Thursday Tech News

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These "methanogens" could have helped regulate the early Earth's climate by providing greenhouse gases, helping to prevent freezing conditions that would have stifled the fragile development of life on Earth. Methane comes from three sources: through the thermal decomposition of organic material; from non-biological reactions of simple inorganic compounds; or through metabolic activity of methanogenic microbes. Each leaves a different carbon isotope signature.

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However, the mechanics of molecular machines is extraordinarily complex. It relies on the dynamics of chemical bonds and nanoscale forces, as apposed to the relatively straight-forward engineering principles at work in large-scale mechanical devices, like cars. Furthermore, magnetism becomes more important than gravity, and the strongest "welding" is a chemical bond that can be ripped open by nearby molecules. But perhaps the biggest challenge is that the devices are not usually built one molecule at a time. Instead machines such as this new one are produced by a series of chemical reactions in solution that assemble billions of billions of units at a time.

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For consumers, the purchase will mean that Alienware will now access Dell's well-known supply-chain efficiencies, ideally reducing wait times for new PCs that Alienware executives said have swelled to as much as a month or more. Interestingly, the deal also means that a PC containing a processor from Advanced Micro Devices will finally contribute to Dell's bottom line.

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Their mass is still not known, but the fact that they have mass implies there must be a fourth type of neutrino, says Scott Dodelson at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, US. That is because all other particles come by their mass through the union of two components with opposing quantum characteristics, called spin. All three known types of neutrinos have left-handed spin, so researchers argue there must be another type with right-handed spin. Called "sterile" neutrinos, they are thought to interact with normal matter only through gravity and to be more massive than ordinary neutrinos.