TECH SPACE - AFRICA DAILY

Intense 2-color double X-ray laser pulses: a powerful tool to study ultrafast processes

Dec 12, 2013 (SPX)

A team working at the SACLA X-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL) in Japan has succeeded in generating ultra-bright, two-color X-ray laser pulses, for the first time...

Highly insulating windows are very energy efficient, though expensive

Dec 12, 2013 (SPX)

Highly insulating triple-pane windows keep a house snug and cozy, but it takes two decades or more for the windows to pay off financially based on utility-bill ...

Google opens first data centres in Asia

Dec 11, 2013 (AFP)

US search engine giant Google Wednesday opened its first data centres in Asia to cater for soaring demand, and said it would double its planned investment in th...

First Boeing-built Inmarsat-5 Global Xpress Satellite Sends Initial On-Orbit Signals

Dec 11, 2013 (SPX)

The first Boeing Inmarsat-5 satellite has launched and sent signals from orbit, the initial step to establishing Global Xpress, the world's first globally avail...

Goddard Planetary Instruments Score a Hat Trick

Dec 10, 2013 (SPX)

Planetary instruments from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., hit the trifecta on Dec. 4, running three experiments of the same kind at diffe...

New setback for Canadian gold mine plan

Dec 10, 2013 (AFP)

Romanian lawmakers on Tuesday rejected a controversial new mining bill that would have cleared the way for a huge Canadian gold mine project in the heart of Tra...

Study shows how water dissolves stone, molecule by molecule

Dec 09, 2013 (SPX)

Scientists from Rice University and the University of Bremen's Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) in Germany have combined cutting-edge experiment...

Berkeley Lab Researchers Create a Nonlinear Light-generating Zero-Index MetaMaterial

Dec 09, 2013 (SPX)

The Information Age will get a major upgrade with the arrival of quantum processors many times faster and more powerful than today's supercomputers. For the ben...

SST Australia: Signed, Sealed and Ready for Delivery

Dec 09, 2013 (SPX)

As satellites become more common, they face growing risk of colliding with space debris and even each other. The U.S. Department of Defense has thus made space ...

An ecosystem-based approach to protect the deep sea from mining

Dec 09, 2013 (SPX)

Five hundred miles southeast of Hawai'i, in international waters far out of sight of any land, there are vast mineral resources 5,000 meters below the sea. Mang...

When aluminum outshines gold

Dec 08, 2013 (SPX)

Humble aluminum's plasmonic properties may make it far more valuable than gold and silver for certain applications, according to new research by Rice University...

Making a gem of a tiny crystal

Dec 08, 2013 (SPX)

Nature builds flawless diamonds, sapphires and other gems. Now a Northwestern University research team is the first to build near-perfect single crystals out of...

Teaching matter waves new tricks: Making magnets with ultra cold atoms

Dec 08, 2013 (SPX)

Magnets have fascinated mankind for millenia. From the Greek philosophers to scientists of the modern era, which saw the rise of quantum mechanics, magnets have...

New Effect Couples Electricity and Magnetism in Materials

Dec 08, 2013 (SPX)

In magneto-electric materials, electric and magnetic vibrations can be coupled to "electromagnons". High hopes are placed on this technology, a breakthrough cou...

Scientists build a low-cost, open-source 3D metal printer

Dec 08, 2013 (SPX)

OK, so maybe you aren't interested in making your own toys, cellphone cases, or glow-in-the-dark Christmas decorations. How about a brake drum? Until now, 3D pr...

Shortage of rare materials said holding back technology development

Dec 06, 2013 (UPI)

A shortage of "rare earth" metals, used in high-tech electronic devices, is hampering the growth of a number of technologies, U.S. experts say. With the prolife...

Laser Communication Mission Targets 2017 Launch

Dec 06, 2013 (SPX)

NASA's next laser communication mission recently passed a Preliminary Design Review (PDR), another major milestone towards the launch of the Laser Communication...

Cloud firm Box raises $100 mn

Dec 06, 2013 (AFP)

Cloud storage startup Box, launched from a college dorm in 2005, has raised $100 million in new capital to help fund a global expansion. The latest funding give...

USMC Conducts Operational Assessment of GATOR System

Dec 05, 2013 (SPX)

The AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) system, built by Northrop Grumman for the U.S. Marine Corps, has successfully conducted developmental test...

Uncovering hidden structures in massive data collections

Dec 05, 2013 (SPX)

Advances in computer storage have created collections of data so huge that researchers often have trouble uncovering critical patterns in connections among indi...