http://www.physorg.com/physics-news/physics/ en-us PhysOrg Team PhysOrg.com provides the latest news on physics, materials, nanotech, science and technology. (PhysOrg.com) -- A Harvard theoretical physicist has discussed with scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland the possibility that they may discover a theorized "stau" particle, with a lifetime of a minute or so, that could provide the first experimental confirmation of string theory. http://www.physorg.com/news177262216.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-12T15:34:37-07:00 It's the biggest problem in physics: the matter we can see in the universe accounts for just five per cent of the observed gravity that holds galaxies together. http://www.physorg.com/news177230113.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-12T06:35:57-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- The NSLS-II Experimental Facilities Division achieved an important milestone in September when the conceptual design reports for the initial six project beamlines were completed and submitted to NSLS-II management. http://www.physorg.com/news177061572.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-10T08:00:02-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- All seven contracts for the production of the NSLS-II storage ring magnets have now been awarded -- a significant milestone for the project. The magnets -- 750 in total -- will be made by vendors in the United States, Russia, China, Europe, and New Zealand. http://www.physorg.com/news177020042.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-09T20:30:01-07:00 The practice of sterilizing medical tools and devices helped revolutionize health care in the 19th century because it dramatically reduced infections associated with surgery. Through the years, numerous ways of sterilization techniques have been developed, but the old mainstay remains a 130-year-old device called an autoclave, which is something like a pressure steamer. The advantage of the autoclave is that the unsterile tools can be packed into sealed containers and then processed, staying sealed and sterile after they are removed. http://www.physorg.com/news176997452.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-09T15:30:11-07:00 A peckish bird briefly knocked out part of the world's biggest atom smasher by causing a chain reaction with a piece of bread, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said Monday. http://www.physorg.com/news176969873.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-09T06:18:45-07:00 Nobel Physics prize winner Vitaly Ginzburg, who helped develop the Soviet hydrogen bomb, has died at age 93, the Russian Academy of Sciences said Monday. http://www.physorg.com/news176963593.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-09T05:00:02-07:00 A theoretical physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology has developed a method for calculating the motions and forces of thousands of atoms simultaneously over a wider range of time scales than previously possible. The method overcomes a longstanding timing gap in modeling nanometer-scale materials and many other physical, chemical and biological systems at atomic and molecular levels. http://www.physorg.com/news176555152.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-04T11:09:16-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- In 2008, scientists built a loudspeaker made of carbon nanotubes that produced sound and music based on the thermoacoustic effect. Now, a different team of scientists has built a loudspeaker made of tiny aluminum wires suspended like a bridge between two supports, producing sound in a similar way. The new wire bridge also has the advantage of being much easier to fabricate than the nanotube device, offering the potential for a wide range of audio applications. http://www.physorg.com/news176543078.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-04T09:00:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- The first stars in the universe may have been very different from the stars we see today, yet they may hold clues to understanding some of the mysterious features of the universe. These "dark stars," first theorized in 2007, could grow to be much larger than modern stars, and would be powered by dark matter particles that annihilate inside them, rather than by nuclear fusion. In the early universe, dark stars would have emitted visible light like the Sun, but today their light would be redshifted into the infrared range by the time it reaches us, and so dark stars would be invisible to the naked eye. http://www.physorg.com/news176457990.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-03T09:40:01-07:00 A new generation of high-energy (>kJ) petawatt (HEPW) lasers is being constructed worldwide to study high intensity laser matter interactions, including fast ignition. Fast ignition is a laser-based technique for heating and igniting deuterium and tritium fuel to fusion temperatures in a two-step process. In the first phase, laser beams vaporize a fuel pellet and compress it to a thousand times its original density, while in the second phase, electrons accelerated by an intense-laser pulse deposit energy within the fuel assembly, causing rapid heating. This is akin to the way a gasoline engine works with a spark plug. http://www.physorg.com/news176403056.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-02T23:00:01-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Research by Michigan State University scientists has shed new light on the properties of neutron stars, galactic oddities that are formed when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses. http://www.physorg.com/news176409161.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-02T18:33:35-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- The first experiments are now underway using the world's most powerful X-ray laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source, located at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Illuminating objects and processes at unprecedented speed and scale, the LCLS has embarked on groundbreaking research in physics, structural biology, energy science, chemistry and a host of other fields. http://www.physorg.com/news176388048.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-02T13:10:07-07:00 An international team of physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory has succeeded in using intense laser light to accelerate protons to energies never before achieved. Using this technique, scientists can now accelerate particles to extremely high velocities that would otherwise only be possible using large accelerator facilities. Physicists around the world are examining laser particle acceleration and laser produced radiation for potential future uses in cancer treatment. http://www.physorg.com/news176375335.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-02T09:09:30-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Terms such as the "invisible hand," laissez-faire policy, and free-market principles suggest that economic growth and decline in capitalist societies seem to be somehow self-regulated. Now, scientists Arto Annila of the University of Helsinki and Stanley Salthe of Binghampton University in New York show that economic activity can be regarded as an evolutionary process governed by the second law of thermodynamics. Their perspective may provide insight into some fundamental economic questions, such as the causes of economic growth and diversification, as well as why it`s so difficult to predict economic growth and decline. http://www.physorg.com/news176365278.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-02T08:00:03-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists from France have worked out why teapots dribble at low flow rates, and how to stop them. The effect is called the "teapot effect", and solving it could finally put an end to tea stains from dribbling teapots. http://www.physorg.com/news176363839.html Physics - General Physics 2009-11-02T07:00:02-07:00 Superstring theory aims to explain the laws of physics from extremely small strings in various states. Theoretical superstring theory is therefore normally not considered to be particularly relevant for practical particle physics experiments. http://www.physorg.com/news176125202.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-30T12:42:37-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- Finally, an optical frequency comb that visibly lives up to its name. Scientists at the University of Konstanz in Germany and the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S. have built the first optical frequency comb -- a tool for precisely measuring different frequencies of visible light -- that actually looks like a comb. http://www.physorg.com/news176046009.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-29T14:41:00-07:00 A team of researchers led by a Case Western Reserve University physicist is planning the world's largest, most sensitive experiment to catch the stuff of dark matter, stuff that's proved way beyond invisible. http://www.physorg.com/news176041529.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-29T14:10:02-07:00 Does your laptop sometimes get so hot that it can almost be used to fry eggs? New technology may help cool it and give information technology a unique twist, says Jairo Sinova, a Texas A&M University physics professor. http://www.physorg.com/news176037299.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-29T12:15:50-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- "Scientists have been working with dipole fields for quite some time," Peter Barker tells PhysOrg.com. "However, most of the work is focused on very small particles, like atoms, or on larger particles, such as for use as optical tweezers. There is an interim region between atoms and large particles, and that is what we are looking at. We want to be able to control molecules a little differently." http://www.physorg.com/news176032268.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-29T10:52:22-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- By taking advantage of the vagaries of the natural world, Duke University engineers have developed a novel approach that they believe can more efficiently harvest electricity from the motions of everyday life. http://www.physorg.com/news175966447.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-28T16:35:22-07:00 Racing across the universe for the last 7.3 billion years, two gamma-ray photons arrived at NASA's orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope within nine-tenths of a second of one another. The dead-heat finish may stoke the fires of debate among physicists over Einstein's special theory of relativity because one of the photons possessed a million times more energy than the other. http://www.physorg.com/news175965994.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-28T16:27:56-07:00 Sandia researchers have developed a process that can mix tiny volumes of liquid, even in complicated spaces. http://www.physorg.com/news175873414.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-27T14:44:59-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Cornell researchers recently tested their work on the mysterious physical phenomenon of flux pinning aboard a near-zero gravity aircraft. http://www.physorg.com/news175868095.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-27T13:15:24-07:00 During the last weekend (23-25 October) particles have once again entered the LHC after the one-year break that followed the incident of September 2008. http://www.physorg.com/news175812230.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-26T21:44:21-07:00 Understanding dark energy is the number one issue in explaining the universe, according to Salman Habib, of the Laboratory's Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology group. http://www.physorg.com/news175787311.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-26T15:00:01-07:00 Red blood cells, which make up 45 percent of blood, normally take the shape of circular cushions with a dimple on either side. But they can sometimes deform into an asymmetrical slipper shape. A team of physicists have used simulations to explore how fluid flow might be responsible for this deformation, as well as how the deformation in turn affects blood flow. The insights could help understand the mechanisms involved in arterial disease and other blood flow-related ailments. Their research is reported in Physical Review Letters and highlighted with a Viewpoint in the October 26 issue of Physics. http://www.physorg.com/news175781298.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-26T13:08:56-07:00 Ultrasound and underwater sonar devices could "see" a big improvement thanks to development of the world's first acoustic hyperlens. Created by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the acoustic hyperlens provides an eightfold boost in the magnification power of sound-based imaging technologies. Clever physical manipulation of the imaging sound waves enables the hyperlens to resolve details smaller than one sixth the length of the waves themselves, bringing into view much smaller objects and features than can be detected using today's technologies. http://www.physorg.com/news175702307.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-25T15:12:53-07:00 (PhysOrg.com) -- A physics research team from the University of St Andrews and Cornell University in the USA has managed to 'photograph' the traces left by orbiting electrons in a special oxide material, and their observations could form the basis for the future of electronic technology. http://www.physorg.com/news175518640.html Physics - General Physics 2009-10-23T12:11:44-07:00