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| STORIES ABOUT: light |
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| Cry Receptors Allow Flies to See Magnetic Fields |  | Humans have been fascinated for centuries by the capability of migratory animals to navigate the globe, sometimes even returning to exactly the same spot from which they left, after retracing more than 15,000 kilometers. The markers that guide them in their voyage are a mystery even today, although most researchers believe that it may be possible that these animals are able to see the magnetic field generated by the Earth.
But ... [read more >>] | | 23 July 2008, 10:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| How Crookes' Radiometer Works |  | The Crookes radiometer is a light mill consisting of a set of fins placed on a spindle that rotates inside a partially vacuumed glass bulb when exposed to light. The rotation speed is directly related with the intensity of the electromagnetic radiation, while the rotation direction depends on the temperature of the environment in which the device is placed. The force responsible for the rotation of the spindle has been subject to debate fo ... [read more >>] | | 19 July 2008, 07:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| To Make More Efficient Solar Cells, One Has to Focus |  | Solar cells are currently viewed as the star of alternative energy sources, being able to produce electric energy without the disadvantage of releasing greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the Earth's atmosphere as burning fossil fuels does. Sunlight provides an incredible amount of energy per square meter, although harnessing that energy has proven somehow difficult considering the low efficiency of current solar cell designs.
... [read more >>] | | 11 July 2008, 02:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| New Breakthrough Could Make Silicon Chips Even Smaller |  | The next generation of powerful computers is just around the corner, claims a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has recently developed a new technique that would allow semiconductor manufacturers to integrate even more transistors on silicon chips. By using light with a wavelength of 351 nanometers, the team succeeded in creating parallel interference patterns only 25 nanometers wide.
The 6 ... [read more >>] | | 10 July 2008, 09:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| 80 Percent of All Sunscreens Are Good Only under the Moonlight |  | Some of the sun-worshipers out there believe that the use of sunscreens immediately guarantees protection against the most harmful rays. An investigation carried out by the Environmental Working Group showed recently that up to 80 percent of sunscreen lotions available on the market provide little or no protection at all and worse, they could even contain dangerous chemicals. If Neutrogena, Coppertone or Banana Boat rings any bells for you ... [read more >>] | | 08 July 2008, 09:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| How Bug Zappers Work |  | While the summertime brings us a lot of pleasures, especially in terms of weather, it also comes with a large variety of annoying insects, amongst which the mosquito, a never-ending source of discomfort and ultimately pain. Most of the time, a pesticide will do just fine in keeping these hungry bugs at a distance, although sometimes people prefer using what is known as an electrical-discharge insect-control system, more commonly known as a ... [read more >>] | | 08 July 2008, 08:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| How Gas Lanterns Work |  | Well, today we have a great deal of electrically powered devices acting as light sources, but what if we didn't have electricity or if you were to go on a camping trip, what then? As far as I know, not many trees in the woods come with an outlet. One could use a gas lantern to light up one’s path in the darkness of the night, for example, but how do gas lanterns actually work?
To answer this question, one must first under ... [read more >>] | | 13 June 2008, 08:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Material Absorbs all Light, Converts It into Heat |  | The new metamaterial developed at Duke University and Boston College presents tiny geometric features that are able to absorb both the electric and the magnetic components of electromagnetic radiation, in specific frequencies of the microwave spectrum.
"Three things can happen to light when it hits a material. It can be reflected, as in a mirror. It can be transmitted, as with window glass. Or it can be absorbed and tur ... [read more >>] | | 30 May 2008, 10:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| New Solar Cell Beats Efficiency Record |  | When talking about solar cell efficiency, even a rise of 1 percent, which to some may appear modest, is reason for researchers to celebrate. The previous solar cell conversion efficiency was averaging 21.9 percent. A new world record for solar cell efficiency has been set on Wednesday by a team of researchers from the Eindhoven University of Technology in collaboration with colleagues from the Fraunhofer Institute, who achieved a relative ... [read more >>] | | 17 May 2008, 05:04GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Universe Is Two Times Brighter Than We See It |  | Interstellar dust and gas permeates the whole interstellar and intergalactic space, blocking significant amounts of light along the way. But until now, it was unknown exactly how much light was shielded by dust and gas, mostly because most astronomers believe that the effect is irrelevant. New calculations reveal that dust may block as much as half the light emitted from stars and galaxies.
"I was shocked by the sheer scale of the ... [read more >>] | | 16 May 2008, 02:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| How One-way Mirrors Work |  | A one-way mirror is basically just like any other mirror, just that it has the ability of reflecting light on one side while on the other, it is transparent. Typical mirrors achieve a high degree of reflectiveness on one side, leaving the reverse opaque to optical light. This is done by covering the glass layer with a silvered coating. One-way mirrors, however, use half silvered surfaces in order to achieve a balance between refl ... [read more >>] | | 10 May 2008, 05:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Light Creeping Through Small Holes. How It Works |  | One might imagine that light can basically pass through any hole no matter how small, but the truth is that when presented with a hole smaller than its own wavelength, light finds it especially difficult to penetrate to the other side, but it will nonetheless. Researchers Dr. Aurele Adam and Professor Paul Plancken from the Delft University of Technology used for the first time a technique involving far-infrared light, known as Terahertz r ... [read more >>] | | 09 May 2008, 03:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| About Sunglasses |  | Sunglasses are defined as an ophthalmologic medical article made of frames and lenses, meant to diminish the amount of sunlight; however, they do not accomplish any sort of optical correction. Their main goal is to protect the wearer against excessive sunlight.
In many cases, we pay exaggerated amounts of money for the name of the brand that made the sunglasses. As a rule, though, cheap or very cheap sunglasses are of lower q ... [read more >>] | | 08 May 2008, 08:39GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| UVB Light to Get a Mate |  | Ultraviolet light is known to be harmful for most organisms if it is in excess, but some creatures are turned on by it; we could literally say they do not reach orgasm in its absence. People and mammals in general can't detect ultraviolet light, but for a bizarre type of spiders it is essential for mating, as revealed by a research published in the Current Biology journal. While most spiders are blind or almost blind, jumpin ... [read more >>] | | 06 May 2008, 04:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Colossal Squid Could Grow to 1,600 Pounds (750 Kg) |  | The analysis of the largest colossal squid ever caught (and largest invertebrate ever captured) has provided some first spectacular results - this is also the largest invertebrate species known to have ever existed. In February 2007, a New Zealand fishing crew off the coast of Antarctica (in the northern Ross Sea), that was out fishing Patagonian toothfish (Chilean sea bass), accidentally caught the 1,089-pound (490 kg), 26-ft (8.6 m) long ... [read more >>] | | 05 May 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Algae and Light |  | The water, sea water in particular, is the realm of the algae. Algae represent the generic name for several groups of inferior aquatic plants that make photosynthesis. Thus, they require light in order to live.
Part of the sunlight is reflected on the surface of the water. As we go deeper, the intensity of sunlight decreases, as the light is absorbed by the water and the bodies that are to be found inside it. Of the light spe ... [read more >>] | | 29 April 2008, 11:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Senses of the Plants |  | Plants may not have complex tissues and a nervous system, but they still "feel". If they sprout, develop and flower at the right time and place, that's because they are sensitive to environmental factors. The vegetation boom during each spring shows they obey precise rhythms, which come encoded in their genes. Plants do not have only a touch sensitivity (that has been known for quite some time), but also a chemical one, not ... [read more >>] | | 29 April 2008, 09:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Covering Half the Moon with Mirrors Should Draw ET's Attention |  | Scientists have often wondered why the universe appears to be so 'quiet'. We're not yet sure if intelligent alien life exists in our galaxy, although our math puts it very simple and clear. We're not alone in the universe. So where is everybody then? There are two possible answers for this question. Either any intelligent being is too far away to make contact, or they're all in the neighborhood and they're doi ... [read more >>] | | 29 April 2008, 09:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| How Light Sticks Work |  | What's better than having a light source that uses neither batteries nor light bulbs, gives off an intense light emission, lights up no matter if it’s held underwater or in plain air and can be carried wherever you may go? If I were to answer this question I would say nothing. Light sticks have been put on the market more than two decades ago and have since become the main attraction for children, experienced underwater divers and cam ... [read more >>] | | 29 April 2008, 08:44GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Unexpected Signature Found in Aurora Borealis |  | Aurora Borealis, most commonly known as the Northern Lights, is created when cosmic rays – solar wind in special – interact with the Earth’s magnetic field and the atmosphere in order to determine light emissions in the gas atoms located in the upper layers of the atmosphere. In the middle of the 20th century, Robert Duncan, an Australian researcher, discovered that light emitted by the aurora borealis could be polarized. However these emi ... [read more >>] | | 26 April 2008, 01:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Terahertz Signals go Around Corners As Well |  | The terahertz frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum are just now beginning to be explored by humans. Terahertz devices have already been developed and used to create security scanners, able to view through solid materials much in the same way X-rays do; however, US researchers believe they would have better application in data processing. Current computer processing power is limited to only several billion cycles per second ... [read more >>] | | 17 April 2008, 05:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Why are Fluorescent Light Bulbs Dangerous? |  | It's not big deal when a light bulb breaks. Albeit while talking about tubular fluorescent light bulbs, things can take a very serious turn, mostly because these types of light sources contain small amounts of mercury. If the glass tube is broken, then the mercury can contaminate the environment, not a very good perspective considering that mercury is highly toxic.
In fluorescent tubes, mercury is used in vapor or powder state, in ... [read more >>] | | 11 April 2008, 05:09GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| How LEDs Work |  | Light emitting diodes, or most commonly known as LEDs, are solid-state electronic devices used to produce light. Practically LEDs are a special type of diodes encased into tiny transparent plastic bulbs, which emit light when powered. Unlike traditional light bulbs and fluorescent tubes, LEDs do not use metal filaments, do not heat up to considerable temperatures, nor do they burn out. The semiconductor p-n junction is solely responsible f ... [read more >>] | | 09 April 2008, 10:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Peering Back into the Universe's Past |  | Take a patch of the sky with an area four times that of the apparent size of the Moon, study it over a period of three years and you may obtain the most sensitive infrared map of the distant universe. By doing so, researchers from the University of Nottingham obtained the image of more than 100,000 galaxies, as they appeared in the early days of the universe.
Because light does not travel instantaneously through space, we are ... [read more >>] | | 09 April 2008, 04:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Yet Another Invisibility Cloak... for Magnetism |  | Metamaterials have the unique capability of experiencing negative refractive indexes, thus literally refracting light through themselves without reflecting any to the source, therefore making any object hidden behind it invisible. This is not available only for light, acoustic waves can be also manipulated in similar ways. However, both optical and acoustical invisibility cloaks have the disadvantage that they work only on two dimensions a ... [read more >>] | | 01 April 2008, 11:09GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Electroluminescent Rug Glows When You Step on It |  | How about a rug that can guide you to your bedroom during night time without ever turning on the lights, protect your toes during a fast trip to the bathroom or maybe even as a replacement for the night light in your child's room? Well, you could buy the next best thing, the Footlume rug which lights up while you walk on it. This would surely be one of the future floor fashion devices found in everyone's home, however you will ha ... [read more >>] | | 25 March 2008, 10:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Twisted Photons May Improve Optical Imaging |  | In an already random quantum world, parasite signals could spell disaster for quantum information systems. Take the example of the quantum computers. Even the slightest noise signal could bring it to a complete halt. However, parasite signals may not be as bad as previously thought, according to Seth Lloyd from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lloyd claims to have found a way to exploit noise signal in order to create new quantum ... [read more >>] | | 25 March 2008, 07:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| New Type of Vision: It Detects Circular Polarized Light |  | There are various types of vision, from the one detecting visible light to the others detecting ultraviolet light and linear polarized light. A new research published in the journal "Current Biology" describes a fourth type of vision never seen before in any animal: mantis shrimps (Stomatopods), a type of sea crustaceans, detect circular polarized light. Stomatopods, which are not real shrimps, are characterized by their vivid co ... [read more >>] | | 21 March 2008, 03:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Blue LEDs Can Reduce Fatigue |  | Or at least that's what U.S. researchers say. Night drivers often lose their alertness because of fatigue, however blue lights, or blue light-emitting diodes, are believed to fool the brain into believing that it is morning, when in fact it is the middle of the night, thus resetting the body's natural clock. Recent studies have revealed that up to 30 percent of the fatal accidents involve large trucks, half of them taking place i ... [read more >>] | | 18 March 2008, 11:55GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Scientists Develop Single-Crystal Semiconductor Wire |  | Optical fibers have usage in a broad range of applications that involve the transmission and processing of light signals, starting with telecommunications, computing, all the way to remote sensing and medical devices. But optical fibers are not perfect, at least not in the way we would like them to be. On top of the fact that light signals degrade severely after traveling a certain distance, they also lack the ability of transmit ... [read more >>] | | 17 March 2008, 06:03GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Neutron Detector Can Identify Single Particles |  | The new neutron detector developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology is able to measure individual neutrons and their intensities with a sensitivity at least a hundred times higher than that of the traditional neutron detectors. The detector works on the basis of a physical interaction known in the scientific community as Lyman alpha light, which is an electromagnetic emission of radiation located in the ultraviolet reg ... [read more >>] | | 11 March 2008, 11:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Quantum Dots, The Solution for Efficient Solar Cells |  | It looks like scientists have finally cracked it! They argue that, by creating a solar cell out of differently sized quantum dots, solar cells could become much more efficient than they currently are. This so-called 'rainbow' design involves arranging quantum dots according to size, so that each one acts on a specific wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum, thus harvesting most of the power light carries.
The un ... [read more >>] | | 10 March 2008, 07:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| You Will Hurl on Command, No Doubt About It! |  | We don't need no guns! Why kill somebody with a riffle, when you could starve him to death? That's right, consider the options. Remember the myth of the brown note? It was saying something like this: a particular low frequency note – below 20 Hz – can make you crap your pants. Well, it was proven by the Myth Busters to be false, however this doesn't mean that the US government is giving up so easily. They have just developed ... [read more >>] | | 08 March 2008, 06:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Physicists Achieve Breakthrough by Creating... Nothing? |  | Some of you might think that creating a void is something easily achievable with today's technology, but the truth is far from reality. Not even the vacuum of space is completely empty. For example, vacuum is routinely used by physicists while undertaking studies related to quantum physics. But these vacuums are not perfect and can interfere severely with the results of the experiments. Even light leaves a trail after being ... [read more >>] | | 06 March 2008, 06:28GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| One Step Closer to Photonic Transistors |  | We have extremely powerful electronic computers these days and it's great, but scientists fear that we might not be so fortunate in the near future, as microchip minimization cannot go forever in order to supply the required computing power. Photonic crystals are just one of the solutions we could imply to create faster and faster computers. Photomic crystals are organized structures that have the capability of conducting light in a p ... [read more >>] | | 04 March 2008, 06:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Lunar Eclipses Provide with More Than a Spectacular Image |  | The last lunar eclipse that took place on February 20th-21st, ranking 3 on the brightness scale of lunar eclipses which ranges from 0 to 4, seems to confirm that Earth's atmosphere contains light-blocking volcanic ash that could contribute to the acceleration of global warming on our planet. During the span of the eclipse, scientists have been able to obtain valuable information related to the atmosphere, by measuring the amount of re ... [read more >>] | | 03 March 2008, 02:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Darkness Within Light |  | How can something exist in two distinct forms at the same time? Physics clearly states that light experiences particle-wave duality, while common sense tells us this is impossible. However, all objects no matter how massive behave in a particle-wave manner. And why is the speed of light the maximum possible speed in the universe? Light is still hiding great mysteries even today. A similar weird behavior experienced by light is a property r ... [read more >>] | | 27 February 2008, 08:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Improved Technology to Achieve Hydrogen Fuel by Mimicking Photosynthesis |  | This is exactly what plants do during the photosynthesis: stealing the hydrogen of the water using light. Hydrogen would be a very clean fuel, and a recent Penn State research has made a step further towards this direction.
"This is a proof-of-concept system that is very inefficient. But ultimately, catalytic systems with 10 to 15 % solar conversion efficiency might be achievable. If this could be realized, water photol ... [read more >>] | | 18 February 2008, 04:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Chip Minimization Through Dark State Light |  | The biggest problem with computer chip minimization today is that the fabrication process of semiconductor chips only allows components larger than the laser light wavelength used in the photoresist process. Any attempts to create smaller structures than the light's wavelengths will ultimately result in the use of dangerous levels of light that could destroy the chip. A new technique promising to resolve the problem once and for all h ... [read more >>] | | 14 February 2008, 07:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Black Holes Replicated in Laboratory Conditions! |  | Black holes are some of the most mysterious objects in the whole universe. Except a handful of properties, almost nothing is known about what lies beyond their event horizon, whether it's a wormhole, a ultra-dense singularity or some other structure we have no knowledge about. And here is the worst part of the problem, we may never peer beyond the event horizon of a black hole to see what lies inside it. I mean one may obser ... [read more >>] | | 14 February 2008, 05:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| What is X-ray Radiation? |  | Some of you might say: well, you have just answered your own question, X-ray is a form of radiation. However, nothing is always as simple as it seems. Any type of elementary particle emission is called radiation, while X-ray is a type of electromagnetic radiation, meaning photon emission, namely light.
Optical light to which a typical human eye normally responds corresponds to the electromagnetic wavelengths located between 3 ... [read more >>] | | 12 February 2008, 02:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Look at all These UFOs... |  | Wow, talking of the devil!... Why are we even funding the SETI institute in the first place? I mean just look, we have all the flying saucers and aliens right here on Earth. Only in the last year, more than 135 events were reported by people in the UK, claiming to have spotted Unidentified Flying Objects, while two years earlier only 97 such sightings were detailed. I smell an invasion!
According to the UK Ministry of Defense, the numb ... [read more >>] | | 08 February 2008, 10:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| What Do Your Color Preferences Say About You? |  | Colors have various physical and psychical influences on the body, and they can manipulate our mood. A common rule says an individual prefers the light wavelength (colors are nothing more than different values of the light wavelengths) retrieved in its energetic structure. Different energetic structure are impacted differently by a radiation of a specific wavelength. The way the colors act on a person's mood can make a psych ... [read more >>] | | 05 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| The Best Ever Iridescent Materials Mimicking Beetles |  | Some beetles have really bright colors, but in the case of some species, it is hard to say which is their color. The metallic woodboring beetle Chrysochroa vittata seems to be red if watched head-on, while from its side, the beetle gets a greenish hue, completely green at an 80-degree angle.
Now, beetles' iridescence has inspired a team at the University of Namur, in Belgium, to develop synthetic iridescent materials mimicking the ... [read more >>] | | 05 February 2008, 04:29GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Chromotherapy: How Can Colors Impact Your Health? |  | Light clearly influences human behavior. But the white light we see around is made of a ROY G. BIV
spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). Other colors are hues of these ones. Each color represents a radiation of a specific wavelength with different molecular effects. Chromotherapy attempts to balance the energy and the health of the organism using colors, both preventively and curatively.
The colored ra ... [read more >>] | | 04 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Nanocrystal-Coated LEDs Emit Pure White Light |  | LEDs are some of the most efficient energy conversion devices available on the market today. No only that, but they can also be made to shine a wide range of different colors in the visible and infrared spectrum, and have way longer lives than traditional light bulbs and florescent tubes. This is mostly why LEDs are considered to be the future of efficient lighting, helping reduce the electric energy consumption, thus the carbon dioxide an ... [read more >>] | | 02 February 2008, 03:58GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| 8 Amazing Things About Plants |  | 1. Plants have in their structure xylem tubes that transport water and mineral salts and phloem tubes that carry the food. Both types of tubes are produced by a meristematic tissue called cambium. Xylem is produced inward, phloem outward. Death xylem layers form the wood.
2. The green pigment called chlorophyll allows the photosynthesis through which plants synthesize sugars coming from water and carbon dioxide. Even brown or red leave ... [read more >>] | | 26 January 2008, 07:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Newly Designed Optical Fiber Is Hollow |  | The traditional fiber optic is virtually reduced to transmitting light through a narrow cylindrical glass core. However, this particular design imposes certain restrictions to sending light signals over great distances, such as the fact that the glass fiber optic is highly sensitive to powerful light signals, which can damage it, cannot work in a broad band of the electromagnetic spectrum - therefore it cannot transmit signals su ... [read more >>] | | 18 January 2008, 06:27GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
| Acoustic Cloak Bends Sounds Around You! |  | Let's not fool ourselves, invisibility cloaks have been built and they do exist; they don't work exactly as they should is another thing. However, Duke University researchers said they hadn't done enough to improve the technology and decided to test some acoustic invisibility devices before resuming the work on the electromagnetic ones.
Their previous demonstration of the invisibility cloak apparently proved th ... [read more >>] | | 18 January 2008, 03:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia |
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