Physics and Matter News Archives Page 6

Ultra-fast, ultra-intense laser has clean-cut advantage (3/15/2008)

Laser lab will enable researchers to change the face of medicine ...> Full Article

Compound removes radioactive material from power plant waste (3/14/2008)

Layered sulfides bond to strontium 90, other radioactive ions ...> Full Article

Physicists discover how fundamental particles lose track of quantum mechanical properties (3/14/2008)

In today's Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science, researchers report a series of experiments that mark an important step toward understanding a longstanding fundamental physics problem of quantum mechanics. The scientists presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society here this week. ...> Full Article

Team achieves nuclear fuel performance milestone (3/13/2008)

Researchers reached a major domestic milestone relating to nuclear fuel performance. ...> Full Article

Scientists closer to understanding dark matter (3/12/2008)

Researchers inherit one of the world's most exciting research projects when it comes to understanding dark matter and the nature of the universe. ...> Full Article

After 30 years of study, rare particle confirms prediction (3/12/2008)

High-energy physicists devoted to recreating the conditions at the beginning of the universe have for the first time observed a new way to produce those basic particles of atoms, protons and neutrons. ...> Full Article

Physicists and engineers search for new dimension (3/11/2008)

The universe as we currently know it is made up of three dimensions of space and one of time, but researchers are exploring the possibility of an extra dimension. ...> Full Article

$17 million grant supports predictive science and supernovae research (3/11/2008)

By simulating and studying supernovae, a new center at the University of Michigan aims to advance predictive science. ...> Full Article

Future 'quantum computers' will offer increased efficiency ... and risks (3/10/2008)

Professor makes unique discovery, may revolutionize encryption technology ...> Full Article

'Quantum logic clock' rivals mercury ion as world's most accurate clock (3/9/2008)

Comparison yields best results yet in tests for change in 'constants' of nature ...> Full Article

Controlling most atoms now possible (3/8/2008)

Scientists open up new avenues of research using atomic coilguns and lasers ...> Full Article

Single particles of light have a market (3/8/2008)

The world's first commercial product delivering individual photons of light has been developed ...> Full Article

Supercomputer Confirms Standard Model Theory Of The Universe, Deepens Puzzle (3/7/2008)

Scientists have used a supercomputer to shed new light on one of the most important theories of physics, the Standard Model, which encapsulates understanding of all the material that makes up the universe. This 30-year-old theory explains all the known elementary particles and three of the four forces acting upon them - however, it excludes the force of gravity, which is its shortcoming. ...> Full Article

Physics breakthrough much ado about 'nothing' (3/7/2008)

Team enhances understanding of the universe by capturing unique form of void ...> Full Article

New material can find a needle in a nuclear waste haystack (3/6/2008)

Nuclear power has advantages, but, if this method of making power is to be viable long term, discovering new solutions to radioactive waste disposal and other problems are critical. Otherwise nuclear power is unlikely to become mainstream. ...> Full Article

Latest Supercomputer Calculations Support the Six-Quark Theory (3/5/2008)

A new calculation, reported in the January 25, 2008 issue of Physical Review Letters, confirms the six-quark theory of particle-anti-particle asymmetry. This is the first complete calculation of this phenomenon to employ a highly accurate description of the quarks that adds a fifth dimension beyond those of space and time. ...> Full Article

Last large piece of ATLAS detector lowered underground (3/3/2008)

Today, researchers in the U.S. ATLAS collaboration joined colleagues around the world to celebrate a pivotal landmark in the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the lowering of the final piece of the ATLAS particle detector into the underground collision hall at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Experiments conducted at this revolutionary LHC facility, poised to become the world's most powerful particle accelerator, may help scientists unravel some of the deepest mysteries in particle physics. The U.S. branch of the collaboration (U.S. ATLAS), which is based at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and includes scientists and technicians from Argonne National Laboratory, built and delivered several key elements of the ATLAS detector. ...> Full Article

New Method for Creating Tough Metallic Glass Composites (3/2/2008)

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have developed a new strategy for creating "liquid metal" that makes it able to bend significantly without breaking, while retaining a strength twice that of titanium. It is among the toughest, or least brittle, known materials, and could be used anywhere that strong metal alloys are traditionally found, but may prove most useful in the aerospace industry, where lower density means fuel savings. ...> Full Article

New 'snapshots' aid quest for fusion energy (3/1/2008)

Physicists at MIT and the University of Rochester have devised a new way to take "snapshots" of the high-energy, high-temperature reactions seen as key to achieving the long-held dream of controlled nuclear fusion. ...> Full Article

'Two-Faced' Particles Act Like Tiny Submarines in Study (2/29/2008)

For the first time, researchers at North Carolina State University have demonstrated that microscopic "two-faced" spheres whose halves are physically or chemically different - so-called Janus particles - will move like stealthy submarines when an alternating electrical field is applied to liquid surrounding the particles. ...> Full Article

Physicists compete against, collaborate with each other in search for dark matter (2/28/2008)

A race is on in Case Western Reserve University's physics department and around the world to be the first research group to capture signals from WIMPs (weakly interactive massive particles)-the substance that comprises dark matter. ...> Full Article

Physicists Unravel Five Decade-Old Mystery Surrounding Carbon-14 Dating (2/27/2008)

The mystery has dogged scientists for 50 years about why carbon-14 dating works. And now, physicist Ruprecht Machleidt and a team of researchers have helped close a gap in the theory of carbon dating that has, until now, gone unsolved. ...> Full Article

By color-coding atoms, new electron microscope promises big advance in materials analysis (2/26/2008)

A new electron microscope recently installed in Cornell's Duffield Hall is enabling scientists for the first time to form images that uniquely identify individual atoms in a crystal and see how those atoms bond to one another. And in living color. ...> Full Article

Structure of protein collagen seen at unprescedented level of detail (2/24/2008)

The structure and behavior of one of the most common proteins in our bodies has been resolved at a level of detail never before seen ...> Full Article

Most powerful supercomputer in the world built in Texas (2/23/2008)

Ranger, the most powerful supercomputing system in the world and one in which Arizona State University researchers played a key role in its development and operation, was dedicated Feb. 22 in a ceremony at the University of Texas-Austin. The $59 million computer project is led by UT-Austin and funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF). ...> Full Article

Experiment Tightens Limits On Dark Matter: Physicists Revive Bubble Chamber Technology To Search For WIMPs (2/21/2008)

Scientists working on the COUPP experiment at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have announced a new development in the quest to observe dark matter. The Chicagoland Observatory for Underground Particle Physics experiment tightened constraints on the "spin-dependent" properties of WIMPS, weakly interacting massive particles that are candidates for dark matter. Their results, combined with the findings of other dark matter searches, contradict the claims for the observation of such particles by the Dark Matter experiment (DAMA) in Italy and further restrict the hunting ground for physicists to track their dark matter quarry. ...> Full Article

Cosmic ray effect on microchips benefits from accelerated neutron testing (2/21/2008)

Neutron scientists are tackling the challenge of cosmic radiation and its damaging effect on sensitive microchips in the aviation industry in the drive to develop more robust electronic equipment. Accelerated testing of microelectronic components at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) world leading ISIS neutron research centre replicates the effect of thousands of hours of flying time in just a few minutes. ...> Full Article

New X-ray technique may lead to better, cleaner fuel injectors for automobiles (2/20/2008)

Standard microscopy and visible light imaging techniques cannot peer into the dark and murky centers of dense-liquid jets, which has hindered scientists in their quest for a full understanding of liquid breakup in devices such as automobile fuel injectors. ...> Full Article

Physicist to describe strange world of quarks, gluons (2/19/2008)

One of the great theoretical challenges facing physicists is understanding how the tiniest elementary particles give rise to most of the mass in the visible universe. ...> Full Article

Scientists help create a key piece of one of the world's most powerful cameras (2/17/2008)

A team of Purdue University researchers and students built a piece of one of the world's most powerful cameras that will provide information about the universe and physical laws that govern existence. ...> Full Article