by Izabella Kaminska The Swiss boson is a hypothetical condition which is supposed to account for why the Swiss franc has ‘mass’ when all other neighbouring currencies don’t. A multi billion-euro experiment, operated by BERN (but funded outright by tax payers), is currently under way on the borders of Switzerland and the Eurozone to try… [Read more…]
March 21, 2012
… shown on the base of the ocean nearly 100 years from that fateful night The sinking of the Titanic is one of the 20th century’s great dramas, a mystery that has confounded scientists and historians for years. There is still an aura of mysticism that remains around that fateful ship and new photos that… [Read more…]
March 7, 2012
… but a ballpoint pen would A penny would only reach 25mph on its way down A ballpoint pen could hit 200mph It’s long been said that a penny thrown from a skyscraper could kill someone if it hit them on the head, but city workers can relax, because this is just an urban myth,… [Read more…]
November 7, 2011
The US physicist Norman Ramsey, who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for Physics, died on 4 November at the age of 96. Ramsey’s work on probing the structure of atoms to high precision was instrumental in the later development of the atomic clock, as well as in medical applications such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),… [Read more…]
October 28, 2011
… and an element that could revolutionise energy production It’s been nearly 38 years since man last walked on the moon – but it’s recently become a hot destination once again, because several companies are vying to return to Earth’s satellite to mine it. It’s known that the Moon contains huge amounts of water-ice… [Read more…]
October 20, 2011
The exotic theory of everything could shed light on the behaviour of real materials, thanks to an unexpected mathematical connection with condensed-atter physics On one side,” says Jan Zaanen, “you have this refined, almost other-worldly intellectual — the perfectionist obsessed with detail, barely interested in earthly pleasures. On the other, you have the loud, boisterous,… [Read more…]
October 5, 2011
“Cosmologists are trained to say there was no time before the Big Bang, when we should say that we don’t know whether there was anything – or if there was, what it was.” Sean Carroll, physicist, CalTech, author From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time
August 27, 2011
By Pallab Ghosh Results from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have all but killed the simplest version of an enticing theory of sub-atomic physics. Researchers failed to find evidence of so-called “supersymmetric” particles, which many physicists had hoped would plug holes in the current theory. Theorists working in the field have told BBC News that… [Read more…]
July 9, 2011
Bob Englehart, Hartford, Connecticut Joe Heller, Wisconsin — The Green Bay Press-Gazette Jeff Parker, Florida Today Adam Zyglis, Buffalo, NY, The Buffalo News Jimmy Margulies, New Jersey – The Record Read more: www.cagle.com
July 6, 2011
Economic meltdown adds fresh vigour to science shake-up. “The threat is very clear,” says Greek native Vassilis Pachnis, a developmental neuroscientist at the UK National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in London. “There is a danger that this financial crisis could damage the status of centres of research excellence in Greece.” Last week, the Greek… [Read more…]
June 29, 2011
We present the results of an experimental investigation of the acoustics and fluid dynamics of Tibetan singing bowls. Their acoustic behavior is rationalized in terms of the related dynamics of standing bells and wine glasses. Striking or rubbing a fluid-filled bowl excites wall vibrations, and concomitant waves at the fluid surface. Acoustic excitation of the… [Read more…]
June 21, 2011
Pupils generally enjoy carrying out experiments – but do teachers overuse them when they should in fact be teaching more theory, asks Alom Shaha Remember burning magnesium in school? Doing this for the first time as an 11-year-old who has just started secondary school is one of those magical experiences that all students should have. But… [Read more…]
June 16, 2011
A letter published in Nature today announces the first observations of developing black holes in the early Universe. The discovery answers a long-standing question in astronomy: how early on were black holes forming, and what were the earliest ones like? The observations required a clever technique which stretched the capabilities of modern instruments. We have now imaged… [Read more…]
May 31, 2011
Last year, scientists claimed to have solved the faint young Sun paradox. They were wrong. Now the paradox is back and more puzzling than ever. Liquid water has flowed on Earth for some 3.8 billion years, since not long after the planet formed. The evidence comes from rocks that date from that period which seem… [Read more…]
May 13, 2011
COULD the structure of space and time be sketched out inside a cousin of plain old pencil lead? The atomic grid of graphene may mimic a lattice underlying reality, two physicists have claimed, an idea that could explain the curious spin of the electron. Graphene is an atom-thick layer of carbon in a hexagonal formation.… [Read more…]
May 7, 2011
For the first time, measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) alone favor cosmologies with w = −1 dark energy over models without dark energy at a 3.2-sigma level. We demonstrate this by combining the CMB lensing deflection power spectrum from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope with temperature and polarization power spectra from the Wilkinson… [Read more…]
May 3, 2011
An Application of Biogeographic Theories and Satellite Imagery …MIT International Review 17 Feb 2009 !!! “One of the most important political questions of our time is: Where is Osama bin Laden? We use biogeographic theories associated with the distribution of life and extinction (distance-decay theory, island biogeography theory, and life history characteristics) and remote sensing… [Read more…]
April 30, 2011
An invisibility cloak that is less than five times bigger than the object it conceals has been unveiled by physicists in Denmark and the UK. They say that their device, which they built using semiconductor manufacturing techniques, offers the smallest cloak size relative to cloaked area to date. First developed in 2006, invisibility cloaks can… [Read more…]
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April 15, 2012
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