Life on the Moon: China Is Testing a Self-Sustaining Space Station That Could Allow Long-Term Lunar Living – Newsweek

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While some nations may be content to simply set foot on the moon, China has bigger things in mind. President Xi Jinping has said he wants his country to become a force in space exploration, and the plan is to start at the celestial body closest to Earth.

China wants to send a probe to the dark side of the moon by next year, and put astronauts on its surface by 2036, Reuters reports. But those astronauts may be staying for a bit longer than Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin: As part of its Lunar Palace 365 project, China is testing a self-sustaining space station that provides inhabitants with everything a person needs to survive, which could lead to extended stays on the moon.

Related: How rocket fuel mined from the moon will get us to Mars

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On Sunday, four students atBeihang Universityin Beijing entered Lunar Palace-1, a 160-square-meterbioregenerative life-support base located in one of the city's suburbs. They replaced a group who lived inside the station for 60 days, but the latest batch of students to call Lunar Palace-1 home will not leave until they've been living self-sufficiently for 200 days."I'll get so much out of this," Liu Guanghui, a Ph.D. studentwho entered the bunker on Sunday,told Reuters. "It's truly a different life experience."

The station's specifications have been meticulously curated. "We've designed it so the oxygen [produced by plants at the station] is exactly enough to satisfy the humans, the animalsand the organisms that break down the waste materials," said Liu Hong, the project's principal architect.

While living in Lunar Palace-1, students will recycle everything from leftover plant matter to their own waste. The latter task may bring to mind the Matt Damoncharacter Mark Watney in the 2015 film The Martian, in which an astronaut was forced to jerry-rig a space station to support him after he was left on Mars. In addition to using his own waste to fertilize plants, Watney had to cope with the psychological toll of being isolated from the outside world. The same is true of the Chinese students testing Lunar Palace-1.

"They can become a bit depressed," Liu Hong said of the students. "If you spend a long time in this type of environment it can create some psychological problems."

Students are given specific daily tasks that help keep their spirits up, but it's difficult to gauge the psychological effect of living in an environment so radically different than what a person is used to. When NASA astronaut Scott Kelly returned from living on the International Space Station for 340 consecutive days, he spoke of how the psychological stress was "harder to quantify and perhaps as damaging" as any physical changes he experienced.

Liu Hui, a student who participated in the initial 60-day experiment at Lunar Palace-1, said she at times"felt a bit low" at the end of the day. The students currently in the station will be there for more than three times as long as Liu Hui, so the psychological effect of a prolonged stay remains to be seen. It's a trick problem, but one that China and the rest of the world will have to negotiate if humanity ever wants to colonize anything outside of the Earth's atmosphere.

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Life on the Moon: China Is Testing a Self-Sustaining Space Station That Could Allow Long-Term Lunar Living - Newsweek

Made In Space to use PEI/PC polymer on International Space Station 3D printing platform – TCT Magazine

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Made In Space has revealed it has begun using PEI/PC, a high-performance polymer, in its Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) on the International Space Station (ISS).

PEI/PC, or polyetherimide/ polycarbonate, is an aerospace-grade polymer that has often been used in aviation and space applications due to its ability to produce strong and heat-resistant materials. Examples of PEI/PC used in additively manufactured parts in aerospace are ULTEM 9085, which has been applied by United Launch Alliance (ULA) among others, and ULTEM 1010, which has been applied by such companies as Eviation Aircraft.

Made In Space already uses ABS (acrylonitrile butadine styrene) and Green PE (polyethylene) in the Additive Manufacturing Facility adopted by NASAs artificial low Earth orbit satellite. PEI/PC represents the third material incorporated into its AMF processes.

Made In Space is proud to add PEI/PC to the suite of materials it is manufacturing in space with, said Andrew Rush, President and CEO of Made In Space. Our team has been regularly printing parts in space with AMF for over a year now. This unparalleled knowledge base of in-space manufacturing operations will enable us to deliver future in-space manufacturing solutions in the most cost effective and efficient ways possible.

With nearly three times the tensile strength of ABS, PEI/PC has been used in the making of satellites and external hardware, as well as in aircraft cabins, and even in medical applications. In 2015, ULA used a PEI/PC material to print a duct for the Environmental Control System of its Atlas V rocket, and just last month, Eviation Aircraft printed a composite lay-up tool in another PEI/PC material.

As well as its use aboard the International Space Station, MIS will look to enhance its Archinaut Development Program with the adoption of the new polymer. Archinaut is Made In Spaces proprietary in-space manufacturing assembly technology, able to build space-optimised portions on spacecraft and satellites. Andrew Rush talked openly with TCT earlier this year about where the company was up to with Archinaut, where he sees it being utilised in the future. The use of PEI/PC will contribute to the technologys development, and is the next step in Made In Spaces ambitions, for Archinaut and for space manufacturing generally.

Manufacturing in PEI/PC really expands the value of in-space manufacturing for human spaceflight, added Rush. PEI/PC is a truly space-capable material. With it, extravehicular activity (EVA) tools and repairs, stronger and more capable intravehicular (IVA) tools, spares, and repairs, and even satellite structure can be created on site, on-demand. That enables safer, less mass-intensive missions and scientific experiments.

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Made In Space to use PEI/PC polymer on International Space Station 3D printing platform - TCT Magazine

Advanced Electric Propulsion System successfully tested at NASA’s Glenn Research Center – SpaceFlight Insider

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Jason Rhian

July 8th, 2017

Advanced solar electric propulsion will be needed for future human expeditions into deep space, including to Mars. Shown here is a 13-kilowatt Hall thruster being evaluated at NASAs Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Hall thrusters trap electrons in a magnetic field and use them to ionize the onboard propellant. It uses 10 times less propellant than equivalent chemical rockets. (Click for full view) Photo & Caption Credit: NASA

A new propulsion system, one funded bythe Space Technology Mission Directorate, underwent a series of hot-fire tests recently at NASAs Glenn Research Centerlocated in Cleveland, Ohio. The tests were conducted on a Power Processing Unit, or PPU, for anAdvanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) that is hoped could be used on either NASAs deep space ambitions or by the space agencys commercial partners.

The Power Processing Unit successfully demonstrated stable operation of the propulsion system and responded appropriately to all of our planned contingency scenarios, said Julie Van Kleeck, vice president of Advanced Space and Launch Programs and Strategy at Aerojet Rocketdyne via a company-issued release. This is a critical step in providing advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP), which is necessary for affordable cargo and logistics transportation in support of human missions to Mars.

At Glenn, both Aerojet Rocketdyne, with help from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, worked to provide a flight-capable system that is capable of operating for approximately 23,000 hours. If things continue to go as planned, this propulsion system could be used in the transportation of cargo and habitats

Aerojet Rocketdyne has a long successful history designing and developing electric propulsion systems, and we look forward to maturing high power Hall systems for multiple applications, including NASA, defense and commercial missions, said Aerojet Rocketdynes CEO and President Eileen Drake via a company-issued release. Congratulations to everyone involved in advancing this critical technology that will change the way humans explore space.

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory is also involved on the project which was awarded a $65 million contract to develop and produce five 12.5 kilowatt Hall thruster subsystems. These include the thrusters, PPUs, as well as xenon flow controllers. Thecontract is part ofthe space agencys Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Mission.

According to information issued by Aerojet Rocketdyne, the AEPS produces twice as much thrust as another recent offering made by the California-based company the XR-5 Hall thruster.

The XR-5 has already been used on both government and commercial missions. Hall thrusters, however, are nothing new. The former Soviet Union used them as far back as December of 1971

If everything goes as planned, these propulsion systems could be used on new vehicles that NASA is planning on launching beyond Earth orbit as well as those being developed by NASAs commercial partners (which are planned for taking the reins of the agencys flights to the International Space Station). Given the distances involved, the U.S. space agency hopes these efforts could seespacecraft transportation fuel efficiency improve by as much as 10 percent (over traditional chemical propulsion systems).

Hall-effect thrusters (named after the discoverer Edwin Hall) are ion thrusters that accelerate propellant via an electric field. Electrons, trapped within a magnetic field, are used to ionize that propellant, thereby producing thrust as the ions are accelerated by the electric field; the ions are then neutralized by the electrons in the exhaust plume.

With NASA becoming ever-more audible about its plans to send crews to Mars and its numerous efforts to have commercial firms handle sending cargo and crews to the sole destination in low-Earth orbit the International Space Station.

Tagged: Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) Aerojet Rocketdyne Lead Stories NASA Glenn Research Center

Jason Rhian spent several years honing his skills with internships at NASA, the National Space Society and other organizations. He has provided content for outlets such as: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Space.com, The Mars Society and Universe Today.

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Advanced Electric Propulsion System successfully tested at NASA's Glenn Research Center - SpaceFlight Insider

SLS Upper Stage set to take up residence in the former home of ISS modules – NASASpaceflight.com

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July 11, 2017 by Chris Bergin

TheInterim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) is now deep into its latest phase of processing, as it prepares to be housed in theSpace Station Processing Facility (SSPF) a facility once packed with modules waiting for their ride on Shuttles to make up the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The ICPS will be the Upper Stage for the maiden flight of the Space Launch System (SLS). ICPS:

The ICPS will only have a short lifetime with SLS, as the program aims to swiftly move to themore powerful Exploration Upper Stage (EUS)that will be the workhorse Upper Stage for SLS throughout the 2020s.

However, for the ICPS, the mission with SLS is only a change of call signs for this veteran unit, with years of previous and future service with the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket fleet.

The official plan has revolved around moving to the EUS by the second or third flight of SLS, pending the readiness of the new EUS. The initial plan was to human rate another ICPS for EM-2, but NASA wants to bring the EUS online by the second SLS flight.

Based on the schedule slips for SLS and the large gap between EM-1 and EM-2 the plan is to revamp the Mobile Launcher umbilicals to cater for the Block 1B SLS after EM-1 (Exploration Mission-1) launches.

The EM-1 upper stage which is effectively a regular Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS) was shipped from the ULA facility in Decatur, Alabama aboard the Mariner barge earlier this year, arriving at the Cape in March.

It is currently housed in ULAs Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) to begin processing for launch at the ULA Delta Operations Center. That work is now drawing to a close.

The next move will see it take a short journey to the SSPF, prior to a formal handover between ULA and NASA.

The Operations Planning team, specifically the Spacecraft Offline Operations (SOO) team are supporting the delivery of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) to the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF). It is expected to be accelerated ten days from predicted August 1, 2017 to July 21, 2017, noted a Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) update.

The SSPF is a three story structure containing 42,455 sq meters (457,000 sq ft) of offices, laboratories, and processing areas. It is located on NASA Causeway immediately east of the O&C (Operations & Checkout) Building.

The facility houses bays that were used for horizontal processing of components for the International Space Station and other Space Shuttle Payloads. With the payloads since launched on the now-retired Space Shuttle fleet resulting in the impressive orbital outpost that is now into its utilization phase the facility is almost empty of space hardware.

Prelaunch activities that took place in the SSPF included receipt, handling, and assembly of space station hardware, testing of experiments for proper configuration, and verification of critical systems and system interfaces. As such it makes it the perfect home for the ICPS ahead of its launch with the first SLS rocket.

The ICPS wont be officially handed over (or turned over) until some weeks after the ICPS arrives in the SSPF, allowing the Stages caretakers from ULA to continue to look after the ICPS and provide guidance to its new engineers.

Preparations are underway and include a contractor letter of direction for host role in the early weeks with the formal DD250 turnover to follow, hurricane plan development and approval, SSPF facility panel sampling, added the GSDO update.

(The) plan is for United Launch Alliance (ULA) access to perform monitoring and maintenance until formal turnover, and a likely transporter demonstration at the SSPF. All of these are to be addressed by the planned readiness review scheduled for July 19, 2017, at the Operations Processing Project Review (OPPR).

The eventual destination for the ICPS will bethe Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC, in preparation for mating atopthe SLS stack.

The stack will be integrated while sitting onthe Mobile Launcher, which will provide the lifeblood of electrical and fluid support, along with the all-important prop loading whilst at the pad.

That connection between the ML and the ICPS will be the Interim Cryogenic Propulsive Stage Umbilical (ICPSU) will be a T-0 umbilical.

While some umbilicals have already been installed onto the ML, the ICPSU is expected to be connected in September to October timeframe well ahead of the timeframe the first SLS is scheduled to be mated with the ML in the VAB.

(Images: NASA, ULA and L2 Orbital ATK and L2)

(L2 is as it has been for the past several years providing full exclusive SLS and Exploration Planning coverage. To join L2, click here:https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/)

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SLS Upper Stage set to take up residence in the former home of ISS modules - NASASpaceflight.com

Floating City: Will Rising Sea Levels Force People To Move Into Ocean Homes? – International Business Times

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As the world population continues to rise and open space becomes more scarce, water might become the next human frontier, in the form of a floating city.

According to a report from news service Agence France-Presse, Dutch researchers have a model for such livable space, which could include homes, farms and parks. The news agency says the floating city concept could become a reality within a couple of decades for the Netherlands, a small country in Europe where space is at a premium and which has a history of taming water for human habitation Holland, including the capital Amsterdam, is notorious for its canals, which have been used for defense, irrigation, for travel and for improving city habitability.

Read: Does Climate Change Threaten Your Cup of Coffee?

In these times of rising sea levels, overpopulated cities and a rising number of activities on the seas, building up the dykes and pumping out the sands is perhaps not the most efficient solution, Olaf Waals, from the Maritime Research Institute of the Netherlands, told AFP. Floating ports and cities are an innovative solution which reflect the Dutch maritime tradition.

The Netherlands concept, a project called Space at Sea, includes 87 triangular pieces of various sizes that would come together to make almost 2 square miles of space, a floating island of concrete or steel that would be anchored to the seafloor and attached to the shore. For now, however, it is just a small wooden model.

Amsterdam is a city known for its canals, the Dutch way of harvesting water for travel, irrigation and improving habitability. But will the Netherlands soon be building entire cities on the water? Photo: Pixabay, public domain

According to AFP, experts are exploring how such a structure would withstand wind and storm conditions, how it could be made self-sufficient in terms of energy usage, and how it would affect marine life.

Technically it could be feasible in 10 to 20 years from today, Waals told the news agency.

If floating cities were to become the homes of the future, there is plenty of space to work with: Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earths surface.

The Netherlands is not the only nation to explore this idea. The French Polynesia government, for example, is thinking about building a bunch of habitable floating islands in its area of the South Pacific Ocean. The Seasteading Institute in California, a group geared toward making such water cities a reality, is behind the idea. Part of Seasteadings goal is to help people who in the future could be displaced by sea level rise drowning their current land-based homes.

Read: Is It Going to Rain in the Middle East? Maybe in 10,000 Years

Part of the concept requires self-sustainability, in terms of necessities like agriculture and health care, which makes it more complicated than it sounds.

The idea might work in French Polynesia because there arent a lot of high waves one factor that would threaten an ocean settlement. In that respect it might represent a pioneer project that could set a precedent for others to follow.

With space on land running out, the Netherlands will have to divert back toward the water, MARIN director Bas Buchner said, according to AFP. And we have always been pioneers in this fight.

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Floating City: Will Rising Sea Levels Force People To Move Into Ocean Homes? - International Business Times

Orange to host Guinness World Record attempt for most redheads in one place – Yass Tribune

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11 Jul 2017, 8:30 p.m.

Ginger pride to rule as redheads rally for record.

GINGER CHEER: Orange will be seeking to achieve all the fun of this Ginger Pride event in Melbourne when it hosts a Guinness World Record Attempt for the most redheads.

Hundreds of redheads might have gathered at ginger pride rallies and record attempts in other cities but where else is more appropriate thanOrange?

Rachael Brookingis planning to start big with a Guinness World Records attempt on getting the most redheads in one place.

Thered-letter day is September 30 when a four-hour festival of all things red will be celebrated at Wade Park culminating in the attempt to better the current record which stands at1672.

FOR MUM: Record attempt and fund raising organiser Rachael Brooking with a photo of her mum and fellow redhead, Frances Kelly.

Mrs Brooking said it would raise money for research into Huntingtons disease which claimed her mother Frances Kelly, also a redhead.

She said she had just launched the festival and was still working on getting famous redheads and sponsors to attend.

Ive had a really good response so far, she said.

GINGER MEGGS: There will be plenty of character on Orange's red-letter day.

Central Western Daily

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Orange to host Guinness World Record attempt for most redheads in one place - Yass Tribune

Former NASA engineer builds world’s largest Super Soaker, firing water at 272 mph – The Verge

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Summer is here, and that means its time to break out the water guns. Or, if youre YouTuber Mark Rober (formerly a NASA engineer), its time to build the largest water gun ever made (via Gizmodo).

Robers giant water pistol is a little more overpowered than the original backyard toy, firing jets of water at 272 miles per hour, with enough force to slice through a watermelon and shatter glass. But despite the giant scale, the supersized Super Soaker works pretty much the same way as the toy version: pressurized air is pumped into a chamber of water, and released with the trigger to shoot a jet of water. Robers version instead uses pressurized tanks of nitrogen gas and water for far more impressive results,. But hey, its all working on the same principles.

Rober is no stranger to building comically oversized childrens guns. Last summer, he put together the worlds largest Nerf gun. While that was impressive, the 40-mile-per-hour darts it shot barely hold a candle to the destructive power of the seven-foot-long water pistol.

The gigantic Super Soaker is definitely a custom, one-off build, though Rober does provide a build list of parts and CAD files should you want to try to cobble together your own. As a note: pressurized gas as used here is dangerous, and Rober is a trained engineer, so proceed carefully if youre trying this at home. This is not meant for human targets!

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Former NASA engineer builds world's largest Super Soaker, firing water at 272 mph - The Verge

New NASA Tech Kills Trespassing Drones Without Touching Them – WIRED

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New NASA Tech Kills Trespassing Drones Without Touching Them - WIRED

NASA closes Chamber A door to commence Webb telescope testing – Phys.Org

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July 12, 2017 Engineers watch as Chamber As colossal door closes at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

Though the Webb telescope will be enveloped in darkness, the engineers testing the telescope will be far from blind. "There are many thermal sensors that monitor temperatures of the telescope and the support equipment," said Gary Matthews, an integration and testing engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who is testing the Webb telescope while it is at Johnson. "Specialized camera systems track the physical position of the hardware inside the chamber, monitoring how Webb moves as it gets colder."

In space, the telescope must be kept extremely cold, in order to be able to detect the infrared light from very faint, distant objects. To protect the telescope from external sources of light and heat (like the sun, Earth and moon), as well as from heat emitted by the observatory, a five-layer, tennis court-sized sunshield acts like a parasol that provides shade. The sunshield separates the observatory into a warm, sun-facing side (reaching temperatures close to 185 degrees Fahrenheit) and a cold side (400 degrees below zero). The sunshield blocks sunlight from interfering with the sensitive telescope instruments.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the scientific successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. It will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. Webb is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Explore further: NASA's Webb telescope gets freezing summertime lodging in Houston

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope was placed in Johnson Space Center's historic Chamber A on June 20, 2017, to prepare for its final three months of testing in a cryogenic vacuum that mimics temperatures in space.

NASA's Johnson Space Center's "Chamber A" in Houston is an enormous thermal vacuum testing chamber and now appears to be opening it's "mouth" to take in NASA's James Webb Space Telescope for testing.

It's springtime and the deployed primary mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope looks like a spring flower in full bloom.

Inside NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland the James Webb Space Telescope team completed the environmental portion of vibration testing and prepared for the acoustic test on the telescope.

NASA's special "Webb-cam" kept an eye on the development of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, since 2012. Now that Webb telescope has moved to NASA's Johnson Space ...

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where it will undergo its last cryogenic test before it is launched into space in 2018.

(Phys.org)An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new "hot Jupiter" exoplanet with a short orbital period of just three and a half days. The newly detected giant planet, designated KELT-20b, circles ...

The smallest star yet measured has been discovered by a team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridge. With a size just a sliver larger than that of Saturn, the gravitational pull at its stellar surface is about ...

Astronomers studying the distant Universe have found that small star-forming galaxies were abundant when the Universe was only 800 million years old, a few percent of its present age. The results suggest that the earliest ...

In the search for planets similar to our own, an important point of comparison is the planet's density. A low density tells scientists a planet is more likely to be gaseous like Jupiter, and a high density is associated with ...

A new model giving rise to young planetary systems offers a fresh solution to a puzzle that has vexed astronomers ever since new detection technologies and planet-hunting missions such as NASA's Kepler space telescope have ...

Brown dwarf stars are failed stars. Their masses are so small, less than about eighty Jupiter-masses, that they lack the ability to heat up their interiors to the roughly ten million kelvin temperatures required for normal ...

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NASA closes Chamber A door to commence Webb telescope testing - Phys.Org

NASA flies plane through Earthly shadow of Kuiper Belt object – The Register

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NASA has flown a plane through shadow of Kuiper Belt object 6.6bn kilometres from Earth.

The object is 2014 MU69, a maybe-40km-across more than 1.5bn km past Pluto that is the New Horizons mission's next port of call after its encounter with Pluto. Humanity has precisely zero close-up experience of such objects and we've only seen 2014 MU69 from afar. So in order to give us a bit more to work with before New Horizons' arrival, NASA has used the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Gaia observatory to figure out when 2014 MU69 will next pass in front of a sun.

NASA possesses a modified Boeing 747 SP known as SOFIA the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy which packs a 2.5 meter telescope. When SOFIA reaches its working altitude of between 39,000 and 45,000 feet above sea level, above most of the clouds and water vapour in the atmosphere, the 'scope can capture data that's hard to get on the ground. To do so, SOFIA opens a special door in the rear of its fuselage so the instrument doesn't have to peer through the plane's skin.

The space agency's plan was to fly SOFIA through the shadow on Monday, in the hope that we could learn of rings or other debris that may orbit MU69 and pose a risk for New Horizons.

That plan went off without a hitch: after departing New Zealand, NASA says The team onboard SOFIA was able to position the flying telescope precisely where the data indicated the center of the shadow would be, at precisely the right time.

SOFIA did the same job for Pluto in 2011. The agency hasn't explained the size of the shadow it chased, but says it was 100 times smaller than Pluto's!

There's no word yet on what we've learned about 2014 MU69, but the plane only touched down on Tuesday. So enough with the conspiracy theories, okay? At least until January 1st 2019, when New Horizons arrives at 2014 MU69.

BOOTNOTE: In other Space news, the Juno probe has successfully flown over Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Images are expected to arrive in coming days.

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NASA flies plane through Earthly shadow of Kuiper Belt object - The Register

NASA’s SDO watches a sunspot turn toward Earth – Phys.Org

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July 12, 2017 An active region on the sun -- an area of intense and complex magnetic fields -- has rotated into view on the sun and seems to be growing rather quickly in this video captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory between July 5-11, 2017. Such sunspots are a common occurrence on the sun, but are less frequent as we head toward solar minimum, which is the period of low solar activity during its regular approximately 11-year cycle. This sunspot is the first to appear after the sun was spotless for two days, and it is the only sunspot group at this moment. Like freckles on the face of the sun, they appear to be small features, but size is relative: The dark core of this sunspot is actually larger than Earth. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO/Joy Ng, producer

An active region on the sunan area of intense and complex magnetic fieldshas rotated into view on the sun and seems to be growing rather quickly in this video captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory between July 5-11, 2017.

Such sunspots are a common occurrence on the sun, but are less frequent as we head toward solar minimum, which is the period of low solar activity during its regular approximately 11-year cycle.

This sunspot is the first to appear after the sun was spotless for two days, and it is the only sunspot group at this moment.

Like freckles on the face of the sun, they appear to be small features, but size is relative:

The dark core of this sunspot is actually larger than Earth.

The video will load shortly

Explore further: NASA's SDO sees giant January sunspots

An enormous sunspot, labeled AR1944, slipped into view over the sun's left horizon late on Jan. 1, 2014. The sunspot steadily moved toward the right, along with the rotation of the sun, and now sits almost dead center, as ...

High up in the clear blue noontime sky, the sun appears to be much the same day-in, day-out, year after year.

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 8:29 pm EDT on April 17, 2016. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. ...

What has been billed as the largest sunspot observed in several years has now rotated around to stare straight at Earth. How large is it? Active Region 1339 and the group of sunspots adjacent to it extends more than 100,000 ...

(Phys.org) Something unexpected is happening on the Sun. 2013 was supposed to be the year of "solar maximum," the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Yet 2013 has arrived and solar activity is relatively low. Sunspot numbers ...

The sun has gone quiet. Almost too quiet. A few weeks ago it was teeming with sunspots, as you would expect since we are supposed to be in the middle of solar maximum-the time in the sun's 11-year cycle when it is the most ...

(Phys.org)An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new "hot Jupiter" exoplanet with a short orbital period of just three and a half days. The newly detected giant planet, designated KELT-20b, circles ...

The smallest star yet measured has been discovered by a team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridge. With a size just a sliver larger than that of Saturn, the gravitational pull at its stellar surface is about ...

Astronomers studying the distant Universe have found that small star-forming galaxies were abundant when the Universe was only 800 million years old, a few percent of its present age. The results suggest that the earliest ...

In the search for planets similar to our own, an important point of comparison is the planet's density. A low density tells scientists a planet is more likely to be gaseous like Jupiter, and a high density is associated with ...

A new model giving rise to young planetary systems offers a fresh solution to a puzzle that has vexed astronomers ever since new detection technologies and planet-hunting missions such as NASA's Kepler space telescope have ...

Brown dwarf stars are failed stars. Their masses are so small, less than about eighty Jupiter-masses, that they lack the ability to heat up their interiors to the roughly ten million kelvin temperatures required for normal ...

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NASA's SDO watches a sunspot turn toward Earth - Phys.Org

Optomec Awarded NASA Contract – Photonics.com

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Photonics.com Jul 2017 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., July 12, 2017 Additive manufacturing systems supplier Optomec Inc. has been awarded a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract for the further development of an adaptive laser sintering system (ALSS).

The success of this endeavor will enable electronic circuitry to be printed onto a wider variety of temperature-sensitive substrates, expanding its use for production applications. The fully automated system will also enable printed circuitry to be repaired or manufactured with minimal human intervention, paving the way for its use in long-duration NASA space missions.

"After the successful design, test and implementation of ALSS, the science and technology of laser sintering will be better understood for controllable adaptive operations, said, Mike Renn, chief technology officer of Optomec. ALSS can be a key solution to NASA's challenge of in-space, on-demand manufacturing capabilities to support the unique challenges of long-duration human spaceflight, which requires an automated adaptive in-line quality control system along with the associated manufacturing process."

Working in conjunction with Harding University in Searcy, Ark., this project will enhance Optomec laser sintering technology to a fully automated curing system for printed electronics. The Optomec-Harding team seeks to enhance the localized laser sintering concept by developing an ALSS with in situ automated adjustment of laser power and processing time, paving the way for its use in the next generation of human space exploration. The team also hopes to expand use of printed electronics to a broader range of temperature-sensitive substrates used in commercial applications.

The project is also of vital importance to NASA's in-space, on-demand manufacturing capabilities to support the unique challenges of long-duration human spaceflight. The developed automated, in-line quality control system with ALSS will meet the requirements for long-duration human space missions with minimal need for astronaut intervention, allowing NASA to print conformal electronics and sensors onto flexible substrates of various geometrical complexities and then fully cure them using Aerosol Jet technology, all while in space.

Optomec supplies additive manufacturing systems for printed electronics and laser metal deposition used for 3D integrated circuits, printed solar cells, flexible electronics, organic electronics, touch screens, rapid prototyping, rapid manufacturing and blisk repair.

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Optomec Awarded NASA Contract - Photonics.com

Nasa rally disrupted in Kabarnet – Daily Nation

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Wednesday July 12 2017

A rally addressed by Nasa principals, including opposition presidential flag-bearer Raila Odinga was disrupted in Kabarnet, Baringo County, on July 12, 2017. PHOTO | CHEBOITE KIGEN | NATION MEDIA GROUP

A National Super Alliance (Nasa) political rally in Kabarnet town ended in disarray on Wednesday after its presidential flag-bearer Raila Odinga and his co-principals were heckled.

Mr Odinga, accompanied by co-principals Musalia Mudavadi and Isaac Ruto, received a hostile reception in the town and had a difficult time addressing the crowd that was chanting Jubilee slogans.

Some of the people in the crowd threw Nasa-branded caps to the dais as the leaders addressed them.

Police had a difficult time controlling the crowd and shouted down Mr Ruto, the Bomet governor, calling him a traitor.

The governor had to cut short his speech after the crowd started chanting pro-Jubilee slogans.

Mr Odinga attempted to address the crowd, saying the region was tired of insecurity and urged locals to vote for Nasa.

But this was met with hostility as the crowds shouted and dismissed the speakers, saying they were after their own vested interests.

The leaders finally abandoned the rally and headed to Eldama Ravine for another meeting.

Earlier, Mr Odinga, Mr Mudavadi and Mr Ruto held a rally at Chemolingot trading centre.

Uhuru reiterated the countrys commitment to clean and ethical sports practices.

Three journalists were heading to a Nasa rally in Baringo.

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Nasa rally disrupted in Kabarnet - Daily Nation

How a One-Man Team from California Won NASA’s Space Robotics Challenge – IEEE Spectrum

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Image: NASA SRC In NASA's Space Robotics Challenge, participants had to command a virtual Valkyrie robot to perform a series of repair tasks in a simulated Mars base hit by a dust storm.

NASAs Space Robotics Challenge (SRC) took place last month, full of virtual Valkyries wandering around a virtual Mars base trying to fix virtual stuff. Anyone was allowed to participate, and since the virtual nature of the competition means there was no need for big expensive robots that mostly didnt fall over, anyone actually could (and did) participate. Of the 93 teams initially signed up to compete, NASA selected 20 finalist teams based on their performance completing some tasks in the Gazebo 3D robot simulator, and each of those finalists had to program a Valkyrie humanoid to complete a repair mission on a simulated Mars base.

The winner of the SRC was team Coordinated Robotics, which also was the only team to manage a perfect run with 100 percent task completion, taking home theUS $125,000top prize plus a$50,000 perfect run bonus. Team may be a little bit of a misnomer, though, since Coordinated Robotics consists entirely of one dude: Kevin Knoedler. We spoke with Kevin about his epic win, and also checked in with Nate Koenig from Open Robotics, which leads the development of Gazebo and helped organize the SRC,to get more info on the competition, along withfootage of all the bestouttakes.

The SRC was very similar to the VRC (the qualifier for the DARPA Robotics Challenge), in that all of the teams competed by running their code in a Gazebo virtual environment. The tasks themselves were somewhat inspired by The Martian,Open Robotics CTO Nate Koenig told us. Valkyrie is on Mars, preparing the way for human settlement, and a dust storm comes. Post dust storm, Val has to align a communications dish, repair a solar array, and locate and fix a leak in the habitat. Here are some highlights from the competition:

The competition overall went pretty smoothly, says Koenig. A unique aspect of the SRC, as opposed to the VRC, is that we were emphasizing sequential completion of tasks. You get more points for completing more tasks in order without having Valkyrie fall or require a reset, so the more reliable you are in terms of walking and manipulating, the better youll do.

As with the DRC, the time limits on the tasks were set such that teams were heavily encouraged to use as much autonomy as possible. And it sounds like most of them did; only a few timed out. Making things even more challenging were severe restrictions on bandwidth coupled with latency designed to emulate (to some extent) what it would be like trying to teleoperate a robot somewhere out in space, as Koenig explains:

Network latency and bandwidth limitations were more severe than the VRC. We wanted to simulate something closer to what you might experience with a round trip delay to Mars, but that would have been too extreme, so we toned it down to a maximum of 20 seconds delay. Some of the tasks had bandwidth limits of 380 bits/second, and if you look at those numbers, that essentially kills TCP.

People had to get creative, and we did see some unique things: one person ran an IRC server and client to pass information, and some other people used just straight text-based console messages, getting no visualized data, which was pretty awesome: It was like reading The Matrix. One team [Team Xion] ran completely autonomously: They just deployed their code and hit go, and they were able to complete a lot of the tasks, which was impressive.

Koenig said he and his colleagues werent expecting any of the teams tocomplete all of the tasks in sequence.But Kevin proved us wrong, he added.And he was the only team that was able to perform that feat.

Kevin is, of course, Kevin Knoedler, who is the entirety of Team Coordinated Robotics. As Nate pointed out, Kevin managed to complete all of the Space Robotics Challenge flawlesslyin a row, which is pretty amazing. We spoke with Kevin over email to learn more about how he pulled it off.

IEEE Spectrum: Whats your background, and what made you decide to enter the SRC by yourself?

Kevin Knoedler: After graduating from MIT I worked as an engineer and engineering manager at Teradyne. I left in 2007 to be a stay-at-home dad. Both during my time at Teradyne and in my current role as a stay-at-home dad, I have continued to be involved in various contestsRobot Wars, Battlebots, the three DARPA autonomous vehicle grand challenges, and the DRC. The SRC looked challenging and fun, so I signed up to compete in it.

I was busy coaching two soccer teams when the qualification round started (fall 2016), and I knew I would be busy coaching track and Odyssey of the Mind when the finals started (early 2017). It is usually key to contribute and coordinate with teams early in the project cycle. Since I would be busy with other thingsduring those key times, I decided to do it alone to avoid frustration for myself and any team I worked with. Working with teams is generally a better choice as more people have more creative ideas. I have worked with teams on all of the previous contests.

How much autonomy did your strategy rely on?

I approached the design for the contest assuming I would always have the maximum time delay, so the robot needed to do shorter tasks on its own. Even without the design work, the up to 20-second delay was not a major problem given that the allowed time was in the hours. My perception code was not as reliable and accurate as I would like, so I focused on the robot doing the planning and execution. It was mostly supervised autonomy with human perception help.

You sent us a video of one of your runs [below]. Can you take us through it?

The video is a short third-person view of the robot completing the three tasks. The first is turning handles to align the antenna. The second task shows the robot removing a solar panel from the trailer, placing it on a table, and plugging in a cable. The final task is climbing the stairs, opening the habitat door, using a tool to locate the leak, and then another tool to fix the leak. One of the fun parts for me was when the robot would find the leak. There was a lot of area to be covered, some of which was partially obstructed, which made it exciting to actually find the leak each run.

The leak was found by the robot doing sweeps up and down and using torso rotation to minimize the amount of walking necessary. As the robot looked for the leak it kept track of the search area as either un-searched, clear, or leaky. That information was displayed to the operator via an interactive marker in Rviz [a 3D visualition tool for ROS] to make it easy to see what had been searched, and when the leak was found, easy to visualize.

What was the trickiest part for you?

I would say the most challenging part was the manipulation and use of tools. Getting a good grasp on the tool and then having the robot use the tools as an extension of the robot were hard to do consistently. I created a scenario in Gazebo where the robot started right at the tools with nothing else around. That allowed testing of picking up the tools from various starting positions and putting them down over and over.

An interesting story from the contest: Sometimes real hardware gets stuck and has to be pushed to get it moving again, and the simulated [Valkyrie robot]in Gazebo also had this behavior. [Open Robotics calledthat an interesting emergent behavior that wasnt programmed in deliberately.]It was possible for the robots thumb to get stuck and no longer respond to commands. That happened to me during the contest on my third run. But, much like in real life, I was able to push the thumb against the table to get it unstuck and moving again to be able to complete the tasks.

What kinds of things are easier in simulation than they are in real life?

Everything is easier in simulation. It is not dramatically easier, but you can solve 90 percent of the problems in simulation. The main thingthat makes simulation easier is the hardware reliabilitythe simulation hardware doesnt break like real hardware frequently does. You can also try riskier experiments. A falling humanoid robot in Gazebo does not cost $100,000 to repair and cause a multi-week delay. The other big advantage to simulation is that one person can run one or multiple tests simultaneously. With a real robot it generally takes multiple people to run a single test.

If NASA put a real Valkyrie inside of a physical mock-up of a Mars base and asked you to complete the same set of tasks, how do you think youd do?

The robot should be able to complete the tasks after some initial testing to identify and fix differences between simulation and hardware. I had a layered approach where I could fall back to lower level control if the primary method did not succeed. There always seem to be enough differences between simulation and real hardware that some adaptations are needed for success. But, given some testing and adaptations, I do think it would be a success!

After participating in the DRC and now the SRC, how do you feel about the potential for humanoid robots to be realistically useful in disaster areas or planetary exploration?

After the DRC and SRC we are getting closer to be able to use humanoid robots in disaster areas on earth and for planetary exploration. The main challenges I see on earth are making the hardware robust, handling falls, and being able to do manipulation in difficult situations (crawling, obstructed or constricted working environments, situations requiring an arm for support, etc.). In space there are the same challenges plus the distances require giving the robot more perception and autonomy.

Kevin made sure to remind us to thank NASA, Space Center Houston, Nine Sigma, Open Robotics, and IHMC on his behalf, which were more than happy to do, because were also constantly wanting to thank them for what theyve all done for robotics.

Oh, and before we forget: outtakes!

[ SRC ] via [ Gazebo ]

IEEE Spectrums award-winning robotics blog, featuring news, articles, and videos on robots, humanoids, drones, automation, artificial intelligence, and more. Contact us:e.guizzo@ieee.org

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Teleoperating complex robots is really hard, and Georgia Tech is working to fix that 16Mar

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Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos 17Feb

Rodney Brookss startup Rethink Robotics is releasing software to make its robot Sawyer more versatile and easier to program 7Feb

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How a One-Man Team from California Won NASA's Space Robotics Challenge - IEEE Spectrum

Streaming the Latest in Nanotechnology – StreamingMedia.com

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Streaming the Latest in Nanotechnology

The Remotely Accessible Instruments in Nanotechnology (RAIN) initiative gives students across the U.S.and the worldthe chance to control and view nanotechnology instruments that aren't available at their home schools

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Colleges, universities, and schools across the U.S. are sharing millions of dollars of nanotechnology instrumentation for training future high-tech workers using streaming media. The National Science Foundation estimates that 6 million nanotechnology workers will be needed worldwide by 2020. Two million of those workers will be needed in the United States alone. The Remotely Accessible Instruments for Nanotechnology (RAIN) network is on the leading edge of providing a proven method for disseminating the education necessary to train students in the toolsets and technologies needed for continued growth of the U.S. nanotechnology sector.

For engineers and scientists, nanotechnology is likely a familiar term. For the layperson, it can be a bit confusing. The nanometer is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one billionth of a meter (0.000000001 m). In a nutshell, nanotechnology deals with the fabrication, analysis, and production of very small structures in electronics, biotechnology, medicine, and untold consumer goods. Nanotechnology is impacting nearly every market sector. For example, Intels 7th Generation Intel Core i7 microprocessors have a feature size of 14 nanometers built on the semiconductor. The capability to create useful features at this size scale permits the 1.5 billion transistors to be fabricated on a silicon substrate. Without applied nanotechnology there would be no smartphones, no laptops or tablets, and certainly no mobile streaming capability available in the handheld devices we all use today. As important as nanotechnology is to the electronics sector, it may be even more life-changing in the areas of medicine and common consumer goods. Nanotechnology is the common denominator in solar panels, new medicines for the treatment and possible cure of cancer, cosmetics, clothes that never need cleaning, and the protective coatings on both your eyeglasses and the wheels of your new car.

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) began in 2000 as a U.S. government research and development initiative involving the nanotechnology-related activities of 20 federal departments and numerous independent partners. More information available at Nano.gov. The2017Federal Budgethas allocated more than $1.4 billion for the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) programs. The total NNI investment since fiscal year 2001, including the 2017 request, now approaches nearly $24 billion. Nanotechnology represents applications that will cause a revolution in industries and technologies on a worldwide scale that will change the way we live on our planet. It is often stated that countries that do not embrace nanotechnology may be the unfortunate victims of a future failed economy. RAIN is preparing our future workers for great jobs in a growing market segment.

The author working with students at Pennsylvania State University

The RAIN offers a clear outline of its goals in its mission statement: The RAIN program engages the next generation STEM workforce (technicians, technologists, engineers, educators and scientists) in their day-to-day classrooms with a connection to experts and tools in labs at institutions where cutting-edge research is being performed. The need for this program is particularly the case for underrepresented and minority learners, and institutions that cant provide ready access to specialized facilities, tools, and expertise required for the study of nanoscale science, which is why most centers (e.g. Penn State, CNEU) offer this service free of charge.

The RAIN network began at the Pennsylvania State University and is currently led by nanotechnology evangelist Robert Ehrmann. He has been instrumental in providing the leadership for the initial project and the continued growth the network is experiencing. Assisted by nanotechnology professors and graduate students at the university many of their tools are remotely accessible from educational institutions around the world. Dr. Ozgur Cakmak leads the day-to-day operation and connections at Penn State and has even conducted a remote session with his high school alma mater in Turkey.

My first experience with the RAIN network was as an attendee at the Hands-on Introduction to Nanotechnology Workshop presented by the Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization (CNEU) at Penn State University. There I saw a scanning electron microscope (SEM), an atomic force microscope (AFM), and other tools that were networked and controllable by students at remote sites using readily available remote sharing and streaming software. I subsequently became a member of the newly created Nanotechnology department at Erie Community College. Our first remotely accessible instrument was also a scanning electron microscope operated by our technician Rich Hill. He regularly conducts remote sessions with students and teachers across several states. With an internet connection and a small software installation, students at remote sites can take control of our SEM to view biological samples, semiconductor circuits, and perform elemental analysis of samples at thousands of times magnification. The students have full two-way voice communication and are guided through the session by our technician. These sessions provide a tremendous opportunity to engage students with technology that their schools could likely not afford nor have the expertise to operate themselves. We provide a unique opportunity to engage students and show them the possibilities of nanotechnology careers.

Currently there are 10 sites in the RAIN network, with more sites in the continental United States coming online in the near future. Each of the partner sites has at least one remotely accessible instrument and over half have four to six instruments available for remote connections.

The current partners include the following schools:

Remote sessions are requested and scheduled via an online form and any of the partner sites can be requested from anywhere in the country. A test session is usually scheduled for first-time requests to assure the remote site has properly installed the videoconferencing software. Depending on the instrument and the partner site requested, the remote site will need to install either Team Viewer or Zoom. Both are free to download and use for the remote site. In-house samples can be used, or the remote site can send in samples they wish to view to the host site. Live sessions are then conductedl they can last from 15 minutes to 2 hours depending on the instruments used. Remote sites usually display the instrument video on video projectors for class use with two-way audio. The host site technician is always available to assist in the explanation of what the students are viewing and for changing samples for additional viewing.

At the Micro and Nanotechnology Conference held at North Seattle College, the RAIN leadership team concurrently connected to six of the network host sites as a demonstration of the network capabilities and available instruments for conference attendees. Through 2016 more than 1,700 remote sessions were conducted by RAIN host sites to remote sites in most of the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Additionally, international sessions were conducted to Turkey, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. More than a quarter of the remote sites had 25 or more student participants. Two-year colleges accounted for 37% of the participants, followed by high schools with 30%, and four-year colleges at 17%. Moret han half of the remote sites are already teaching some type of nanotechnology curriculum but lack local access to the instrumentation. The most requested instrumentation were the electron-based microscopy tools and most of the responses indicated that the primary reason for conducting the remote session was to teach students the fundamental use of the equipment and learn more about the field of nanotechnology. Eighty-five percent of the remote site instructors stated that their students could not have had this type of experience without the RAIN network, and more than 97% stated that they would like to conduct additional remote access sessions.

Erie Community College is just completing a new Center for Nanotechnology Studies in Williamsville, New York. The new facility will house a 1,600 square foot ISO 7 cleanroom for nanotechnology experiments, fabrication, and analysis of nano materials. In order to significantly increase our streaming capabilities, 12 high-definition PTZ cameras are mounted throughout the cleanroom for streaming laboratory demonstrations anywhere in the world. Network connections are available at every workstation to connect our instrumentation to the RAIN network for hosting remote sessions. We are currently hosting up to four remote sessions per week and we expect to greatly increase our connections in the near future.

RAIN is growing into a large national and international network of educational institutions providing leading-edge nanotechnology education for the visionaries and entrepreneurs of the future. All of the RAIN network partners are eager to share our technology and bring more hosts and remote sites into the network.

For more information and to schedule a remote session please contact the RAIN Network. At the website you will find introductory videos, information on the tools available, partner site information, a gallery of some of the nano-scale images, and a quarterly NANOWIRE newsletter.

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5 Top Nanotechnology Stocks to Buy – Motley Fool

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Scientists like to joke that realizing the promise of nanotechnology has been five years away for the last 35 years. That would imply that there isn't a single nanotech stock available to investors. But while we don't yet have quantum lightbulbs or graphene-based water desalination, this list of nanotechnology stocks proves that nanotech products actually touch our lives every day:

Company

Market Cap

2016 Revenue

Dividend Yield

Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO)

$68.9 billion

$18.3 billion

0.3%

BASF (NASDAQOTH:BASFY)

$84.6 billion

$57.6 billion

3.6%

PPG Industries (NYSE:PPG)

$28.3 billion

$14.7 billion

1.1%

Chemours Co. (NYSE:CC)

$7.5 billion

$5.4 billion

0.3%

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)

$163.8 billion

$59.4 billion

3.2%

Data Source: Google Finance.

You may not think "nanotech" when you see the big names in the list above, but a closer look reveals how they're leading the evolution of the field.

Image source: Getty Images.

First, let's start with a simple question investors might want to ask: What is a nanomaterial? There's no universally accepted definition, but regulators around the world have generally defined a nanomaterial as a product that (1) has at least one dimension of 100 nanometers or smaller and (2) gains unique properties from that dimension. The second part of the definition is often forgotten, but it's what gives such tremendous potential to nanotechnology.

Some materials become more magnetic or better able to kill pathogens at the nanoscale, while others can access different physical phases entirely. It all depends on the material, which is what guides applications and product development for the top nanotechnology stocks.

All that research and development needs equipment, reagents, and services -- all of which are provided by Thermo Fisher Scientific. The company is most closely associated with life-sciences research, a growing area of the nanotechnology field. Whether enhancing MRI contrast agents or using DNA origami to build nanostructures that deliver therapeutics to specific locations in the body, the company has played a pivotal role spurring innovation from the earliest stages of research.

TMO data by YCharts.

Last summer Thermo Fisher Scientific boosted its ability to serve the nanotechnology field by acquiring FEI Company for $4.2 billion, incorporating high-powered transmission electron microscopes (TEM) -- the only way to image nanomaterials such as metals, living cells, and semiconductors -- into its expanding empire of analytical lab services. In case investors are wondering how it's going, fully 90% of the company's backlog increase from 2015 to 2016 comprised rising orders for analytical instruments. Only 20% of total sales last year came from the segment.

Of course, the point of R&D is to turn discoveries in the lab into real products. How else would companies make money from nanotech? It may not always be obvious, but you use products enhanced with nanomaterials each and every day. Here are a few examples:

Nanotechnology isn't usually associated with these businesses -- it's just part of the table stakes for competing in today's coatings and microchip industries -- and doesn't comprise a majority of product sales for most companies. Chemours Co. may be the sole exception, as it derived 43% of total sales last year from titanium dioxide, and another 42% from fluoroproducts such as nonstick Teflon coatings.

Still, these companies are the best nanotechnology stocks to buy today. Furthermore, they have the size and financial flexibility to make big moves quickly, should major advances allow the field of nanotechnology to deliver on its science-fiction-like potential.

Maxx Chatsko has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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5 Top Nanotechnology Stocks to Buy - Motley Fool

Canada Intends to Publish Nanoscale Prioritization Results in 2018 – Nanotechnology News

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Home > Nanotechnology Columns > Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. > Canada Intends to Publish Nanoscale Prioritization Results in 2018

Abstract: According to the July 7, 2017, issue of the Chemicals Management Plan Progress Report, Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada are in the process of prioritizing nanoscale forms of substances on the Domestic Substances List.

July 10th, 2017

According to the July 7, 2017, issue of the Chemicals Management Plan Progress Report, Health Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada are in the process of prioritizing nanoscale forms of substances on the Domestic Substances List. See http://www.ec.gc.ca/ese-ees/default.asp?lang=En&n=6044455E-1 As reported in our July 27, 2015, blog item, Canada conducted a mandatory information-gathering survey under Section 71 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. See http://nanotech.lawbc.com/2015/07/canada-begins-mandatory-survey-with-respect-to-certain-nanomaterials-in-canadian-commerce/ Canada states that the survey identified 53 substances as being manufactured and/or imported at the nanoscale in Canada. Canada expects to publish the results of prioritization in spring 2018. According to the item, Canada is working towards developing a scientific risk assessment framework for nanomaterials, and continues to work with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to promote consistency with other jurisdictions. The goal of Canada's initiative is to identify the potential risks to human health and the environment that may be posed by nanomaterials in commerce in Canada.

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Nature-inspired material uses liquid reinforcement – Phys.Org

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July 10, 2017 Nature inspired the design of silicone and gallium composites created in Rice Universitys the Nanomaterials Laboratory. Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

Materials scientists at Rice University are looking to natureat the discs in human spines and the skin in ocean-diving fish, for examplefor clues about designing materials with seemingly contradictory propertiesflexibility and stiffness.

In research appearing online in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces, graduate student Peter Owuor, research scientist Chandra Sekhar Tiwary and colleagues from the laboratories of Rice Professor Pulickel Ajayan and Jun Lou found they could increase the stiffness, or "elastic modulus," of a soft silicon-based polymer by infusing it with tiny pockets of liquid gallium.

Such composites could find use in high-energy absorption materials and shock absorbers and in biomimetic structures like artificial intervertebral discs, they said.

Owuor said conventional wisdom in composite design for the past 60 years has been that adding a harder substance increases modulus and adding a softer one decreases modulus. In most instances, that's correct.

"People had not really looked at it from the other way around," he said. "Is it possible to add something soft inside something else that is also soft and get something that has a higher modulus? If you look at the natural world, there are plenty of examples where you find exactly that. As materials scientists, we wanted to study this, not from a biological perspective but rather from a mechanical one."

For example, the discs between the vertebrae in human spines, which act like both shock absorbers and ligaments, are made of a tough outer layer of cartilage and a soft, jelly-like interior. And the outer skin of deep-diving ocean fish and mammals contain myriad tiny oil-filled chamberssome no larger than a virus and others larger than entire cellsthat allow the animals to withstand the intense pressures that exist thousands of feet below the ocean's surface.

Choosing the basic materials to model these living systems was relatively easy, but finding a way to bring them together to mimic nature proved difficult, said Tiwary, a postdoctoral research associate in Rice's Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering.

Polydimethylsiloxane, or PDMS, was chosen as the soft encapsulating layer for a number of reasons: It's cheap, inert, nontoxic and widely used in everything from caulk and aquarium sealants to cosmetics and food additives. It also dries clear, which made it easy to see the bubbles of liquid the team wanted to encapsulate. For that, the researchers chose gallium, which like mercury is liquid at room temperature, but unlike mercury is nontoxic and relatively easy to work with.

Owuor said it took nearly four months to find a recipe for encapsulating bubbles of gallium inside PDMS. His test samples are about the diameter of a small coin and as much as a quarter-inch thick. By curing the PDMS slowly, Owuor developed a process by which he could add gallium droplets of various sizes. Some samples contained one large inner chamber, and others contained up to a dozen discrete droplets.

Each sample was subjected to dozens of tests. A dynamic mechanical analysis instrument was used to measure how much the material deformed under load, and various measures like stiffness, toughness and elasticity were measured under a variety of conditions. For example, with a relatively small amount of cooling, gallium can be turned into a solid. So the team was able to compare some measurements taken when the gallium spheres were liquid with measures taken when the spheres were solid.

Collaborators Roy Mahapatra and Shashishekarayya Hiremath of the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore used finite element modeling and hydrodynamic simulations to help the team analyze how the materials behaved under mechanical stress. Based on this, the researchers determined that pockets of liquid gallium gave the composite higher energy absorption and dissipation characteristics than plain PDMS or PDMS with air-filled pockets.

"What we've shown is that putting liquid inside a solid is not always going to make it softer, and thanks to our collaborators we are able to explain why this is the case," Tiwary said. "Next we hope to use this understanding to try to engineer materials to take advantage of these properties."

Owuor and Tiwary said just using nanoengineering alone may not provide a maximum effect. Instead, nature employs hierarchical structures with features of varying sizes that repeat at larger scales, like those found in the oil-filled chambers in fish skin.

"If you look at (the fish's) membrane and you section it, there is a layer where you have spheres with big diameters, and as you move, the diameters keep decreasing," Owuor said. "The chambers are seen across the whole scale, from the nano- all the way out to the microscale.

Tiwary said, "There are important nanoscale features in nature, but it's not all nano. We may find that engineering at the nanoscale alone isn't enough. We want to see if we can start designing in a hierarchical way."

Explore further: Self-adaptive material heals itself, stays tough

More information: Peter Samora Owuor et al. Nature Inspired Strategy to Enhance Mechanical Properties via Liquid Reinforcement, Advanced Materials Interfaces (2017). DOI: 10.1002/admi.201700240

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Jonathan Boreyko turned on the defroster in his car one cold winter morning and waited for the ice on the windshield to melt. And kept waiting.

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Scientists manipulate light to make flat surfaces appear as 3-D objects – Phys.Org

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July 6, 2017 by David Lewis Credit: ACS

Scientists have created new 2-D nanostructured surfaces which appear as realistic 3-D objects including shading and shadows - using cutting edge nano-engineering.

The research was carried out by King's College London alongside Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitt Bonn, and is published in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.

When light hits an object, the colour, texture, and shape affect how light is absorbed and reflected, allowing you to make out the object in front of you. By altering the surface to change how light is reflected, it is possible to manipulate how it appears.

The researchers developed layered materials, incorporating precisely designed nano-features smaller than the wavelength of light, called metasurfaces. This allowed them to control how light is reflected in highly precise ways, so that a 2-D surface reflects light just as a 3-D object would.

Borrowing a technique from 3-D computer graphics called Normal Mapping, researchers encoded shadow effects into the image, creating 3-D images more realistic than holograms or 3-D cinema. As a proof of concept, the researchers fabricated a flat metasurface imitating lighting and shading effects of a 3-D cube.

Changing the way we see light

The technique could have huge implications for the optical industries, including in TV screens and photography, as well as in security labels for protecting goods and banknotes from counterfeiting.

Professor Anatoly Zayats of King's College says: "Metasurfaces are amazing. They open up unprecedented freedom in directing and manipulating light. One might ultimately imagine a TV screen which appears exactly the same as you move around it, or a new movement of 3-D art."

The ability to control light could bring new functionality to small camera lenses. A flat surface can be made to appear optically convex by designing appropriate metasurface properties. Future generations of smartphone cameras could use the tiny flat metasurfaces which mimic the properties of sophisticated curved camera lenses, allowing much greater control of angle and depth field.

Metasurfaces could also replace heavy optical lenses in applications such as satellites, where weight and size have a big impact on efficiency.

More immediately, the novel nano-materials can already be used to create unique complex 3-D images for security and anti-counterfeiting applications, as well as for new measurement applications requiring precise control of light.

Much more than a hologram

Unlike holograms, which require a coherent light source such as a laser to be viewed, these surfaces manipulate the reflection of normal light so they appear as a realistic 3-D object in any light condition and from any angle.

Existing holographic approaches rely on 'specular reection' ie the light coming from a particular direction is reflected in a unique outgoing direction, as with a mirror. In order to achieve dynamic light shading eects, a metasurface design involves 'diuse reection' which allows control of its scattering properties so that the image can be seen directly on it.

For the proof of concept, the researchers designed a cube using the normal mapping technique, which was encoded into the metasurface. When illuminated, the metasurface instantaneously "computes" how a 3-D representation of the image should look and displays it.

Dr Alexander Minovich, The Royal Society Newton International Fellow at King's College London, said: "The normal mapping demonstrated with our metasurface is a completely new concept, but it could have very important implications for a wide range of optical industries, both in introducing new functionality and making products smaller and lighter."

Explore further: Electrically tunable metasurfaces pave the way toward dynamic holograms

More information: Alexander E. Minovich et al. Reflective Metasurfaces for Incoherent Light To Bring Computer Graphics Tricks to Optical Systems, Nano Letters (2017). DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b01003

Journal reference: Nano Letters

Provided by: King's College London

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In today's increasingly powerful electronics, tiny materials are a must as manufacturers seek to increase performance without adding bulk.

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So I guess 3D movies and tv without glasses may be coming soon.

It could be also utilized for breasts and another organs visual enlargement. I think.

First they are going to have to make the meta material 'changeable' on the fly, otherwise it will only be useful for still images.

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Scientists manipulate light to make flat surfaces appear as 3-D objects - Phys.Org

Powerful new photodetector can enable optoelectronics advances – Phys.Org

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July 7, 2017 by Renee Meiller Shrinking photodetectors like this one, created and tested in the laboratory of UW-Madison engineering Professor Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma, help make consumer electronics smaller. Credit: Stephanie Precourt/UW-Madison

In today's increasingly powerful electronics, tiny materials are a must as manufacturers seek to increase performance without adding bulk.

Smaller also is better for optoelectronic deviceslike camera sensors or solar cellswhich collect light and convert it to electrical energy. Think, for example, about reducing the size and weight of a series of solar panels, producing a higher-quality photo in low lighting conditions, or even transmitting data more quickly.

However, two major challenges have stood in the way: First, shrinking the size of conventionally used "amorphous" thin-film materials also reduces their quality. And second, when ultrathin materials become too thin, they become almost transparent and actually lose some ability to gather or absorb light.

Now, in a nanoscale photodetector that combines a unique fabrication method and light-trapping structures, a team of engineers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University at Buffalo has overcome both of those obstacles.

The researcherselectrical engineering professors Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma and Zongfu Yu at UW-Madison and Qiaoqiang Gan at Buffalodescribed their device, a single-crystalline germanium nano-membrane photodetector on a nano-cavity substrate, today (July 7, 2017) in the journal Science Advances.

"The idea, basically, is you want to use a very thin material to realize the same function of devices in which you need to use a very thick material," says Ma.

The device consists of nano-cavities sandwiched between a top layer of ultrathin single-crystal germanium and a reflecting layer of silver.

"Because of the nano-cavities, the photons are 'recycled' so light absorption is substantially increasedeven in very thin layers of material," says Ma.

Nano-cavities are made up of an orderly series of tiny, interconnected molecules that essentially reflect, or circulate, light. Gan already has shown that his nano-cavity structures increase the amount of light that thin semiconducting materials like germanium can absorb.

However, most germanium thin films begin as germanium in its amorphous formmeaning the material's atomic arrangement lacks the regular, repeating order of a crystal. That also means its quality isn't sufficient for increasingly smaller optoelectronics applications.

That's where Ma's expertise comes into play. A world expert in semiconductor nano-membrane devices, Ma used a revolutionary membrane-transfer technology that allows him to easily integrate single crystalline semiconducting materials onto a substrate.

The result is a very thin, yet very effective, light-absorbing photodetectora building block for the future of optoelectronics.

"It is an enabling technology that allows you to look at a wide variety of optoelectronics that can go to even smaller footprints, smaller sizes," says Yu, who conducted computational analysis of the detectors.

While the researchers demonstrated their advance using a germanium semiconductor, they also can apply their method to other semiconductors.

"And importantly, by tuning the nano-cavity, we can control what wavelength we actually absorb," says Gan. "This will open the way to develop lots of different optoelectronic devices."

Explore further: This 'nanocavity' may improve ultrathin solar panels, video cameras and more

More information: "Single-crystalline germanium nanomembrane photodetectors on foreign nanocavities" Science Advances (2017). advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1602783

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In today's increasingly powerful electronics, tiny materials are a must as manufacturers seek to increase performance without adding bulk.

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Powerful new photodetector can enable optoelectronics advances - Phys.Org