In The News: College of Sciences
The ancient people of western Utah’s Danger Cave lived well. They ate freshwater fish, ducks and other small game, according to detritus they left behind. They had a lush lakeside view, with cattails, bulrushes and water-loving willows adorning the marshlands.
From ultra high speed levitating trains to lifesaving MRI machines, superconductors are key to some of the world’s most cutting edge technology. But they require extremely low temperatures to work and have remained too expensive for everyday use. Now that could be about to change. With superconductors that work at room temperature, our technological ability is posed to make a giant leap forward.
The ancient people of western Utah’s Danger Cave lived well. They ate freshwater fish, ducks and other small game, according to detritus they left behind.
Lauren Greenlee, associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of Arkansas, received a $750,000 award from the Department of Energy to investigate the chemical and electronic structure of iron and oxygen atoms.
An Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) has been discovered around 100 miles north of Seattle, Washington, as the species' invasion of North America continues.
Keep your eye on the sky over the next couple of days, as the Las Vegas Valley has a chance this weekend to break its record 200 days-and-counting streak without measurable rain.
Fast radio bursts, or FRBs - powerful, millisecond-duration radio waves coming from deep space outside the Milky Way Galaxy - have been among the most mysterious astronomical phenomena ever observed. Since FRBs were first discovered in 2007, astronomers from around the world have used radio telescopes to trace the bursts and look for clues on where they come from and how they're produced.
Magnetars, short for “magnetic stars,” are ultra-dense corpses of dead stars surrounded by intense magnetic fields. And according to new research, magnetars also appear to be the cause of at least some mysterious fast radio bursts, or FRBs, which astronomers have detected for more than a decade. So, by studying FRBs, scientists think they might be able to peel back the onion on magnetars.
For more than 13 years, astronomers have been trying to determine the source of extremely powerful radio bursts that can travel billions of kilometres through space but only last a fraction of a second.
For the first time ever, astronomers have linked an actual object to those mysterious radio bursts they’ve been detecting since 2007. The culprit in this case, as suspected, is a super-dense object known as a magnetar, but the finding has prompted an entirely new set of questions.
For around a decade, mysterious flashes from deep space have puzzled radio astronomers. The explosions of radio waves last for just a few thousandths of a second, and they appear to shine from galaxies billions of light years away—too far to get a good look at what’s making them. Researchers have detected about 120 such “Fast Radio Bursts” to date, and have come up with nearly half as many explanations. Theorists have floated ideas including exotic stars collapsing, neutron stars crashing into black holes, and even alien civilizations pushing starships around on energy beams.
Mysterious superpowerful blasts of radio waves once seen only outside the galaxy have for the first time been detected within the Milky Way, new studies find.