Steam Hydrogasification Reaction

...CERT for its patented steam hydrogasification reaction, which can turn any carbonaceous material – including waste from food, yards, sewage treatment facilities – into transportation fuels or natural gas.

...out of the carbonaceous wastes produced annually in California. They estimate that more than 132 trillion cubic feet of synthetic natural gas could be produced in the state. That could replace 5.5 percent of natural gas found in the earth and sea with a clean, renewable resource.

"Immortal" Jellyfish Swarm World's Oceans

A potentially "immortal" jellyfish species that can age backward—the Benjamin Button of the deep—is silently invading the world's oceans, swarm by swarm, a recent study says...

... The jellyfish's cells are often completely transformed in the process. Muscle cells can become nerve cells or even sperm or eggs...

New battery design could give electric vehicles a jolt

A radically new approach to the design of batteries, developed by researchers at MIT, could provide a lightweight and inexpensive alternative to existing batteries for electric vehicles and the power grid. The technology could even make “refueling” such batteries as quick and easy as pumping gas into a conventional car.

Flakes of Crab and Shrimp Shells Provide a New and Effective Way of Clotting Arterial Bleed

...The real magic of Celox is that it doesn't actually form blood clots, which would be dangerous; rather, the act mixing blood into Celox activates it, turning it into an artificial, gel-like clot. This kind of clot is incredibly effective at staunching blood flow, with 100% of swine test subjects surviving a cut femoral artery.

If you're interested in there's a  research abstract .

Sigma's Foveon Sensor: What It Is and How It Makes Megapixels Obsolete

...This unique way of measuring visible light -- taking photos -- utilizes a well-known phenomenon: different wavelengths of light penetrate silicon differently. Blue light, which has a short wavelength, doesn't penetrate very far, while green penetrates a bit further, and red penetrates the furthest. Foveon's sensor sandwiches three layers of silicon together, with different colors of light passing through each layer to reach the next. Blue light is measured the first layer, green on the second, and red on the last. The luminance values from all three are then combined to create an RGB pixel value.

Structural Power Technology Turns Car Doors into Batteries

Using a special kind of carbon fiber, British and Swedish researchers have created "structural power technology" that turns bits of a car -- doors, hoods, roofs -- into batteries. Structurally, these carbon fiber parts are identical, except for one small detail: the resin used to bond the fibers is laced with lithium ions. These lithium ions allow the these car body panels to store electricity, like a large capacitor.

Cosmic Bubble Theory Of Universe Expansion Ruled Out

Researchers say they have ruled out the cosmic bubble theory, an alternate theory on the nature of dark energy, after recalculating the expansion rate of the universe to unprecedented accuracy.

The blue glow of young stars trace the spiral arms of galaxy NGC 5584 in this image. Thin, dark dust lanes appear to be flowing from the yellowish core, where older stars reside. The reddish dots sprinkled throughout the image are largely background galaxies. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Riess (STScI/JHU), L. Macri (Texas A&M University), and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Japan Earthquake: before and after

Aerial photos taken over Japan have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses.

When income grows, who gains?

Use the sliders on the timeline to select a timespan, and see how growth in average income was shared between the richest 10% and the other 90% of Americans. All figures are in 2008 dollars...

Who Owns Kafka?

An ongoing trial in Tel Aviv is set to determine who will have stewardship of several boxes of Kafka’s original writings, including primary drafts of his published works, currently stored in Zurich and Tel Aviv...

The Anti-Social Network

http://www.slate.com/id/2282620/

By helping other people look happy, Facebook is making us sad.
By Libby Copeland

There are countless ways to make yourself feel lousy. Here's one more, according to research out of Stanford: Assume you're alone in your unhappiness.

"Misery Has More Company Than People Think," a paper in the January issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, draws on a series of studies examining how college students evaluate moods, both their own and those of their peers...

Map of scientific collaboration between researchers

http://flowingdata.com/2011/01/27/map-of-scientific-collaboration-between-researchers/

In the spirit of the well-circulated Facebook friendship map by Paul Butler, research analyst Olivier Beauchesne at Science-Metrix examines scientific collaboration around the world from 2005 to 2009: