Tera-ops/sec) while using less power than a 7-watt light bulb.

“A battery powering this chip will typically last from several times to 75 times longer than it would under the same workload when powering some of the common commercially available digital signal processing chips,” said Bevan Baas, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and leader of the design team.

“At the same time, with our targeted applications, we’re getting several times to 10 times better speed than what is currently available – all with a much smaller chip.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest clock-rate processor chip designed at any university,” Baas added.

The chip, built with industry-standard fabrication technology and design tools, embodies a number of novel architectural and circuit features, Baas explained.

The scientists have written a number of software applications for the chip, which has been fabricated by the international electronics company STMicrotronics. Some of them are Wi-Fi receiver and several complex components of an H.264 video encoder.

The details of the design have been published in IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits. (ANI)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ANI, Apr, AsAP, Baas, battery, bevan, breakthrough, bulb, California, chip, circuit, circuit features, circuits, clock, clock rate, Clock Speed, common, company, Computer, computer chip, computing, Davis, design, design tools, digital signal processing, efficiency, efficient computer, electronics company, encoder, energy, energy efficiency, engineering, fabrication, Fabrication Technology, ghz, gigahertz, H 264, IEEE, international electronics, journal, journal of solid state circuits, knowledge, leader, maximum, novel, number, power, processing, processor, processor chip, professor, receiver, SEC, signal, soars, software, Software applications, solid, speed, state, STMicrotronics, team, Technology, Tera, Tera-ops, time, to the best of our knowledge, ultra, University, university of california davis, variety, video, video encoder, W.I., Washington, watt, watt light bulb, workload

Indian American leads project to make CFLs more efficient

April 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Toronto, April 8 (IANS) Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) use just one-third of the energy that old incandescent bulbs use to provide the same amount of light. Now CFLs are going to be even more efficient, thanks to research being led by an Indian American scientist.

CFLs also last 1,000 times longer than incandescent bulbs. However, Queen’s University researchers addressed two problems with CFLs – they don’t work with dimmer switches, and their energy efficiency is compromised because of a problem known as poor power factor.

Actually only part of the energy a CFL consumes is used to power the bulb, resulting in wasted power.

‘Consumer-grade CFLs need to be compact and inexpensive. Until now, the complicated circuitry needed to power these bulbs most efficiently has been too large and too costly for consumer-grade compact fluorescents,’ said Praveen Jain, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Queen’s University.

‘In fact, when a CFL is used with a dimmer switch, its bulb can burn out sooner than expected.’

The solution emerged when John Lam, a doctoral candidate working with Jain, developed a compact, simplified circuitry and controller design that overcomes the power problem while also meeting consumers’ need for a dimmable, inexpensive CFL, according to a Queen’s release.

The two main challenges were making the technology directly replaceable with existing designs, and economical to produce, said Jain.

‘We were able to develop a more power-efficient, dimmable and cost-effective CFL technology that can truly replace the power-hungry incandescent light bulbs. This makes it very attractive to the consumer market,’ he added.

The Queen’s innovation is timely, Jain said, since widespread use of today’s less efficient CFLs would reduce expected benefits to the global power grid.

Many countries, including Australia and the European Union, have already begun phasing out incandescent bulbs in favour of the compact fluorescents.

The global market for compact fluorescents is estimated at $80 billion.

Jain did his degree in electrical engineering from Allahabad University in India in 1980, then his Master’s and PhD from the University of Toronto, Canada, in 1984 and 1987 respectively.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: allahabad, American, American Scientist, amount, April, Australia, bulb, Canada, candidate, CFL, cfls, circuitry, compact, Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs, Compact Fluorescents, Computer, computer engineering, Consumer, Consumer-grade, controller, Controller Design, degree, design, dimmer, Dimmer Switch, Dimmer Switches, doctoral candidate, efficiency, energy, energy efficiency, engineering, European, European Union, fact, factor, favour, fluorescent, Global Power, grid, IANS, incandescent, incandescent bulbs, Incandescent Light Bulbs, India, Indian, innovation, jain, John Lam, light, market, master, need, one-third, PhD, Poor Power Factor, power, Power Grid, Praveen, problem, professor, project, queen, release, s university, scientist, solution, switch, Technology, today, toronto, union, University, university researchers, use

World’s oldest person, 130, credits cottage cheese, sense of humour for longevity!

March 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Mar 25 (ANI): A Kazakhstan lady, who mothered ten children, will be celebrating her 130th birthday this week, making her the world’s oldest person by 16 years.

Sakhan Dosova’s age was discovered during a census in Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan, when the date of birth on her passport showed as 1879, which was the same year Edison invented the light bulb and Stalin and Einstein were born.

Dosova’s age surprised demographers when they found that she had been on Stalin’s first census of the former Soviet region in 1926, when her age was given as 47, and they are now trying to confirm the record.

For the 129-year-old lady, she puts her longevity down to her love for cottage cheese and her sense of humour, and never visiting a doctor or eating sweets.

“I don’t have any special secret. I’ve never taken pills and if I was ill I took grannies’ remedies,” the Sun quoted her as saying.

“I’ve never eaten sweets. But I love kurt – a salty dried cottage cheese – and talkan, a ground wheat,” she stated.

Dosova lives in poor conditions in an overcrowded flat with a granddaughter, Gaukhar Kanieva, 42, and apart from hearing problems she is in good health.

“She is a very cheerful woman. We think laughter and her good mood help her live so long,” Kanieva said of her grandma.

The aged lady has been congratulated by the local mayor, and as of now, she is the oldest living person in the world followed by American Edna Parker who is 114.

Dosova was born on March 27, 1879, when Queen Victoria had 22 years left to rule, Benjamin Disraeli was Prime Minister and Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his first story. (ANI)

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: age, American, ANI, arthur conan doyle, Benjamin Disraeli, birth, birthday, bulb, census, Cheerful Woman, cheese, cottage, Cottage Cheese, creator, date, doctor, Dosova, edison, Edna Parker, einstein, flat, Gaukhar, good mood, granddaughter, grandma, ground, Ground Wheat, Health, hearing, hearing problems, help, holmes, humour, Kanieva, Karaganda, Kazakhstan, kurt, lady, laughter, light bulb, London, longevity, love, mar, March, mayor, minister, mood, northern Kazakhstan, Oldest Living Person, Oldest Living Person In The World, oldest person, passport, person, prime, queen victoria, record, region, Sakhan, salty, secret, sense, sense of humour, sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Creator, sir arthur conan, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Soviet Region, stalin, story, Sun, talkan, week, wheat, woman, world, year

Scientists use ‘rogue’ laser waves to build better light sources

March 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 6 (ANI): Scientists are putting rogue laser waves to work in order to produce brighter, more stable white light sources, a breakthrough in optics that may pave the way for better clocks, faster cameras, and more powerful radar and communications technologies.

The rogue waves of light, rare and explosive flare-ups that are mathematically similar to their oceanic counterparts, have been developed by a group of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Rogue bursts of light were first spotted a year ago during the generation of a special kind of radiation called supercontinuum (SC).

SC light is created by shooting laser pulses into crystals and optical fibers.

Like the incandescent bulb in a lamp, it shines with a white light that spans an extremely broad spectrum. But unlike a bulb’s soft diffuse glow, SC light maintains the brightness and directionality of a laser beam.

This makes it suitable for a wide variety of applications – a fact recognized by the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded in part to scientists who used SC light to measure atomic transitions with extraordinary accuracy.

Despite more than 40 years of research, SC light has proven to be difficult to control and prone to instability.

Though rogue waves are not the cause of this instability, the UCLA researchers suspected that a better understanding of how noise in SC light triggers rogue waves could improve their control of this bright white light.

Rogue waves occur randomly in SC light and are so short-lived that the team had to employ a new technique just to spot them.

By tinkering with the initial laser pulses used to create SC light, Solli and his team discovered how to reproduce the rogue waves, harness them, and put them to work.

His results demonstrate that a weak burst of light, broadcast at the perfect “tickle spot,” produces a rogue wave on demand.

Instead of disrupting things, it stabilizes SC light, reducing fluctuations by at least 90 percent. The seed wave also decreases the amount of energy needed to produce a supercontinuum by 25 percent.

This new-and-improved white light could help to push forward a range of technologies.

Solli and Bahram Jalali are developing time-stretching devices that slow down electrical signals; such devices could be used in new optical analog-to-digital converters 1,000 times faster than current electronic versions.

These converters could help to overcome the current conversion-rate bottleneck that holds back advanced radar and communication technologies.

Stabilized SC light could also be used to create super-fast cameras for laboratory use or incorporated into optical clockworks. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: ''cause, 2005 Nobel Prize In Physics, accuracy, amount, ANI, Atomic Transitions, Bahram, beam, bottleneck, breakthrough, Broad Spectrum, broadcast, bulb, burst, California, california los angeles, communication, Communications Technologies, control, demand, diffuse, Diffuse Glow, directionality, energy, fact, flare ups, generation, glow, group, harness, incandescent, Incandescent Bulb, instability, Jalali, kind, Laboratory, lamp, laser, Laser Beam, Laser Pulses, light, Light Sources, Los Angeles, March, Nobel, Nobel Prize In Physics, noise, Optical Fibers, order, part, percent, physics, prize, radar, radiation, range, Research, rogue, Rogue Wave, Rogue Waves, seed, Solli, spectrum, spot, Stabilized, supercontinuum, team, technique, tickle, Tickle Spot, tinkering, ucla, Ucla Researchers, understanding, University, university of california los angeles, ups, use, variety, Washington, wave, way, year