http://www.physorg.com/physics-news/ en-us Physorg.com provides the latest news on physics, materials, nanotech, science and technology. Updated Daily. (PhysOrg.com) -- Using high-powered lasers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and collaborators discovered that molten magnesium silicate undergoes a phase change in the liquid state, abruptly transforming to a more dense liquid with increasing pressure. The research provides insight into planet formation. http://www.physorg.com/news248104977.html Physics Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:05:09 EST news248104977 Top-heavy structures are more likely to maintain their balance while hovering in the air than are those that bear a lower center of gravity, researchers at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Department of Physics have found. Their findings, which appear in the journal Physical Review Letters, are counter to common perceptions that flight stability can be achieved only through a relatively even distribution of weight—and may offer new design principles for hovering aircraft. http://www.physorg.com/news248101430.html Physics Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:04:01 EST news248101430 Accelerator physicists at SLAC and cancer specialists from Stanford are working on a new technology that could dramatically reduce the time needed for cancer radiation treatments. The team ran an initial experiment using high-energy electrons in January and has asked the National Institutes of Health for $1.25 million to finance further studies. http://www.physorg.com/news248088787.html Physics Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:50:04 EST news248088787 For several years, physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), USA, have studied an unusual state of matter called the quark–gluon plasma, which they believe mimics the hot, dense particle soup that existed immediately after the big bang. Now, the PHENIX collaboration at RHIC reports findings about a particle called the J/ψ meson that will help physicists distinguish the properties of the quark–gluon plasma (QGP) from those of normal matter.  http://www.physorg.com/news248087364.html Physics Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:20:01 EST news248087364 Observing that certain cancer cells may exhibit greater flexibility than normal cells, some scientists believe that this capability promotes rapid tumor growth. Now computer simulations developed by Boston University Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Muhammad Zaman and collaborators at the University of Texas at Austin appear to support this view. A 3D model of healthy and cancer cells that they've created indicates that the softening of cancer cells not only accelerates their proliferation but also extends their lifetime—a one-two punch that may trigger the rapid growth of malignant tumors. http://www.physorg.com/news248004277.html Physics Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:04:57 EST news248004277 (PhysOrg.com) -- To learn more about how the sun works, scientists study particles that are emitted from it into space due to thermonuclear reactions that occur inside; by applying known physics principles, they can then deduce which sort of nuclear reactions are taking place. As one example, researchers have been able to identify high energy proton to proton interactions that are described as pp neutrinos by detecting them when they reach Earth. http://www.physorg.com/news247996230.html Physics Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:51:16 EST news247996230 It's a question that arises with virtually every major new finding in science or medicine: What makes a result reliable enough to be taken seriously? The answer has to do with statistical significance -- but also with judgments about what standards make sense in a given situation. http://www.physorg.com/news247995046.html Physics Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:34:21 EST news247995046 At the high-brilliance synchrotron light source PETRA III, a team of DESY scientists headed by Dr. Ralf Röhlsberger has succeeded in making atomic nuclei transparent with the help of X-ray light. At the same time they have also discovered a new way to realize an optically controlled light switch that can be used to manipulate light with light, an important ingredient for efficient future quantum computers. http://www.physorg.com/news247919520.html Physics Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:00:18 EST news247919520 A team of University of California, San Diego researchers has built the smallest room-temperature nanolaser to date, as well as an even more startling device: a highly efficient, "thresholdless" laser that funnels all its photons into lasing, without any waste. http://www.physorg.com/news247918827.html Physics Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:00:12 EST news247918827 By harnessing quantum dots—tiny light-emitting semiconductor particles a few billionths of a meter across—researchers at the University of Washington (UW) have developed a new and vastly more targeted way to stimulate neurons in the brain. Being able to switch neurons on and off and monitor how they communicate with one another is crucial for understanding—and, ultimately, treating—a host of brain disorders, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, and even psychiatric disorders such as severe depression. The research was published today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express. http://www.physorg.com/news247921692.html Physics Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:08:38 EST news247921692 (PhysOrg.com) -- The superconducting cables designed for the ITER fusion reactor (cost: 16 billion euros = $21.2 billion) are unable to withstand the planned forty to sixty thousand charge cycles. Barring a solution, the troubled mega-experiment will suffer still more delays and cost overruns. About one third of total expenditures for the reactor are devoted to the superconducting magnet system. UT researcher Arend Nijhuis thinks he has the solution. He has calculated that a different configuration will make the cables more robust. In the first week of March, ITER will run an experiment costing half a million euros to see whether this theoretical solution will actually work in practice. http://www.physorg.com/news247915208.html Physics Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:20:41 EST news247915208 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland has found an iron-based superconductor that operates at the highest known temperature for a material in its class. The discovery inches iron-based superconductors—valued for their ease of manufacturability and other properties—closer to being useful in many practical applications. http://www.physorg.com/news247912967.html Physics Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:42:58 EST news247912967 (PhysOrg.com) -- MIT researcher Scott Aaronson has certainly riled the physics community with his offer this past Friday, of $100,000 to anyone who can prove that scaled-up quantum computing is impossible. His original reason for doing so was, as he describes in his blog, due to adding his two cents to an argument between skeptic Gil Kalai and researcher Aram Harrow about assumptions regarding the Quantum Fault-Tolerance Theorem, on another blog, where he argued that refuting the idea of scalable quantum computing would amount to more than just taking apart the QFT Theorem; it would he suggested, mean coming up with a new version of physical reality. Then, because of the response he got from the blog owner, he felt compelled to defend his assertions in a rather bold and some might say, foolhardy way. Thus was born the $100,000 bet, or prize. http://www.physorg.com/news247910634.html Physics Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:04:18 EST news247910634 Back in December 2011, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN presented some exciting results that provided tantalising hints of the Higgs boson. http://www.physorg.com/news247896504.html Physics Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:08:44 EST news247896504 An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology. http://www.physorg.com/news247837619.html Physics Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:47:15 EST news247837619 It’s the size of five football pitches and generates light 10 billion times brighter than the sun. As the Diamond Light Source celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, Penny Bailey visits one of the UK’s biggest scientific investments to see how it works. http://www.physorg.com/news247824760.html Physics Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:30:02 EST news247824760 (PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists at MPQ (Max Planck Institute) succeed in resolving the internal dynamics of individual molecules using UV femtosecond laser pulses. http://www.physorg.com/news247825093.html Physics Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:19:06 EST news247825093 For climatologists and environmental policy makers who need to determine the flux of greenhouse gases (GHG), there are three paramount questions: Where is it, how much is there, and how is it moving? A new measurement approach is being developed and tested by a PML research team and NIST colleagues that may provide answers of unprecedented accuracy to all three. http://www.physorg.com/news247745788.html Physics Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:40:01 EST news247745788 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Chalmers have demonstrated a new kind of detector for sound at the level of quietness of quantum mechanics. The result offers prospects of a new class of quantum hybrid circuits that mix acoustic elements with electrical ones, and may help illuminate new phenomena of quantum physics. The results have been published in Nature Physics. http://www.physorg.com/news247733249.html Physics Mon, 06 Feb 2012 06:47:48 EST news247733249 (PhysOrg.com) -- Collective, or coordinated behavior is routine in liquids, where waves can occur as atoms act together. In a milliliter (mL) of liquid water, 1022 molecules bob around, colliding. When a breeze passes by, waves can form across the surface. These waves are not present in the same volume of air, where only 1019 gas molecules randomly move about. http://www.physorg.com/news247733019.html Physics Mon, 06 Feb 2012 06:44:14 EST news247733019 (PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists have demonstrated a system in which light is used to control the motion of an object that is large enough to be seen with the naked eye at the level where quantum mechanics governs its behavior. http://www.physorg.com/news247730040.html Physics Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:54:17 EST news247730040 Scientists at the University of Southampton, in collaboration with Penn State University have, for the first time, embedded the high level of performance normally associated with chip-based semiconductors into an optical fibre, creating high-speed optoelectronic function. http://www.physorg.com/news247668805.html Physics Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:00:07 EST news247668805 (PhysOrg.com) -- Ever since scientists began studying the brain, they’ve wanted to get a better look at what was going on. Researchers have poked and prodded and looked at dead cells under electron microscopes, but never before have they been able to get high resolution microscopic views of actual living brain cells as they function inside of a living animal. Now, thanks to work by physicist Stefan Hell and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, that dream is realized. In a paper published in Science, Hell and his team describe the workings of their marvelous discovery. http://www.physorg.com/news247481208.html Physics Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:50:01 EST news247481208 (PhysOrg.com) -- A series of neutron scattering experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other research centers is exploring the key question about a long-sought quantum state of matter called supersolidity: Does it exist? http://www.physorg.com/news247479850.html Physics Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:10:01 EST news247479850 For decades, scientists have studied a class of materials called ‘multiferroics’ in which static electric and magnetic structures are coupled to each other. This allows capabilities such as controlling magnetic order with electric fields instead of magnetic ones, making it easier to build devices such as sensors and computer memory.  http://www.physorg.com/news247479349.html Physics Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:50:01 EST news247479349 Knowing how to control the combined magnetic properties of interacting electrons will provide the basis to develop an important tool for advancing spintronics: a technology that aims to harness these properties for computation and communication. As a crucial first step, Naoto Nagaosa from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wako, and his colleagues have derived the equations that govern the motion of these magnetic quasi-particles. http://www.physorg.com/news247478759.html Physics Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:30:02 EST news247478759 (PhysOrg.com) -- Two electrons that are emitted from a large molecule by a single photon may originate from far apart within that molecule. In a recent study on hydrocarbon molecules consisting of one to five fused benzene rings (each ring consisting of six carbon atoms), Synchrotron Radiation Center researchers Tim Hartman and Ralf Wehlitz have found that the relative probability for ejecting two electrons scales linearly with the length of the molecule. http://www.physorg.com/news247477522.html Physics Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:45:36 EST news247477522 A team of MIT researchers has developed a way of making a high-temperature version of a kind of materials called photonic crystals, using metals such as tungsten or tantalum. The new materials — which can operate at temperatures up to 1200 degrees Celsius — could find a wide variety of applications powering portable electronic devices, spacecraft to probe deep space, and new infrared light emitters that could be used as chemical detectors and sensors. http://www.physorg.com/news247472332.html Physics Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:19:30 EST news247472332 Pran Nath, the Matthews Distinguished Professor of Physics at Northeastern University, is among a group of leading theoretical physicists who have asked the Department of Energy to develop a large underground neutrino facility to maintain U.S. leadership in the frontier of particle physics. We asked Nath to explain the facility and its value. http://www.physorg.com/news247394413.html Physics Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:40:01 EST news247394413 Solid-state memory is seeing an increase in demand due to the emergence of portable devices such as tablet computers and smart phones. Spin-transfer torque magnetoresistive random-access memory (STT-MRAM) is a new type of solid-state memory that uses electrical currents to read and write data that are stored on magnetic moment of electrons. Rachid Sbiaa and co-workers at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute have now enhanced the storage density of STT-MRAM by packing multiple bits of information into each of its memory cells. http://www.physorg.com/news247393255.html Physics Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:21:19 EST news247393255