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Inventing the light fantastic ScienceNews Share    
Fifty years after Theodore Maiman began working to generate a new type of light by blasting a tiny pink ruby crystal with radiation from a powerful photographic flash, the laser's importance in daily life may be second only to that of the computer. More
Scanning probe makes 'nano Matterhorn' PhysicsWorld Share
IBM researchers have used a nanometer-sized tip to create features as small as 15 nm in organic resist materials, which are normally used to make semiconductor chips. This is half the size of structures that can be produced by conventional methods such as electron-beam lithography. The technique has also been used to make a tiny model of the Matterhorn -- and could help chipmakers to make smaller circuits than are possible today. More Scientists uncover deep ocean current near Antarctica Scientific American Share
Scientists have discovered a fast-moving deep ocean current with the volume of 40 Amazon Rivers near Antarctica that will help researchers monitor the impacts of climate change on the world's oceans. A team of Australian and Japanese scientists, in a study published in Sunday's issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, found that the current is a key part of a global ocean circulation pattern that helps control the planet's climate. More
Lasing beyond light ScienceNews Share
At age 50, the laser has extended its dominion far beyond the realm of light. Laserlike "hard" X-ray pulses, for example, can freeze atoms in their tracks, providing a ringside view of chemical reactions. And phonon lasers vault the technology out of the electro-magnetic spectrum altogether, creating coherent beams of sound. Read the associated Physical Review Letters article. More Decaying beauty spied for first time by LHC NewScientist Share
A rare, fleeting "beauty" particle has been spotted in the first run of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC started work on 30 March, and one of its four large detectors detected evidence of a beauty quark -- also, less poetically, known as a bottom quark -- on 5 April. More
Hawking on aliens UPI Share
British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking surmised extraterrestrial life exists but earthlings would be well-advised not to come into contact with it. Hawking, in a U.S. cable outlet Discovery Channel documentary that covers many of the physicist's thoughts on the universe, said alien life is likely to exist but for humans to meet it might have negative unintended consequences. More How do supermassive black holes get so big? PhysOrg Share
At the center of most galaxies lie supermassive black holes that can grow to become more than a billion times larger than our Sun. However, astrophysicists don't fully understand the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes -- specifically, how swirling gas from the galaxy loses its large angular momentum to allow it to be consumed by the black hole. More
How to identify chiral superconductivity in new materials PhysOrg Share
"Chiral superconductivity is the dream of mankind," Carlo Beenakker tells PhysOrg.com. "All sorts of scientists are working on it, and there are many labs trying to create materials that are predicted to provide chiral p-wave superconductivity." Read the associated Physical Review Letters article. More HRL named Physics Historical Site The Malibu Times Share
The development of the laser at what was known in the '50s as Hughes Research Laboratory was an historic moment in science, opening the doors for its use in everything from CDs and fiber optics to being able to measure the distance from the earth to the moon. More |
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