Free Republic

University of Nottingham scientists have discovered a new process to break bulk metal into atoms to produce heterogeneous catalysts without any chemical waste. Its a technique that will lead to new sustainable ways of making and using molecules in the most atom efficient way. Researchers from the University of Nottingham have demonstrated that “naked” Pt atoms can be dispersed onto powder supports directly by splitting bulk metal to atoms at the record-breaking rate of four and a half thousand trillion atoms per second (4.5 x 1015 atom/s) by magnetron sputtering.

Scientists have captured the first ever footage of atoms bonding at a scale around half a million times smaller than the width of a human hair. Using advanced microscopy methods, the team of UK and German researchers captured the breaking of a chemical bond between two rhenium atoms. The video shows the two atoms to the left of the footage, between 0.1 and 0.3 nanometres, appearing as black blobs as they bond and break. Atoms are ‘the building blocks of the world’ and the matter around us is made up of layers and layers of atoms – unless they’re a...

Every one of us contains alien atoms that originated in a galaxy far, far away, a new study suggests. Scientists have discovered that up to half the matter making up our galaxy, the Milky Way, used to belong to other clusters of stars. The sun, the Earth, and even our own bodies probably contain a large proportion of this galaxy-hopping material, which migrated to our part of the universe across vast expanses of space. Lead researcher Dr Daniel Angles-Alcazar, from Northwestern University in the US, said: “Given how much of the matter out of which we formed may have come...

IBM manipulates individual atoms to make the worlds smallest movie.

Invisible dark matter particles may regularly pass through our bodies, and dozens to thousands of these particles may be colliding with atoms inside us every year, according to a new calculation. However, radiation from these impacts is unlikely to cause cancer, investigators added. Dark matter is one of the greatest scientific mysteries of our time — an invisible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe. Scientists think it might be composed of things called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, that interact normally with gravity but very weakly with all the other known forces of...

NASA / GSFC: Using the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), NASA has sampled the galactic wind that has traveled from outside our solar system. Four types of atoms were found to be different from what we have in our Solar System.

two new elements have been added to the periodic table...The elements were recognized by an international committee of chemists and physicists. For now, they are called Elements 114 and 116 — permanent names and symbols will be chosen later.People are not likely to run into either of them. Scientists make them in labs by smashing atoms of other elements together to create the new ones...the new ones are short-lived. Atoms of 114 disintegrate within a few seconds, while 116 disappears in a fraction of a second, ..Both elements were discovered by a collaboration of scientists from Livermore and Russia. They...

After 20 years in the making, the first physics results have come out of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Physicists from the University of Birmingham played a key role in analyzing these collisions and producing the first results from the 27 km circular atom smasher near Geneva.

It may look like a piece of honeycomb, but this lattice-shaped image is the first ever close-up view of a single molecule. Scientists from IBM used an atomic force microscope (AFM) to reveal the chemical bonds within a molecule. 'This is the first time that all the atoms in a molecule have been imaged,' lead researcher Leo Gross said. The researchers focused on a single molecule of pentacene, which is commonly used in solar cells. The rectangular-shaped organic molecule is made up of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms.

I'm going to leave this as link-only.

Enlarge ImageSurprise! The IBEX spacecraft, preparing to explore deep space (inset), accidentally made an important discovery about the moon.Credit: Southwest Research Institute Scientists probing the outer reaches of our solar system have hit upon an unusual phenomenon much closer to home. Instruments aboard a NASA spacecraft have detected fast-moving hydrogen atoms emanating from the moon. The atoms, which originated as protons from the sun, may help scientists study the lunar surface and other solar system objects in greater detail than believed possible. The moon is continuously being pelted by hazardous radiation. Most of it comes from the solar wind,...

And you thought there was a lot of empty space in the solar system. Well, there's even more nothing inside an atom. A hydrogen atom is only about a ten millionth of a millimeter in diameter, but the proton in the middle is a hundred thousand times smaller, and the electron whizzing around the outside is a thousand times smaller than THAT. The rest of the atom is empty. I tried to picture it, and I couldn't. So I put together this page - and I still can't picture it. The page is scaled so that the smallest thing on...

The attendees for your 1 p.m. meeting have begun to arrive. But they're not coming through the door. Instead, solid, 3-D models magically self-assemble around the table, looking, moving and talking like impressionistic interpretations of their long-distant human counterparts. Professors Seth Goldstein and Todd Mowry, along with Intel Principal Investigator Jason Campbell, are building "claytronic atoms" or "catoms"—centimeter-diameter pellets embedded with electromagnets that will enable them to connect to and move around other catoms. By controlling potentially billions of catoms as a unit, the researchers foresee creating accurate, active models of 3-D objects. For remote conferencing, attendees could be recorded...

TINY robots that can turn into any shape - from a replica human to a banana to a mobile phone - are being developed by scientists in the United States. The new science of claytronics, which will use nanotechnology to create tiny robots called catoms, should enable three-dimensional copies of people to be "faxed" around the world for virtual meetings. A doctor could also consult with a patient over the phone, even taking their pulse by holding the wrist of the claytronic replica, reports New Scientist. And the nano "clay" could be carried around, shape-shifting into virtually anything when required....

Indiana University Scientists First To Detect Rare Nuclear Fusion Violating Charge Symmetry BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Scientists at the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility in Bloomington have made the first unambiguous detection of a rare process, the fusion of two nuclei of heavy hydrogen to form a nucleus of helium and an uncharged pion. The pion is one of the subatomic particles responsible for the strong force that holds every nucleus together. The achievement will be announced Saturday (April 5) at the meeting of the American Physical Society in Philadelphia. "Scientists have searched for this rare fusion process since the 1950s," said...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 12 WMAP Resolves the Universe Credit: WMAP Science Team, NASA Explanation: Analyses of a new high-resolution map of microwave light emitted only 380,000 years after the Big Bang appear to define our universe more precisely than ever before. The eagerly awaited results from the orbiting Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe resolve several long-standing disagreements in cosmology rooted in less precise data. Specifically, present analyses of above WMAP...

IBM exposes sub atomic transistors Microscope delivers future vision By INQUIRER staff: Thursday 08 August 2002, 13:51 IN ITS ENDEAVOURS to create ever smaller chips IBM, together with advanced electron optics Nion, has developed what it says is the world's highest-resolution electron microscope. The microscope allows observers to see individual atoms, measuring four-billionths of an inch wide. It was developed to check on the tiddly transistors used in advanced semiconductors. The science journal Nature, says today, "The ability to use electron microscopy to identify and locate individual atoms will have a wide impact on materials, physics and biological sciences". IBM...