http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- The iPhone`s familiar touch screen display uses capacitive sensing, where the proximity of a finger disrupts the electrical connection between sensors in the screen. A competing approach, which uses embedded optical sensors to track the movement of the user`s fingers, is just now coming to market. But researchers at MIT`s Media Lab have already figured out how to use such sensors to turn displays into giant lensless cameras. On Dec. 19 at Siggraph Asia -- a recent spinoff of Siggraph, the premier graphics research conference -- the MIT team is presenting the first application of its work, a display that lets users manipulate on-screen images using hand gestures. http://www.physorg.com/news179760349.html Technology Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:27:31 EST news179760349 (PhysOrg.com) -- Launch of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is scheduled for Dec. 11. http://www.physorg.com/news179158042.html Space & Earth Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:20:01 EST news179158042 NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer has been wrapped in the outer nose cone, or "fairing," that will protect it during its scheduled Dec. 9 launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. http://www.physorg.com/news178912011.html Space & Earth Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:30:01 EST news178912011 A Briton accused of hacking into US military and NASA computers faces extradition to the United States after the British government Thursday rejected last-ditch requests to block the move. http://www.physorg.com/news178480644.html Technology Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:58:08 EST news178480644 You don't always have to have a rocket to do rocket science. Sometimes a mere airplane will do - that is, a mere Boeing 747 toting a 17-ton, 9-foot wide telescope named SOFIA. http://www.physorg.com/news177874574.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:50:02 EST news177874574 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers will tie together the largest collection of the world's radio telescopes ever assembled to work as a single observing tool in a project aimed at improving the precision of the reference frame scientists use to measure positions in the sky. The National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) will be a key part of the project. http://www.physorg.com/news177616748.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:10:01 EST news177616748 Despite minimal exposure to the regular geometric objects found in developed countries, African tribal people perceive shapes as well as westerners, according to a new study. http://www.physorg.com/news177358579.html Medicine & Health Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:17:07 EST news177358579 (PhysOrg.com) -- Three-dimensional computer graphics is moving into museums. Works of art are being digitally archived in 3D, simplifying research into related artifacts and providing the public with fascinating three-dimensional displays. http://www.physorg.com/news176405883.html Technology Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:50:10 EST news176405883 (PhysOrg.com) -- The most distant object ever discovered is described in this week's edition of the science journal Nature. Two international teams of astronomers report their observations of a gamma-ray burst from a star that died when the Universe was 640 million years old, or less than 5 percent of its present age. http://www.physorg.com/news175969717.html Space & Earth Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:30:09 EST news175969717 A Briton accused of hacking into US military and NASA space agency computers was on Saturday given more time to fight his extradition to the United States, officials and lawyers said. http://www.physorg.com/news175016908.html Technology Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:49:06 EST news175016908 (PhysOrg.com) -- If computers could recognize objects, they could automatically search through hours of video footage for a particular two-minute scene. A tourist strolling down a street in a strange city could take a cell-phone photo of an unmarked monument and immediately find out what it was. And an Internet image search on, say, "Shakespeare" would pull up pictures of Shakespeare, not pictures of Gwyneth Paltrow in the movie Shakespeare in Love. Though object recognition is one of the major research topics in computer vision, MIT researchers may have found a way to make it much more practical. http://www.physorg.com/news174646349.html Technology Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:30:07 EST news174646349 A Briton accused of hacking into US military and NASA space agency computers was on Friday refused permission to appeal to the new Supreme Court in London against his extradition to the United States. http://www.physorg.com/news174545639.html Technology Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:10:01 EST news174545639 (PhysOrg.com) -- In the cosmos, all celestial objects - planets, stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies - have magnetic fields. On Earth, the magnetic field of our home planet is most easily observed in a compass where the needle points north. http://www.physorg.com/news174308539.html Space & Earth Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:30:02 EST news174308539 (PhysOrg.com) -- New tools and systems developed by European researchers are helping astronomers access data centres from anywhere in the world. From charting new stars to finding new meaning in old stellar objects, the result will be virtual observatories with very real impact. http://www.physorg.com/news174214727.html Technology Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:03:51 EST news174214727 (PhysOrg.com) -- A West Virginia high-school student analyzing data from a giant radio telescope has discovered a new astronomical object -- a strange type of neutron star called a rotating radio transient. http://www.physorg.com/news172860368.html Space & Earth Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:49:46 EST news172860368 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers at the University of Bonn have clarified the connection between black holes at the centre of galaxy clusters and surrounding gas, which serves them as "food". The scientists have produced a ground-breaking study of what could be called "cosmic feeding". It has now been published in the prestigious scientific journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. http://www.physorg.com/news171293489.html Space & Earth Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:33:18 EST news171293489 (PhysOrg.com) -- British space engineers working for a space company in Stevenage in England, have designed a "gravity tractor" spacecraft to deflect any asteroids threatening to collide with Earth. The announcement comes only weeks after an asteroid collision scar around the size of Earth was detected on Jupiter. http://www.physorg.com/news171269917.html Space & Earth Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:00:13 EST news171269917 (PhysOrg.com) -- Innovative software developed in Europe that makes it easier to organise, search and navigate collections of digital images will soon be available to media agencies, photographers and, potentially, anyone trying to keep up with photo-happy Facebook or Flickr friends. http://www.physorg.com/news170606294.html Technology Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:30:02 EST news170606294 (AP) -- NASA is charged with seeking out nearly all the asteroids that threaten Earth but doesn't have the money to do the job, a federal report says. http://www.physorg.com/news169304506.html Space & Earth Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:02:32 EST news169304506 Amateur astronomers across the UK are preparing to tweet the world`s first mass participation meteor star party, as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009). Led by Newbury Astronomical Society, the Twitter Meteorwatch will take place from the evening of Tuesday 11th until the morning of 13th August 2009, covering the peak of the Perseids meteor shower. http://www.physorg.com/news169136268.html Space & Earth Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:50:03 EST news169136268 (PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have been turning the world's most powerful telescopes toward Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, ever since Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley discovered a new dark marking on the planet, apparently the scar from an impacting asteroid or comet, on the night of July 19. MIT professor of planetary science Richard Binzel says the impact highlights the role that Jupiter, with its powerful gravitational field, plays in protecting the Earth and other planets from such impacts. http://www.physorg.com/news168187207.html Space & Earth Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:40:59 EST news168187207 (PhysOrg.com) -- An IBM Researcher has solved a thorny mathematical problem that has confounded scientists since the invention of public-key encryption several decades ago. The breakthrough, called "privacy homomorphism," or "fully homomorphic encryption," makes possible the deep and unlimited analysis of encrypted information -- data that has been intentionally scrambled -- without sacrificing confidentiality. http://www.physorg.com/news165164190.html Other Sciences Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:57:02 EST news165164190 A scientist at Rochester Institute of Technology has expanded the Hubble Space Telescope's capability without the need for new instruments or billions of dollars. http://www.physorg.com/news157212883.html Space & Earth Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:15:39 EST news157212883 Fads have been a staple of American pop culture for decades, from spandex in the 1980s to skinny jeans today. But while going from fad to flop may seem like the result of fickle consumers, a new study suggests that this is exactly what should be expected for a highly efficient, rationally evolved animal. http://www.physorg.com/news148048665.html Other Sciences Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:37:45 EST news148048665 (PhysOrg.com) -- Men tend to perform better than women at tasks that require rotating an object mentally, studies have indicated. Now, developmental psychologists at Pitzer College and UCLA have discovered that this type of spatial skill is present in infancy and can be found in boys as young as 5 months old. http://www.physorg.com/news148046936.html Medicine & Health Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:08:56 EST news148046936 (PhysOrg.com) -- The CoRoT satellite has discovered a planet-sized object so exotic that astronomers are unsure whether to call it a planet. The object, named CoRoT-Exo-3b, is approximately the same size as Jupiter, but more than 20 times its mass. It orbits a star slightly larger than the Sun every 4 and a quarter days, and passes in front of the star each time. When this occurs CoRoT observes a small dip in the star's brightness, and it is thanks to these 'transits' that the companion was detected. http://www.physorg.com/news142610642.html Space & Earth Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:04:02 EST news142610642 (PhysOrg.com) -- COROT has discovered a massive planet-sized object orbiting its parent star closely, unlike anything ever spotted before. It is so exotic, that scientists are unsure as to whether this oddity is actually a planet or a failed star. http://www.physorg.com/news142608247.html Space & Earth Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:24:07 EST news142608247 (PhysOrg.com) -- A tiny asteroid discovered just hours ago at an Arizona observatory will enter Earth's atmosphere harmlessly at approximately 10:46 p.m. Eastern time tonight (2:46 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time). There is no danger to people or property since the asteroid will not reach the ground. It is between 3 and 15 feet (1-5 m) in diameter and will burn up in the upper atmosphere, well above aircraft heights. A brilliant fireball will be visible as a result. http://www.physorg.com/news142568726.html Space & Earth Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:25:26 EST news142568726 You might think that the farthest distance at which you can hold a book and still read it quickly is determined by the size of the letters. However, New York University neuroscientists have concluded that it's the spacing between letters, not their size, that matters. In general, objects, such as letters, can be recognized only if they are separated by enough space, the "critical spacing." Objects closer than that spacing are "crowded" and cannot be identified. A broad review of this crowding phenomenon, appearing in the latest issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, shows that this critical spacing is the same for all objects, including letters, animals, and furniture. http://www.physorg.com/news141569067.html Medicine & Health Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:44:27 EST news141569067 Astronomers have discovered a most bizarre celestial object that emitted 40 visible-light flashes before disappearing again. It is most likely to be a missing link in the family of neutron stars, the first case of an object with an amazingly powerful magnetic field that showed some brief, strong visible-light activity. http://www.physorg.com/news141483335.html Space & Earth Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:55:35 EST news141483335