- Number 345 |
- September 5, 2011
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New wrinkle on age of man in the moon
How old is the moon? Maybe younger than the 4.5 billion years that scientists, until now, accepted as its age after analysis of moon rocks gathered during the Apollo missions.
New research using a technique that measures the isotopes of lead and neodymium in the lunar crustal rocks shows that the moon and even the Earth may have actually formed millions of years later.
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Catalyst that makes hydrogen gas breaks speed record
Looking to nature for their muse, researchers at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have used a common protein to guide the design of a material that can make energy-storing hydrogen gas.
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Team explores new technologies for improving prosthetic limbs
A team of scientists from DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and the University of Pittsburgh’s Bioengineering Department are using new forms of nanotechnology to improve neural-controlled prosthetic implants.
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A Better Way to Connect Solar, Wind to the Grid
The sun can shine torridly, the wind can blow viciously, but if solar and wind energy can't be converted to the 60-hertz alternating current (AC) standard in the United States, it can't be connected to the grid for use in homes or offices.
That's where the inverter fits in, a device that takes that distributed energy and turns it into grid compatible AC power.
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Energy and environmental solutions under our feet
When you heat water in a kettle, you can make tea or coffee. But what happens if the vessel is sealed? Ultimately, at a temperature called the liquid-gas critical point, the density of the liquid and the vapor become identical: There is no more water, there is no more gas. What you have is a supercritical fluid.
The next natural question was, "how does this coexistence of bulk fluids (water in a kettle is a bulk system) near their critical points change if you confine the whole system in a very small space, such as a small pore, say, in coal?"