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A laser with amazing properties may help astronomers fine-tune planet hunting tools

Scientists have shown off a new laser that boasts an incomparable mix of speed, short pulses and power. That’s newsworthy in and of itself, but this laser, developed by researchers at the University of Konstanz in Germany and, here in the U.S., at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, could also lead to a 100-fold increase in the sensitivity of observatories searching for extrasolar planets. The laser itself is the size of a dime, and pops out 10 billion pulses per second with an average power of 650 milliwatts. It is 100 to 1,000 times more powerful than standard high-speed lasers.

But let’s get back to planet-hunting. Scientists often look for planets outside our solar system by searching for shifts in the light coming from a distant star—these little wobbles can indicate the passage of a smaller planet between the star and Earth. This new laser could help detectors pick up smaller shifts in the frequency of that starlight, and give astronomers a better shot at determining the presence or absence of a planet.

Via NIST

Borrowing a trick from the Arctic snow flea could banish freezer burn

Putting food back in the freezer after it thaws causes ice crystals to grow, imparting the unwelcome crunchy texture and mildew-like taste of freezer burn. Now food chemist Srinivasan Damodaran of the University of Wisconsin–Madison has derived an edible antifreeze from papaya enzymes and gelatin. His concoction, which stunts ice-crystal growth, promises always-creamy ice cream and juicier T-bones, even after their third trip between icebox and table.

While studying gelatin, Damodaran realized that its protein is similar to the one that keeps the lowly snow flea from freezing in Arctic temperatures. To isolate the molecule involved, he mixed the gelatin with papaya enzymes, which are excellent at freeing proteins from other cellular material, and separated all the protein chunks by size. Then he mixed each batch with ice cream. The final step was to subject the dessert to a series of temperature changes until he found the one that remained ice-crystal-free.

Damodaran still wants to better understand how the proteins work, but a patent for the process is in the works. In a few years, ice cream with a beard of frost should be a relic.

RFID could make missing baggage a thing of the past

Radio-frequency Identification chips, or RFID, are miniature transponders which emit an identification signal using radiowaves. They can be attached to most anything and are steadily making their way into nearly every corner of our lives, whether for good—the chip in your cat which broadcasts his address if he gets lost—or for the not so good—the RFID chips in our newest passports, which are terribly insecure and emit a plethora of personal data. Most commonly, though, RFID is being used to track our stuff, like the inventory in a grocery store. It was only a matter of time before we figured out how to use it in place of the barcodes on the tags of our luggage.

Siemens has built a system which does just that and has field tested it successfully, scoring a success rate of 99.9 percent. The advantages over the traditional bar code tag are obvious—the most important being the RFID tag can be read at any angle. Barcode tags are regularly crumbled or bent and easily become unreadable as they pass through the sorting system. That’s the biggest reason luggage is lost. The RFID system is non-contact and so does not rely on correct bag positioning.

Via Washington Post

http://www.physorg.com/news128703805.html