http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- A team led by Oxford University scientists has turned one of the key problems with quantum entangled systems - that they are easily ‘disturbed` by their environment - into an advantage which promises quantum sensors that are fundamentally more sensitive than their conventional counterparts. http://www.physorg.com/news159794100.html Physics Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:15:34 EST news159794100 (AP) -- The family of physicist Stephen Hawking expects him to recover fully from a chest infection that has left him hospitalized, Cambridge University said Tuesday. http://www.physorg.com/news159520429.html Other Sciences Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:14:18 EST news159520429 (PhysOrg.com) -- "In many ways, the standard model of cosmology works very well," Jose Cembranos tells PhysOrg. "However, there are very basic features that we just do not know. We have dark energy and dark matter. They dictate the evolution of late time cosmology. They both together constitute more than 95 percent of the energy content of the present Universe." If this is the case, why do we trust the standard model? It can`t explain such a large portion of the universe. http://www.physorg.com/news159444907.html Physics Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:17:07 EST news159444907 (PhysOrg.com) -- Humans don`t always make the most rational decisions. As studies have shown, even when logic and reasoning point in one direction, sometimes we chose the opposite route, motivated by personal bias or simply "wishful thinking." This paradoxical human behavior has resisted explanation by classical decision theory for over a decade. But now, scientists have shown that a quantum probability model can provide a simple explanation for human decision-making - and may eventually help explain the success of human cognition overall. http://www.physorg.com/news158928941.html Medicine & Health Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:56:09 EST news158928941 (PhysOrg.com) -- Martin Jesse Klein, a historian of modern physics and former senior editor of "The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein," passed away on March 28. He was 84 years old. http://www.physorg.com/news158593830.html Physics Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:51:21 EST news158593830 (PhysOrg.com) -- One of the perplexing questions raised by evolutionary theory is how cooperative behavior, which benefits other members of a species at a cost to the individual, came to exist. http://www.physorg.com/news158245420.html Biology Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:04:11 EST news158245420 Is today's academic and corporate culture stifling science`s risk-takers and stopping disruptive, revolutionary science from coming to the fore? In April`s Physics World the science writer Mark Buchanan looks at those who have shifted scientific paradigms and asks what we can do to make sure that those who have the potential to change our outlook on the world also have the opportunity to do so. http://www.physorg.com/news157822535.html Other Sciences Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:37:34 EST news157822535 Chemists at the University of Illinois have created a simple and inexpensive molecular technique that replaces an expensive atomic force microscope for studying what happens to small molecules when they are stretched or compressed. http://www.physorg.com/news157558598.html Nanotechnology Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:17:19 EST news157558598 (AP) -- Texas will no longer require educators to teach weaknesses of all scientific theories, including evolution. http://www.physorg.com/news157356139.html Other Sciences Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:52:11 EST news157356139 Recent commentary has suggested that the extent to which anomaly theories have become ingrained in the minds of academics and popular commentators alike has led to certain common assumptions and misconceptions about Clarke's pattern recognition theory of humour. http://www.physorg.com/news157294474.html Other Sciences Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:55:08 EST news157294474 (AP) -- Tensions over the teaching of evolution are simmering as the State Board of Education begins the final stretch in the process of adopting new classroom science curriculum standards. http://www.physorg.com/news157290453.html Other Sciences Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:48:37 EST news157290453 (PhysOrg.com) -- Usually, we think of spacetime as being four-dimensional, with three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. However, this Euclidean perspective is just one of many possible multi-dimensional varieties of spacetime. For instance, string theory predicts the existence of extra dimensions - six, seven, even 20 or more. As physicists often explain, it`s impossible to visualize these extra dimensions; they exist primarily to satisfy mathematical equations. http://www.physorg.com/news157203574.html Physics Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:40:14 EST news157203574 Scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science and San Diego State University managed to observe a super-sized supernova explosion from start to finish, including the black hole ending. http://www.physorg.com/news157034084.html Space & Earth Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:35:07 EST news157034084 Conventional wisdom holds that it's not what you know, it's who you know. But now scientists studying networking are starting to realize that when it comes to much in life, it's also who the people you know know, and perhaps also who those people know. http://www.physorg.com/news156957899.html Other Sciences Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:27:05 EST news156957899 Evolutionary theorist Alastair Clarke has today published details of eight patterns he claims to be the basis of all the humour that has ever been imagined or expressed, regardless of civilization, culture or personal taste. http://www.physorg.com/news156761595.html Other Sciences Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:56:06 EST news156761595 Celebrated physicist, Stephen Hawking, delivered an inspiring speech to a full house in Bovard Auditorium on March 10. USC College Dean Howard Gillman kicked off the event by introducing Nick Warner, professor of physics, mathematics and astronomy. Hawking was Warner`s academic adviser while he studied at the University of Cambridge. http://www.physorg.com/news156450506.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:29:36 EST news156450506 Tuesday, President Barack Obama announced a new education reform, calling for a merit-pay system for teachers in hopes of improving student performance. As the nation's public schools spend $187 billion in salaries, based on the latest Department of Education data, University of Missouri researcher Michael Podgursky has found a link between teacher pay and student achievement. http://www.physorg.com/news156161087.html Other Sciences Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:07:01 EST news156161087 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists don't fully understand how consciousness works, and, so far, no classical theories can explain consciousness in the brain. In light of this lack of understanding, some researchers suggest that quantum mechanics may play a significant role in the workings of the mind and the brain. Quantum consciousness theories have always been controversial, and now a recent study has undercut one more component of these proposals. http://www.physorg.com/news155904395.html Physics Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:47:45 EST news155904395 When it comes to intellectual curiosity and creativity, a market economy in which inventors can buy and sell shares of the key components of their discoveries actually beats out the winner-takes-all world of patent rights as a motivating force, according to a California Institute of Technology (Caltech)-led team of researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news155486207.html Other Sciences Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:37:13 EST news155486207 Mendel solved the logic of inheritance in his monastery garden with no more technology than Darwin had in his garden at Down House. So why couldn't Darwin have done it too? A Journal of Biology article argues that Darwin's background, influences and research focus gave him a viewpoint that prevented him from interpreting the evidence that was all around him, even in his own work. http://www.physorg.com/news154958022.html Biology Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:55:27 EST news154958022 A team of scientists, led by the University of Exeter, has used game theory to explain the bizarre behaviour of a group of ravens. Juvenile birds from a roost in North Wales have been observed adopting the unusual strategy of foraging for food in 'gangs'. New research, published in the journal PLoS One (on Wednesday 25 February 2009), explains how this curious behaviour can be predicted by adapting models more commonly used by economists to analyse financial trends. http://www.physorg.com/news154767795.html Other Sciences Wed, 25 Feb 2009 07:03:52 EST news154767795 (PhysOrg.com) -- The paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) by a team led by professor Francesc Illas of the University of Barcelona's Department of Physical Chemistry and director of the Laboratory of Computational Materials Science (CMSL) will help to broaden our understanding of the nature of superconducting materials and of the origin of the superconductivity phenomenon in high critical temperature materials. http://www.physorg.com/news154681879.html Physics Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:12:11 EST news154681879 Scientists are harnessing the cosmos as a scientific 'instrument' in their quest to determine the makeup of the universe. http://www.physorg.com/news154357589.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:07:11 EST news154357589 During the next decade, a delicate measurement of primordial light could reveal convincing evidence for the popular cosmic inflation theory, which proposes that a random, microscopic density fluctuation in the fabric of space and time gave birth to the universe in a hot big bang approximately 13.7 billion years ago. http://www.physorg.com/news154010927.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:49:33 EST news154010927 How game theory and insights from cognitive psychology can shed light on the economic choices people and corporations make will be the focus of a topical lecture presented by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) behavioral economist Colin Camerer at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). http://www.physorg.com/news153992101.html Other Sciences Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:39:02 EST news153992101 Charles Darwin is widely thought to have developed his natural selection theory of evolution after noting differences among finches in the Galapagos Islands. http://www.physorg.com/news153932038.html Biology Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:54:19 EST news153932038 Several years after Duke University researchers announced spectacular behavior of a low density ultracold gas cloud, researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have observed strikingly similar properties in a very hot and dense plasma "fluid" created to simulate conditions when the universe was about one millionths of a second old. http://www.physorg.com/news153928950.html Physics Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:03:22 EST news153928950 Our ability to conserve and protect wildlife is at risk because we are unable to accurately gauge how our environment is changing over time, says new research out today in Conservation Letters. http://www.physorg.com/news153755761.html Biology Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:56:55 EST news153755761 (PhysOrg.com) -- All retail companies want to maximize their profits, while at the same time maintaining high market share compared with their competitors. One way to do this is by promising to offer the lowest prices in the market. With this strategy, a retailer may risk a decrease in profits, but has the chance to recover the loss by capturing more market share in the future, especially if some of its competitors exit the market. http://www.physorg.com/news152964558.html Technology Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:10:00 EST news152964558 Austrian scientists are trying to understand the mysteries of the holographic principle: How many dimensions are there in our universe? http://www.physorg.com/news152905022.html Physics Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:37:29 EST news152905022