Pioneers Get Close-Up View of Miracle Material Graphene

Physicists who won last year's Nobel Prize for isolating graphene, the world's thinnest material, said Sunday they had devised ways of studying the novel substance at the fundamental level of the electron. Read more on Discovery News.

Conformal Mapping

In mathematics, a conformal map is a function which preserves angles. In the most common cases the function is between domains in the complex plane.

f: U->V

is called conformal (or angle-preserving) at u0 if it preserves oriented angles between curves through u0 with respect to their orientation. Conformal maps preserve both angles and the shapes of infinitesimally small figures, but not necessarily their size.

The conformal property may be described in terms of the Jacobian derivative matrix of a coordinate transformation. If the Jacobian matrix of the transformation is everywhere a scalar times a rotation matrix, then the transformation is conformal.

Conformal maps can be defined between domains in higher dimensional Euclidean spaces, and more generally on a Riemannian or semi-Riemannian manifold.

Biomedical Engineering Seems Promising

Biomedical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology. This field seeks to close the gap between engineering and medicine: It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to improve healthcare diagnosis, monitoring and therapy. 

Biomedical engineering has only recently emerged as its own discipline, compared to many other engineering fields. Such an evolution is common as a new field transitions from being an interdisciplinary specialization among already-established fields, to being considered a field in itself. Much of the work in biomedical engineering consists of research and development, spanning a broad array of subfields. Prominent biomedical engineering applications include the development of biocompatible prostheses, various diagnostic and therapeutic medical devices ranging from clinical equipment to micro-implants, common imaging equipment such as MRIs and EEGs, biotechnologies such as regenerative tissue growth, and pharmaceutical drugs and biopharmaceuticals.

Rubik's Cubes of Any Size Can Now Be Solved

Only the most hardcore puzzle-solvers ever go beyond the standard 3x3x3 Rubik's cube, attempting much larger ones such as those pictured on the right. Now an algorithm has been developed that can solve a Rubik's cube of any size. It might offer clues to humans trying to deal with these tricky beasts. Read more on NewScientist.

Hydrogen Peroxide Found in Space

Molecules of hydrogen peroxide have been found for the first time in interstellar space. The discovery gives clues about the chemical link between two molecules critical for life: water and oxygen. On Earth, hydrogen peroxide plays a key role in the chemistry of water and ozone in our planet's atmosphere, and is familiar for its use as a disinfectant or to bleach hair blonde. Now it has been detected in space by astronomers using the European Southern Observatory-operated APEX telescope in Chile. Read more on Science Daily.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate the interaction of liquids and gases with surfaces defined by boundary conditions. With high-speed supercomputers, better solutions can be achieved. Ongoing research, however, yields software that improves the accuracy and speed of complex simulation scenarios such as transonic or turbulent flows. Initial validation of such software is performed using a wind tunnel with the final validation coming in flight tests.

The fundamental bases of almost all CFD problems are the Navier–Stokes equations, which define any single-phase fluid flow. These equations can be simplified by removing terms describing viscosity to yield the Euler equations. Further simplification, by removing terms describing vorticity yields the full potential equations.

Fluorescent Nanotubes Image Internal Organs

When conducting drug testing on laboratory mice, it's often useful to image the internal organs of the animals in detail. While there are accurate methods such as MRI or CT scans, the associated cost and complexity of these systems is not a very efficient solution. A cheaper and simpler technique involves injecting the animals with fluorescent dyes that are diffused into the blood stream and channeled to the internal organs. Read more on Discovery News.