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Using tiny wires and fishnet structures, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found new ways to bend light backward, something that never occurs in nature.

This technology could lead to microscopes able to peer more deeply and clearly into living cells. And the same kind of structures might one day be adapted to bend light in other unnatural ways, creating a Harry Potter-like invisibility cloak. “This is definitely a big step toward that idea,” said Jason Valentine, a graduate student and a lead author of a paper to be published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. But scientists are still far from designing and manufacturing such a cloak.

The work involves materials that have a property known as negative refraction, which means that they essentially bend light backward. Once thought to be pure fantasies, these substances, called metamaterials, have been constructed in recent years, and scientists have shown they can bend long-wavelength microwaves.

Negative refractive materials can in principle lead to fantastical illusions; someone looking down at a fish in a pool of negative refractive liquid would see the fish swimming in the air above.

Two separate advances are described in two scientific papers being published this week, one demonstrating negative refraction at infrared and visible wavelengths. The second article will be published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science. Both papers come out of the research laboratory of Xiang Zhang, a professor at the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center in Berkeley.

When a ray of light crosses the boundary from air to water, glass or other transparent material, it bends, and the degree of bending is determined by a property known as the index of refraction. Transparent materials like glass, water and diamonds all have an index of 1 or higher for visible light, meaning that when the light enters, its path bends toward an imaginary line perpendicular to the surface.

With the engineered metamaterials, scientists can create refractive indices less than 1 or even negative. Light entering a material with a negative index of refraction would take a sharp turn, almost as if it had bounced off the imaginary perpendicular line.

In the Nature paper, the Berkeley researchers created a fishnet structure with 21 layers, alternating between a metal and magnesium fluoride, resulting in a metamaterial with a negative index of refraction for infrared light. The researchers said by making the fishnet structure even smaller, they should be able to do the same with visible light.

In the Science paper, a different group of scientists in Dr. Zhang’s laboratory used a different approach, building an array of minuscule upright wires, which changed the electric fields of passing light waves. That structure was able to bend visible red light.

Dr. Zhang said both approaches had advantages and disadvantages. “There are many roads to Rome,” he said. “At this point, honestly speaking, we don’t know which road will be the best.”

One application of negative index materials could be a “superlens.” Light is usually thought of as having undulating waves. But much closer up, light is a much more jumbled mess, with the waves mixed in with more complicated “evanescent waves.”

The evanescent waves quickly dissipate as they travel, and thus are usually not seen. A negative refraction lens actually amplifies the evanescent waves, preserving detail lost in conventional optics, and the hope is to eventually build an optical microscope that could make out tiny biological structures like individual viruses.

Source link: NYTimes.com

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WASHINGTON - Tiny foreign mussels assault drinking water sources in California and Nevada. A deadly fish virus spreads swiftly through the Great Lakes and beyond. Japanese shore crabs make a home for themselves in Long Island Sound, more than 6,000 miles away.

These are no exotic seafood delicacies. They're a menace to U.S. drinking water supplies, native plants and animals, and they cost billions to contain.

Yet Congress is moving to address the problem at the pace of a plain old garden snail.

With time for passing laws rapidly diminishing in this election year, two powerful Senate committee chairmen are at loggerheads over legislation to set the first federal clean-up standards for the large oceangoing ships on which aquatic invasive species hitch a ride to U.S. shores.

The dispute is between Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Boxer is blocking a clean-up bill passed by Inouye's committee over concerns it would pre-empt stronger standards in California and a handful of other states; Inouye believes a single national standard is needed. Boxer also insists the clean-up program be governed in part by the Clean Water Act — which would give environmental groups the right to sue to enforce it — while Inouye's bill keeps the program in the hands of the Coast Guard.

Similar clean-up legislation has already passed the House, but advocates on both sides are pessimistic about breaking the impasse before Congress finishes up work for the year.

Experts say there's no time to waste.

"We are working against the clock, not just politically but out there in the real world, because every year that passes we get more invasions and those invasions stay forever," said Jennifer Nalbone, invasive species campaign director for Great Lakes United.

It's "clearly a national crisis," Nalbone said.

Most aquatic invasive species travel in the ballast water that large ships take on for balance when they're not carrying cargo. Ballast water picked up near Japan and dumped off the coast of California, for example, can bring with it hundreds of foreign species ranging from microscopic bacteria to weeds, fish, crabs and mussels.

Some of these new arrivals establish themselves quickly, and with devastating effect.

Among the best-known cases: Little quagga and zebra mussels from Eastern Europe were discovered in the Great Lakes two decades ago, likely having boarded ships from Europe. In the first six years after their arrival the creatures wreaked as much as $500 million in damage on the regional economy, clogging water intake pipes and gobbling algae at the base of the aquatic food chain.

Then the mussels began to spread, making their way to Lake Mead in Nevada, where they were discovered just last year, and to Southern California. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California anticipates spending upward of $15 million annually just to quell quagga mussel infestations in its Colorado River aqueducts.

There's agreement that the current method for dealing with aquatic invasive species is inadequate. Under Coast Guard oversight, ships are supposed to dump out their ballast water 200 miles from U.S. shores and take on new water. This is meant to wash out invasive species along for the ride.

But the program is not closely enforced, and not all invasive species are eliminated, since some just sink to the bottom of the tank and don't wash out.

"By the time the ship finally makes it into shore most of what you got rid of will have regrown," said Joel Mandelman, vice president and general counsel of Nutech 03, Inc., a company working on technology to clean ballast water by blasting it with ozone. And "you don't know what new or additional invasive species you'll pick up."

The pending legislation would set standards for how many invasive organisms can be in ballast water when it arrives in port. That's meant to drive development of technology such as Mandelman's that would clean ballast water directly.

"There is no doubt that ballast water legislation that stems the tide of invasive species entering our waters from ships needs to be passed immediately," Inouye said through a spokesman. He declined to comment directly on Boxer's opposition, but said he was "disappointed that we have not yet been able to move this bill out of the Senate."

Under Senate procedures, opposition from a single senator is enough to stop a bill. But Boxer said in an interview that she still hoped for a deal.

"I think we can make this work, and all I care about is the end result," Boxer said. "And I'm here for one reason — I've got to protect the health of the people I represent."

But Inouye doesn't support letting states set their own standards stricter than federal rules, as Boxer insists upon. For the shipping industry and companies working on ballast water technology, that's a nonstarter. They say they need a uniform standard to build to.

Leading environmental groups including the National Wildlife Federation are behind the federal legislation, saying it's important to put strong, national standards in place now. But the Natural Resources Defense Council and others prefer the status quo, especially after environmentalists won a federal appeals court ruling in July that requires the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate ballast water discharge under the Clean Water Act.

The EPA is finalizing a permit that enshrines the Coast Guard procedure already in place — ballast water exchange 200 miles offshore. Supporters of federal legislation say that's much too weak, but opponents view the ruling as a starting point that will allow states to maintain existing programs, and give environmentalists the right to sue for stronger rules going forward.

Source: YN

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As slim as a spaghetti noodle and able to fit snugly on a U.S. quarter, a new species of snake has been found hiding out in a forest on Barbados. The reptilian runt is now the world's smallest snake.

Blair Hedges, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State, discovered the snake, which just under four inches (10 cm) in length as an adult, in a fragment of forest on the eastern side of Barbados.

Hedges analyzed genetic material from the snake, which along with physical characteristics such as its unique color patterns and scales, provided evidence that the snake was indeed a new species of threadsnake, now dubbed Leptotyphlops carlae.

"Snakes may be prevented by natural selection from becoming too small because, below a certain size, there may be nothing for their young to eat," Hedges said.

The Barbados snake, like its relatives, likely feeds primarily on the larvae of ants and termites.

Like other members of the "small" club, L. carlae only produces one offspring at a time, in this case a single slender egg (some other snakes give birth to live young). In addition, its young are giants relatively speaking. In general, the hatchlings of the smallest snakes are one-half the length of an adult, while the largest snakes have hatchlings that are only one-tenth the length of an adult.

For instance, the hatchling of a king cobra, which can reach a length of 18 feet (5.5 meters), can be as long as about 14 inches (36 cm).

"If a tiny snake were to have two offspring, each egg could occupy only half the space that is devoted to reproduction within its body," Hedges said. "But then each of the two hatchlings would be half the normal size, perhaps too small to function as a snake or in the environment."

He added, "The fact that tiny snakes produce only one massive egg - relative to the size of the mother - suggests that natural selection is trying to keep the size of hatchlings above a critical limit in order to survive."

Hedges describes the new species in the Aug. 4 issue of the journal Zootaxa, where he also notes another new snake he discovered on the nearby island of St. Lucia. Also a type of threadsnake, the new species is just about as small as the Barbados one.

The finding doesn't surprise Hedges, who explains how unique organisms tend to be found on islands where species can evolve over time to fill the little nooks and crannies that are available as places to live, or to consume perhaps foodstuffs and other resources, unoccupied by other organisms.

Source: LiveScience.com

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SETI Institute planetary astronomer Mark Showalter is rabid about rings.

Showalter directs the Planetary Rings Node of NASA's Planetary Data System. Anyone looking for information on planetary rings comes to Showalter's website here at the SETI Institute. Mark manages the rings node and continues to pursue his research interests from the ground and in space.

While everyone knows about Saturn's spectacular ring system, it's often forgotten that Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune are also encircled by fainter and narrower rings. Each of these systems interacts closely with a family of small, inner moons. Showalter works on some of NASA's highest-profile missions to the outer planets, including Cassini, now orbiting Saturn, and New Horizons, which recently flew past Jupiter en route to its 2015 encounter with Pluto. Known for his persistence in planetary image analysis, Mark's work on the earlier Voyager missions led to his discovery of Jupiter's faint, outer "gossamer" rings and Saturn's tiny ring-moon, Pan.

Mark splits his observing time between NASA space probes and Earth-based telescopes. He has been a frequent investigator with the Hubble Space Telescope. Since 2002, he has been leading a team of astronomers studying the planet Uranus. His discovery of two small moons — Cupid and Mab — and two additional faint rings orbiting that distant planet received national attention in 2006.

On the ground, Mark observes with the 10-meter Keck Telescope in Hawaii, where the new adaptive optics system has begun to rival and sometimes surpass Hubble in the clarity of its images. He will soon be turning his attention farther outward to Neptune, which is encircled by a peculiar family of rings, moons and incomplete arcs. These were studied by the Voyager spacecraft in 1989, but have been observed only a few times since then. Rings and the faint moons that interact with them are more than just local anomalies. They serve as dynamic laboratories where we can observe some of the same processes that operate, albeit on much larger scales, in galaxies and during the formation of planetary systems.

Adopt a Scientist: Mark Showalter

The best part of Mark's job is that he can come to work in the morning not knowing what new discovery might be awaiting him in the latest data.

He welcomes the opportunity to share this spirit of discovery with interested individuals or small groups. Watch over his shoulder as he processes the latest data and be among the first to see features that have never before been revealed to human eyes.

Mark isn't just rabid about rings. As an avid scuba diver, amateur naturalist and award-winning photographer, he spends his vacations exploring the diversity of life on Earth in its most distant and exotic and underwater environments. He has dived everywhere from Alaska to Australia, the Galapagos Islands, the Red Sea, and throughout the Caribbean and South Pacific.

As a different kind of journey of discovery, we invite experienced scuba divers on an expedition to a destination of their choice. Work with Mark to understand more about environments and life forms as we prepare for the trip, and then compare notes after each dive. Such a trip would also afford ample "down time" to explore Mark's other passion, photography, so we can examine the latest images from the heavens above when we're not focused on the oceans below.

The SETI Institute's Adopt a Scientist Program

Anyone can adopt a SETI Institute scientist and become part of the adventure!

Each of our scientists offers a compelling journey of discovery. When you adopt a scientist, you help lead the way towards answering profound questions regarding our place in the universe. You can form a one-on-one relationship and participate in the process of ground-breaking science with any number of our institute's scientists. In an effort to ensure that this vital research continues to prosper, our Adopt a Scientist Program invites you to make a direct contribution to the field.

There are many levels of commitment. For more information on the Adopt a Scientist program or to adopt a scientist, visit our website at http://www.seti.org/AdoptAScientist/ . Or email Karen Randall at krandall@seti.org or call 650-960-4537.

Source: YN

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TOKYO (AFP) - An environmental group in Japan said Wednesday it is planning to hold what it hopes will be the world's largest clean-up, bringing 180,000 volunteers together to pick up trash.

U-Project, a private group based in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo, said they were calling on citizens to join in the clean-up around Tokyo Bay on November 24.

"We are expecting at least 10 percent of the population of nine cities and towns in the prefecture in which we are calling for cooperation, which is about 180,000 people," said Ai Ueda, a staff member of U-Project.

"Our group started picking up trash on Sundays with just about 20 people, but now there are about 400 people who join our regular clean-up rally on Sundays," she said.

"We want to expand our movement to the whole prefecture," she added.

Guinness World Records currently lists the largest clean-up as a gathering in August 2005 in which more than 140,000 people took part in the southern Japanese prefecture of Oita.

"It's not about competition. It's about sharing goodwill, and it's about enjoying a nice feeling coming not only from picking up trash but also from working together and saying hello to passers-by," she said.

Source: YN

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LAKE BAIKAL, Russia (AFP) - A Russian mini-submarine reached the bottom of Lake Baikal at a depth of 1,680 metres (5,512 feet) on Tuesday, setting a record for the deepest dive in a lake, expedition organisers said.

The scientific expedition is being organised by Artur Chilingarov, a pro-Kremlin member of parliament and an Arctic explorer who led the team that planted a flag at the bottom of the North Pole in August last year.

Chilingarov, who boasts of enjoying the "full support" of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, spent Monday inspecting the mission's ship, anchored at Tourka and carrying the Mir-1 and Mir-2 submarine pods which, weather permitting, will head for the 1,637-metre (5,402 feet) bed of the lake, near Siberia's southern borders with Mongolia and China.

Source: YN

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By 2015, 17 percent of the residents of the United States will be getting cosmetic procedures, the body enhancement industry predicts.

A new study published by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) predicts there will be more than 55 million cosmetic surgery procedures performed in 2015. That's nearly one procedure for every five Americans, including children, based on U.S. Census Bureau population projections. Of course, the bulk of procedures are done on adults, and some people might get more than one body part fixed in a year.

The industry is well aware of what is driving all this: "Pushing this growth is increasing consumer awareness, direct-to-consumer marketing and advertising, as well as technological advances in non-surgical options," the group said in a statement today.

In 2007, Americans spent more than $13 billion for nearly 11.7 million cosmetic procedures. That's up from nearly 8.5 million procedures in 2001.

Sales sag

Thanks to the bad economy, times are tough in human body shops right now, however.

"While today's economy reflects a slow-down in plastic surgery procedures, the specialty will weather the current decline in economic growth just as it has previous declines, such as the stock market correction after the 2001 Internet bubble," said ASPS President Richard D'Amico, MD. "This prediction for 2015 is exciting."

Some caution might be in order before the nation plunges head-long into fulfilling the industry's expectations.

"Our concern is that with predicted growth and interest in the broad spectrum of cosmetic procedures, patients will look to the closest, easiest solution," said D'Amico. "Potential patients, however, need to know that board-certified plastic surgeons are uniquely qualified with an in-depth medical knowledge of the entire human body. They have the training necessary to accurately assess your individual needs and map health and beauty goals for your entire lifetime."

The study was based on annual ASPS National Clearinghouse of Plastic Surgery statistics from 1992-2005. The researchers also analyzed the impact of economic and non-economic variables on industry growth.

What's hot?

Women's top-five cosmetic surgical procedures for 2007:

• Breast augmentation: 399,440 procedures
• Liposuction: 398,848
• Eyelid surgery: 208,199

Men's top-five cosmetic surgical procedures for 2007:

• Liposuction: 57,980 procedures
• Eyelid surgery: 32,564
• Nose reshaping: 31,713

In 2005, 34 percent of all procedures performed by ASPS Member Surgeons were surgical and 66 percent were non-surgical, the new study finds. Also in 2005, for non-ASPS members 9.5 percent of their procedures were surgical, while 90.5 percent were non-surgical.

But non-surgical procedures grew 27.9 percent between 1992 and 2005, while surgical procedures grew just 7.5 percent.

The No. 1 non-surgical cosmetic procedure for U.S. men and women last year was Botox injection. By 2015, the researchers predict that 88 percent of all cosmetic procedures will be non-surgical.

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Scientists at the Ecole Superieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles in Sheboygan, Wisconsin—wait, I mean Paris, France—have created a new kind of rubber that can bind back together after being broken in two.

The material is in part a mix of vegetable oil and a derivative of urine; the magic comes in the bonds between the molecules which make it up. The scientists switched from strong covalent bonds to weaker hydrogen ones, which enable the quick repair. The stuff is a lot like normal rubber in that it can be stretched to several times its normal length, but if you cut it in half, then hold it together for a few minutes, it’s restored to its original state, and you can bend and pull it again like regular rubber.

Scientists envision numerous applications, including clothes that repair themselves after ripping, self-healing cartilage and even unbreakable children’s toys. The work is described in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

Source: www.popsci.com

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What do you do with the world’s biggest, highest-intensity laser system? Well, for starters, you could blast the nuclei of hydrogen atoms and transform their mass into energy in a reaction that rivals the force and temperature of an exploding nuclear warhead. The lasers are at the heart of the National Ignition Facility, a government project in Livermore, Calif., that you may have seen some hot shots of on the Web this week.

But these brilliant beams are currently undergoing live-fire testing before beginning operations next year, and Popular Mechanics got its hands on these exclusive images of the NIF chamber actually in use. The stadium-size building houses 192 lasers, each producing a 16-in.-wide beam. In less than 1 second, the beams are amplified 3 quadrillion times and then simultaneously focused on a hydrogen-filled ball the size of a BB. NIF’s main mission will be to verify computer models used to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons. Astronomers and fusion-energy researchers are also planning experiments. —Joe Pappalardo

Here's how NIF's target chamber works:

• Sharpshooter: Tiny targets are placed at the tip of the holder (at right) and blasted by 192 lasers shooting through the round ports in the wall.
• Energy Burst: The blasted target generates 500 trillion watts—1000 times the electrical generating capacity of the United States.
• Shutter Speed: The conversion of matter to energy is recorded by multispectrum sensors, including an X-ray camera that takes pictures at 1 billion frames per second.

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