Stratospheric aluminum oxide

Balloons and U-2 aircraft were used to collect micrometer-sized strato-spheric aerosols. It was discovered that for the past 6 years at least, aluminum oxide spheres have been the major stratospheric particulate in the size range 3 to 8 micrometers. The most probable source of the spheres is the exhaust from solid-fuel rockets.     

Fly ash collected from electrostatic precipitators: microcrystalline structures and the mystery of the spheres

Scanning electron micrographs demonstrate the presence of microcrystalline structures on the surface of coal-derived fly ash samples taken from electrostatic precipitator hoppers. Cenospheres (hollow spheres) were found to be packed with smaller cenospheres, which were also packed with spheres. Microspheres, apparently formed by uneven heating, are encapsulated in the parent sphere. Chemical analyses provide a basis for the postulation of a mechanism of formation for plerospheres (hollow spheres packed with spheres) and microcrystals.     

具有介孔结构的Co/SiO2空心球的制备及其催化性能研究

以二氧化硅为模板,采用牺牲模板法制备具有介孔结构的碱式硅酸钴空心球.采用扫描电子显微镜(SEM),透射电子显微镜(TEM)、X射线衍射(XRD)、氮气吸脱附曲线(BET)和程序升温还原(TPR)等方法,对样品的结构和形貌作了表征.探索了碱式硅酸钴空心球的还原规律,研究了Co/SiO2作催化剂的催化性能.结果表明,180℃下反应1 h时,碱式硅酸钴即为空心球结构;在800℃氢气气氛中反应5 h,碱式硅酸钴完全被还原为Co/SiO2,还原前后仍为空心球结构,比表面积和孔容均有所减小,孔径增大.以Co/SiO2空心球做催化剂进行硝基苯加氢催化,1 h后硝基苯的转化率为56%,比商用Raney Ni提高约14%.     

Imaging the sublimation dynamics of colloidal crystallites

We studied the kinetics of sublimating crystals with single-particle resolution by experiments with colloidal spheres and by computer simulations. A short-range attraction between spheres led to crystallites one to three layers thick. The spheres were tracked with optical microscopy while the attraction was reduced and the crystals sublimated. Large crystallites sublimated by escape of particles from the perimeter. The rate of shrinkage was greatly enhanced, however, when the size decreased to less than 20 to 50 particles, depending on the location in the phase diagram. At this size, the crystallites transformed into a dense amorphous structure, which rapidly vaporized. The enhancement of kinetics by metastable or unstable phases may play a major role in the melting, freezing, and annealing of crystals.     

Nanoengineering of inorganic and hybrid hollow spheres by colloidal templating

Hollow silica and silica-polymer spheres with diameters between 720 and 1000 nanometers were fabricated by consecutively assembling silica nanoparticles and polymer onto colloids and subsequently removing the templated colloid either by calcination or decomposition upon exposure to solvents. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy images demonstrate that the wall thickness of the hollow spheres can be readily controlled by varying the number of nanoparticle-polymer deposition cycles, and the size and shape are determined by the morphology of the templating colloid. The hollow spheres produced are envisioned to have applications in areas ranging from medicine to pharmaceutics to materials science.     

The Tunguska Explosion of 1908: Discovery of Meteoritic Debris near the Explosion Site and at the South Pole

Submillimeter-sized metallic spheres extracted from soil in the Tunguska region of central Siberia contain noble metals in cosmic proportions. The trace element composition and geographical distribution of these spheres suggest that they are from the 30 June 1908 Tunguska explosion and not meteoritic ablation products falling continuously on the earth. Debris from this explosion was also discovered in a South Pole ice core; this discovery indicates that the Tunguska object exploded in the atmosphere with subsequent stratospheric injection and transport of the debris. The celestial body that exploded over Tunguska weighed more than 7 million tons, was more than 0.16 kilometer in diameter, and may well have been a stony meteorite. This discovery offers a new precision time marker in polar ice strata for the year 1909. The steady-state influx of cosmic matter at the South Pole is estimated to be 1.8 x 10(-8) grams per square centimeter per year, which corresponds to a global influx of 4 x l0(5) tons per year.     

Food irradiation in the news: The cultural clash of a postharvest technology

Food irradiation has been acommercially viable postharvest technology fornearly 50 years (the actual idea of usingionizing radiation to extend the shelf-life offoods is over a century old), yet it has beenused only occasionally and sporadically.Interviews with reporters and the sources theyused at a Louisiana newspaper and a Floridanewspaper uncovered three cultural spherespresent in the debate over this post harvesttechnology – food, science/technology, andjournalism. Each of these spheres were pointsof contention for reporters and sources, andthis has had an affect on the adoption of thetechnology among those involved in the foodindustry. Interviews with both reporters andthe individuals they relied on as sourceselucidate how different issues encompassedwithin different cultural spheres have beenlinked to this post harvest technology, andhave been used to help shape this debate. Thesecultural spheres offer various groups power tocontrol relations with reporters, though thatpower can be usurped by others, including thereporters themselves. Interviews with reportersand their sourses may help us understand howthe values attached to cultural spheres aremobilized by various groups to make sense of acontroversial topic, and how those groups gainentrance to public arenas and are then able tomaintain their presence.     

Viscosity of fluids in subduction zones

The viscosities of aqueous fluids with 10 to 80 weight percent dissolved silicates have been measured at 600 degrees to 950 degrees C and 1.0 to 2.0 gigapascals by in situ observation of falling spheres in the diamond anvil cell. The viscosities at 800 degrees C range from 10(-4) to 10(0.5) pascal seconds. The combination of low viscosities with a favorable wetting angle makes silicate-rich fluid an efficient agent for material transport at low-volume fractions. Our results therefore suggest that there may be a direct relationship between the position of the volcanic front and the onset of complete miscibility between water and silicate melt in the subducting slab.     

氧化亚铜内嵌碳纳米管复合球的合成及光催化性能研究

采用溶液法原位制备了氧化亚铜内嵌碳纳米管(Cu2O/MWNTs)复合球. 通过扫描电子显微镜（SEM）, 透射电子显微镜(TEM), 紫外光度分析仪对复合球进行了形貌分析和性能检测.结果表明:碳纳米管均匀嵌镶在Cu2O球内部; 比较了Cu2O和氧化亚铜内嵌碳纳米管(Cu2O/MWNTs)复合球对对硝基苯酚的光催化效果, Cu2O复合球对对硝基苯酚溶液的光催化降解率高出氧化亚铜10%左右.     

Placers of cosmic dust in the blue ice lakes of greenland

A concentration process occurring in the melt zone of the Greenland ice cap has produced the richest known deposit of cosmic dust on the surface of the earth. Extraterrestrial particles collected from this region are well preserved and are collectable in large quantities. The collected particles are generally identical to cosmic spheres found on the ocean floor, but a pure glass type was discovered that has not been seen in deep-sea samples. Iron-rich spheres are conspicuously rare in the collected material.     

Gravitational compression of crystallized suspensions of polystyrene spheres

In a crystallized suspension of polystyrene spheres, the earth's gravitational field, acting on a vertical column of material several centimeters high, produces an elastic deformation that can be readily observed through its effect on the crystal lattice constant. This effect has been used to determine that Young's modulus for the crystalline material ranges from 1 to 3 dynes per square centimeter, depending on the concentration of spheres.     

Conodont pearls?

Conodonts are zoologically enigmatic, toothlike phosphatic microfossils occurring in marine sedimentary rocks ranging in age from Cambrian to Triassic. Dimpled spheres of less than 1 millimeter in diameter are sporadic associates of conodonts and have identical chemical composition and microstructure. Mineralogy, morphology, and occurrence of these spheres suggest that they are pearls secreted by the conodont-bearing animal.     

ZnO:Er/Yb不同形貌纳米颗粒的制备与上转换发光性质研究

分别采用沉淀法、碱腐蚀法、模板法等3种不同的实验方法制备了不同形貌的氧化锌掺杂稀土元素纳米粉末，对所得到的样品进行了上转换光学性质分析.用X射线衍射仪对样品进行了结构分析，用扫描电子显微镜观察了粉末形貌并估算颗粒大小，用荧光光谱仪测试样品的上转换发光光谱并进行了机理分析.结果表明，纳米粉末粒径的大小影响了材料发光的性能.粒径较小的空心球结构颗粒其光学性能优于粒径较大的实心球颗粒. 对于空心球结构，当粒径相对较小时，有利于红光上转换发射；而粒径较大时，有利于增强绿光上转换发射.     

Efflux time of soap bubbles and liquid spheres

The efflux time, T, of gas from soap bubbles of radius, R, through their blow tube of length, 1, and radius, p, is given by the equation see pdf for equation where eta is the viscosity of the gas and omicron the surface tension of the bubble solution, all in centimeter-gram-second units. Similar relations between time and diameter were established for the flow from one bubble to another or from one bubble within another. The same relations hold for the flow of liquid spheres, suspended in another liquid of equal density, following Plateau's classic method. They have been extended to the flow of spheres to cylinders and catenoids of rotation. In all these cases the driving force is the surface or interfacial tension, creating an excess pressure as defined by Laplace's equation.     

Brown carbon spheres in East Asian outflow and their optical properties

Atmospheric aerosols play a substantial role in climate change through radiative forcing. Combustion-produced carbonaceous particles are the main light-absorbing aerosols; thus, quantifying their optical properties is essential for determining the magnitude of direct forcing. By using the electron energy-loss spectrum in the transmission electron microscope, we quantified the optical properties of individual, submicrometer amorphous carbon spheres that are ubiquitous in East Asian-Pacific outflow. The data indicate that these common spheres are brown, not black, with a mean refractive index of 1.67 - 0.27i (where i = square root 1) at a wavelength of 550 nanometers. The results suggest that brown carbon aerosols should be explicitly included in radiative forcing models.     

Supracolloidal reaction kinetics of Janus spheres

Clusters in the form of aggregates of a small number of elemental units display structural, thermodynamic, and dynamic properties different from those of bulk materials. We studied the kinetic pathways of self-assembly of "Janus spheres" with hemispherical hydrophobic attraction and found key differences from those characteristic of molecular amphiphiles. Experimental visualization combined with theory and molecular dynamics simulation shows that small, kinetically favored isomers fuse, before they equilibrate, into fibrillar triple helices with at most six nearest neighbors per particle. The time scales of colloidal rearrangement combined with the directional interactions resulting from Janus geometry make this a prototypical system to elucidate, on a mechanistic level and with single-particle kinetic resolution, how chemical anisotropy and reaction kinetics coordinate to generate highly ordered structures.     

Lunar soil: size distribution and mineralogical constituents

The lunar soil collected by Apollo 11 consists primarily of submillimeter material and is finer in grain size than soil previously recorded photographically by Surveyor experiments. The main constituents are fine-grained to glassy rocks of basaltic affinity and coherent breccia of undetermined origin. Dark glass, containing abundant nickel-iron spheres, coats many rocks, mineral, and breccia fragments. Several types of homogeneous glass occur as fragments and spheres. Colorless spheres, probably an exotic component, are abundant in the fraction finer than 20 microns.     

Structure of water in microemulsions: electrical, birefringence, and nuclear magnetic resonance studies

Microemulsions, which are optically transparent oil-water dispersions, were produced by mixing hexadecane, hexanol, potassium oleate, and water. As the amount of water is increased, the microemulsion exhibits a clear to turbid to clear transition. In contrast to the clear regions, the turbid region possesses birefringence. The development of birefringence is also accompanied by a sharp decrease in the electrical resistance. The high-resolution (220 megacycle) nuclear magnetic resonance data suggest that water exists in two distinct molecular environments in the birefringent region; the first environment is characterized by relatively less mobile water molecules than oil molecules, whereas in the second environment oil molecules are less mobile than water molecules. The electrical, birefringence, and nuclear magnetic resonance data are in agreement with the proposed mechanism of change in the structure of water from water spheres to water cylinders to water lamellae. The chemical shift of water protons suggests that the molecular environment of water in spheres is different from that of water in cylinders or that of water in lamellae.     

几种作为参考目标的小球体在3MH_Z频率下的目标强度

本文报道了在水槽中,根据测得的水声信号数据,经数学回归法计算,以图解方式求导出直径为30～40 mm 3种小球体在3 MHz频率下的目标强度情况。所获得的结果可供研究用声学法探测和评估小物标(如虾)时参考使用。     

Entropically driven helix formation

The helix is a ubiquitous motif for biopolymers. We propose a heuristic, entropically based model that predicts helix formation in a system of hard spheres and semiflexible tubes. We find that the entropy of the spheres is maximized when short stretches of the tube form a helix with a geometry close to that found in natural helices. Our model could be directly tested with wormlike micelles as the tubes, and the effect could be used to self-assemble supramolecular helices.