Labspaces.net Physical Sciences RSS News Feed

Magnetic fingerprints of superfluid helium-3

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:00:01 -0500

With their SQUIDs, low-temperature specialists of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have made it possible for the magnetic moments of atoms of the rare isotope 3He (helium-3) to be measured with extreme sensitivity.

Source: Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) - Discipline: Chemistry

Detecting mirror molecules

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:15:01 -0500

Harvard physicists have developed a novel technique that can detect molecular variants in chemical mixtures – greatly simplifying a process that is one of the most important, though time-consuming, processes in analytical chemistry.

Source: Harvard University - Discipline: Chemistry

Whirlpools on the nanoscale could multiply magnetic memory

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:00:04 -0500

"We spent 15 percent of home energy on gadgets in 2009, and we're buying more gadgets all the time," says Peter Fischer of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Fischer lets you know right away that while it's scientific curiosity that inspires his research at the Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), he intends it to help solve pressing problems.

Source: DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Discipline: Physics

Soft matter offers new ways to study how ordered materials arrange themselves

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:45:01 -0500

A fried breakfast food popular in Spain provided the inspiration for the development of doughnut-shaped droplets that may provide scientists with a new approach for studying fundamental issues in physics, mathematics and materials.

Source: Georgia Institute of Technology - Discipline: Materials Science

Video: Cracking the ice code

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:00:05 -0500

What happened the last time a vegetated Earth shifted from an extremely cold climate to desert-like conditions? And what does it tell us about climate change today?

Source: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee - Discipline: Geology

The mammoth's lament: UC research shows how cosmic impact sparked devastating climate change

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:00:01 -0500

Herds of wooly mammoths once shook the earth beneath their feet, sending humans scurrying across the landscape of prehistoric Ohio. But then something much larger shook the Earth itself, and at that point these mega mammals' days were numbered.

Source: University of Cincinnati - Discipline: Geology

Advance in nanotech gene sequencing technique

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:30:02 -0500

The allure of personalized medicine has made new, more efficient ways of sequencing genes a top research priority. One promising technique involves reading DNA bases using changes in electrical current as they are threaded through a nanoscopic hole.

Source: University of Pennsylvania - Discipline: Materials Science

Video: Engineers create on-wetting fabric drains sweat

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:00:01 -0500

Waterproof fabrics that whisk away sweat could be the latest application of microfluidic technology developed by bioengineers at the University of California, Davis.

Source: University of California - Davis - Discipline: Materials Science

Iron-platinum alloys could be new-generation hard drives

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:45:01 -0500

Meeting the demand for more data storage in smaller volumes means using materials made up of ever-smaller magnets, or nanomagnets. One promising material for a potential new generation of recording media is an alloy of iron and platinum with an ordered crystal structure. Researchers led by Professor Kai Liu and graduate student Dustin Gilbert at the University of California, Davis, have now found

Source: University of California - Davis - Discipline: Materials Science

Opening doors to foldable electronics with inkjet-printed graphene

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:45:01 -0500

Imagine a bendable tablet computer or an electronic newspaper that could fold to fit in a pocket.

Source: Northwestern University - Discipline: Materials Science

Kinks and curves at the nanoscale

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:45:01 -0500

One of the basic principles of nanotechnology is that when you make things extremely small—one nanometer is about five atoms wide, 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair—they are going to become more perfect.

Source: University of Vermont - Discipline: Materials Science

Sea level influenced tropical climate during the last ice age

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:15:01 -0500

Scientists look at past climates to learn about climate change and the ability to simulate it with computer models. One region that has received a great deal of attention is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, the vast pool of warm water stretching along the equator from Africa to the western Pacific Ocean.

Source: University of Hawaii ‑ SOEST - Discipline: Geology

RNA capable of catalyzing electron transfer on early earth with iron's help, study says

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:00:01 -0500

A new study shows how complex biochemical transformations may have been possible under conditions that existed when life began on the early Earth.

Source: Georgia Institute of Technology - Discipline: Chemistry

Scientists capture first direct proof of Hofstadter butterfly effect

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:15:03 -0500

A team of researchers from several universities – including UCF –has observed a rare quantum physics effect that produces a repeating butterfly-shaped energy spectrum in a magnetic field, confirming the longstanding prediction of the quantum fractal energy structure called Hofstadter's butterfly.

Source: University of Central Florida - Discipline: Physics

Artificial forest for solar water-splitting

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:00:01 -0500

In the wake of the sobering news that atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at its highest level in at least three million years, an important advance in the race to develop carbon-neutral renewable energy sources has been achieved. Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have reported the first fully integrated nanosystem for artifici

Source: DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Discipline: Physics

Nanotechnology could help fight diabetes

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:15:01 -0500

Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin.

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Discipline: Materials Science

70's-era physics prediction finally confirmed

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:00:01 -0500

City College of New York Assistant Professor of Physics Cory Dean, who recently arrived from Columbia University where he was a post-doctoral researcher, and research teams from Columbia and three other institutions have definitively proven the existence of an effect known as Hofstadter's Butterfly.

Source: City College of New York - Discipline: Physics

Moth-inspired nanostructures take the color out of thin films

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:30:01 -0500

Inspired by the structure of moth eyes, researchers at North Carolina State University have developed nanostructures that limit reflection at the interfaces where two thin films meet, suppressing the "thin-film interference" phenomenon commonly observed in nature. This can potentially improve the efficiency of thin-film solar cells and other optoelectronic devices.

Source: North Carolina State University - Discipline: Materials Science

Beautiful 'flowers' self-assemble in a beaker

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:15:01 -0500

"Spring is like a perhaps hand," wrote the poet E. E. Cummings: "carefully / moving a perhaps / fraction of flower here placing / an inch of air there... / without breaking anything."

Source: Harvard University - Discipline: Chemistry

World's biggest ice sheets likely more stable than previously believed

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:45:01 -0500

For decades, scientists have used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of today's largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Markings of a high shoreline from three million years ago, for example – when Earth was going through a warm period – were thought to be evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at that time. This assumption has led many scientists to think that if

Source: Canadian Institute for Advanced Research - Discipline: Geology

Engineers monitor heart health using paper-thin flexible 'skin'

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:30:01 -0500

Most of us don't ponder our pulses outside of the gym. But doctors use the human pulse as a diagnostic tool to monitor heart health.

Source: Stanford University - Discipline: Materials Science

Using clay to grow bone

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:30:03 -0500

In new research published online May 13, 2013 in Advanced Materials, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) are the first to report that synthetic silicate nanoplatelets (also known as layered clay) can induce stem cells to become bone cells without the need of additional bone-inducing factors. Synthetic silicates are made up of simple or complex salts of silicic a

Source: Brigham and Women's Hospital - Discipline: Materials Science

New principle may help explain why nature is quantum

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:15:01 -0500

Like small children, scientists are always asking the question 'why?'. One question they've yet to answer is why nature picked quantum physics, in all its weird glory, as a sensible way to behave. Researchers Corsin Pfister and Stephanie Wehner at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore tackle this perennial question in a paper published 14 May in Nature Co

Source: Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore - Discipline: Physics

Scientists uncover the fundamental property of astatine, the rarest atom on Earth

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:00:01 -0500

An international team of scientists, including a University of York researcher, has carried out ground-breaking experiments to investigate the atomic structure of astatine (Z=85), the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth. Astatine (At) is of significant interest as its decay properties make it an ideal short-range radiation source for targeted alpha therapy in cancer treatment. The

Source: University of York - Discipline: Chemistry

Physicists light 'magnetic fire' to reveal energy's path

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:00:01 -0500

New York University physicists have uncovered how energy is released and dispersed in magnetic materials in a process akin to the spread of forest fires, a finding that has the potential to deepen our understanding of self-sustained chemical reactions.

Source: New York University - Discipline: Physics

Photonic quantum computers: A brighter future than ever

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:45:02 -0500

Quantum computers work by manipulating quantum objects as, for example, individual photons, electrons or atoms and by harnessing the unique quantum features. Not only do quantum computers promise a dramatic increase in speed over classical computers in a variety of computational tasks; they are designed to complete tasks that even a supercomputer would not be able to handle.

Source: University of Vienna - Discipline: Physics

Unleashing the watchdog protein

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:01 -0500

McGill University researchers have unlocked a new door to developing drugs to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease. Collaborating teams led by Dr. Edward A. Fon at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -The Neuro, and Dr. Kalle Gehring in the Department of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine, have discovered the three-dimensional structure of the protein Parkin. Mutations i

Source: McGill University - Discipline: Biochemistry

Climate record from bottom of Russian lake shows Arctic was warmer millions of years ago

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:45:01 -0500

The Arctic was very warm during a period roughly 3.5 to 2 million years ago--a time when research suggests that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was roughly comparable to today's--leading to the conclusion that relatively small fluctuations in carbon dioxide levels can have a major influence on Arctic climate, according to a new analysis of the longest terrestrial sediment core ever c

Source: National Science Foundation - Discipline: Geology

Scientists demonstrate pear shaped atomic nuclei

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:15:01 -0500

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shown that some atomic nuclei can assume the shape of a pear which contributes to our understanding of nuclear structure and the underlying fundamental interactions.

Source: University of Liverpool - Discipline: Chemistry

Flawed diamonds promise sensory perfection

Mon, 13 May 2013 08:45:01 -0500

From brain to heart to stomach, the bodies of humans and animals generate weak magnetic fields that a supersensitive detector could use to pinpoint illnesses, trace drugs – and maybe even read minds. Sensors no bigger than a thumbnail could map gas deposits underground, analyze chemicals, and pinpoint explosives that hide from other probes.

Source: DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Discipline: Physics

Chaos proves superior to order

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:00:01 -0500

An international team of physicists, including researchers from the Universities of York and St. Andrews, has demonstrated that chaos can beat order - at least as far as light storage is concerned.

Source: University of York - Discipline: Physics

New analysis suggests wind, not water, formed mound on Mars

Tue, 07 May 2013 14:45:01 -0500

A roughly 3.5-mile high Martian mound that scientists suspect preserves evidence of a massive lake might actually have formed as a result of the Red Planet's famously dusty atmosphere, an analysis of the mound's features suggests. If correct, the research could dilute expectations that the mound holds evidence of a large body of water, which would have important implications for understanding Mars

Source: Princeton University - Discipline: Geology

A giant leap to commercialization of polymer solar cell

Tue, 07 May 2013 14:00:01 -0500

A polymer solar cell is a type of thin film solar cells made with polymers that produce electricity from sunlight by the photovoltaic effect. Most current commercial solar cells are made from a highly purified silicon crystal. The high cost of these silicon solar cells and their complex production process has generated interest in developing alternative photovoltaic technologies.

Source: Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology(UNIST) - Discipline: Materials Science

Video: Team develops in vivo flexible large scale integrated circuits

Tue, 07 May 2013 13:30:01 -0500

A team led by Professor Keon Jae Lee from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at KAIST has developed in vivo silicon-based flexible large scale integrated circuits (LSI) for bio-medical wireless communication.

Source: The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) - Discipline: Materials Science

Engineers manipulate a buckyball by inserting a single water molecule

Tue, 07 May 2013 13:00:01 -0500

Columbia Engineering researchers have developed a technique to isolate a single water molecule inside a buckyball, or C60, and to drive motion of the so-called "big" nonpolar ball through the encapsulated "small" polar H2O molecule, a controlling transport mechanism in a nanochannel under an external electric field. They expect this method will lead to an array of new appl

Source: Columbia University - Discipline: Materials Science

Microwave oven cooks up solar cell material

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:00:01 -0500

University of Utah metallurgists used an old microwave oven to produce a nanocrystal semiconductor rapidly using cheap, abundant and less toxic metals than other semiconductors. They hope it will be used for more efficient photovoltaic solar cells and LED lights, biological sensors and systems to convert waste heat to electricity.

Source: University of Utah - Discipline: Materials Science

Scientists uncover relationship between lavas erupting on sea floor and deep-carbon cycle

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:15:01 -0500

Scientists from the Smithsonian and the University of Rhode Island have found unsuspected linkages between the oxidation state of iron in volcanic rocks and variations in the chemistry of the deep Earth. Not only do the trends run counter to predictions from recent decades of study, they belie a role for carbon circulating in the deep Earth. The team's research was published May 2 in Science

Source: Smithsonian - Discipline: Geology

Seahorse's armor gives engineers insight into robotics designs

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:45:01 -0500

The tail of a seahorse can be compressed to about half its size before permanent damage occurs, engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have found. The tail's exceptional flexibility is due to its structure, made up of bony, armored plates, which slide past each other. Researchers are hoping to use a similar structure to create a flexible robotic arm equipped with muscles made out of

Source: University of California - San Diego - Discipline: Materials Science

Printable 'bionic' ear melds electronics and biology

Thu, 02 May 2013 16:15:01 -0500

Scientists at Princeton University used off-the-shelf printing tools to create a functional ear that can "hear" radio frequencies far beyond the range of normal human capability.

Source: Princeton University, Engineering School - Discipline: Materials Science

Best of both worlds: Towards a quantum internet with combined optical and electrical technique

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:15:01 -0500

An Australian team led by researchers at the University of New South Wales has achieved an advance in quantum science that brings the prospect of a network of ultra-powerful quantum computers - connected via a quantum internet –closer to reality.

Source: University of New South Wales - Discipline: Physics

Research helps to show how turbulence can occur without inertia

Wed, 01 May 2013 14:45:01 -0500

Anyone who has flown in an airplane knows about turbulence, or when the flow of a fluid — in this case, the flow of air over the wings — becomes chaotic and unstable. For more than a century, the field of fluid mechanics has posited that turbulence scales with inertia, and so massive things, like planes, have an easier time causing it.

Source: University of Pennsylvania - Discipline: Physics

Northern plains site has twice as much oil as previously thought, Interior says

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:01:37 -0500

A vast geologic formation in three northern Plains states contains twice as much oil and three times as much natural gas as the federal government previously estimated, according to a reassessment of the area released by the Interior Department Tuesday.

Source: Washington Post - Discipline: Geology

'White graphene' to clean up spills

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:01:37 -0500

A material called boron nitride - originally touted as useful for next-generation electronics - turns out to be a high-performance pollutant "sponge".

Source: BBC News - Discipline: Chemistry

Does antimatter fall up or down?

Wed, 01 May 2013 11:00:01 -0500

The atoms that make up ordinary matter fall down, so do antimatter atoms fall up? Do they experience gravity the same way as ordinary atoms, or is there such a thing as antigravity?

Source: DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Discipline: Physics

‘Time Crystals’ Could Upend Physicists’ Theory of Time

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:18:34 -0500

A radical theory predicting the existence of “time crystals” — perpetual motion objects that break the symmetry of time — is being put to the test.

Source: Wired - Discipline: Physics

Scientists reach the ultimate goal -- controlling chirality in carbon nanotubes

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:15:01 -0500

An ultimate goal in the field of carbon nanotube research is to synthesise single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with controlled chiralities. Twenty years after the discovery of SWNTs, scientists from Aalto University in Finland, A.M. Prokhorov General Physics Institute RAS in Russia and the Center for Electron Nanoscopy of Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have managed to control chirality i

Source: Aalto University - Discipline: Materials Science

No Redoubt: Volcanic eruption forecasting improved

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:30:01 -0500

Forecasting volcanic eruptions with success is heavily dependent on recognizing well-established patterns of pre-eruption unrest in the monitoring data. But in order to develop better monitoring procedures, it is also crucial to understand volcanic eruptions that deviate from these patterns.

Source: Carnegie Institution - Discipline: Geology

Supervolcano eruptions may not be so deadly after all

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:18:34 -0500

A massive volcanic eruption 75,000 years ago seems to have had little effect on the climate, suggesting that such huge blasts could be survivable

Source: New Scientist - Discipline: Geology

Bioengineers create rubber-like material bearing micropatterns for stronger, more elastic hearts

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:00:01 -0500

A team of bioengineers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is the first to report creating artificial heart tissue that closely mimics the functions of natural heart tissue through the use of human-based materials. Their work will advance how clinicians treat the damaging effects caused by heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.

Source: Brigham and Women's Hospital - Discipline: Materials Science

Comparing proteins at a glance

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:30:01 -0500

A revolutionary X-ray analytical technique that enables researchers at a glance to identify structural similarities and differences between multiple proteins under a variety of conditions has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). As a demonstration, the researchers used this technique to gain valuable new insi

Source: DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Discipline: Biochemistry

Feast clue to smell of ancient earth

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:15:01 -0500

Tiny 1,900 million-year-old fossils from rocks around Lake Superior, Canada, give the first ever snapshot of organisms eating each other and suggest what the ancient Earth would have smelled like.

Source: University of Oxford - Discipline: Geology

Video: Cicadas get a jump on cleaning

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:30:01 -0500

As cicadas on the East Coast begin emerging from their 17-year slumber, a spritz of dew drops is all they need to keep their wings fresh and clean.

Source: Duke University - Discipline: Physics

Microchip proves tightness provokes precocious sperm release

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:00:03 -0500

Sperm cell release can be triggered by tightening the grip around the delivery organ, according to a team of nano and microsystems engineers and plant biologists at the University of Montreal and Concordia University. Concordia's nanobiotech team devised a microchip that enabled the University of Montreal biologists to observe what happened when pollen tubes – the sperm delivery tools used by plan

Source: University of Montreal - Discipline: Physics

Movement of pyrrole molecules defy 'classical' physics

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:45:01 -0500

New research shows that movement of the ring-like molecule pyrrole over a metal surface runs counter to the centuries-old laws of 'classical' physics that govern our everyday world.

Source: University of Cambridge - Discipline: Physics

Thanks to rare alpine bacteria, researchers identify one of alcohol's key gateways to the brain

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:30:02 -0500

Thanks to a rare bacteria that grows only on rocks in the Swiss Alps, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and the Pasteur Institute in France have been the first to identify how alcohol might affect key brain proteins.

Source: University of Texas at Austin - Discipline: Biochemistry

CERN physicists can explain matter vs. antimatter

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:42:41 -0500

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has discovered a small difference in the make up of antimatter and matter

Source: CBSNews - Discipline: Physics

Einstein was right -- So far

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:30:01 -0500

An international team has discovered an exotic double object that consists of a tiny, but unusually heavy neutron star that spins 25 times each second, orbited every two and a half hours by a white dwarf star. The neutron star is a pulsar that is giving off radio waves that can be picked up on Earth by radio telescopes. Although this unusual pair is very interesting in its own right it is also a u

Source: ESO - Discipline: Physics

Vaterite: Crystal within a crystal helps resolve an old puzzle

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:15:01 -0500

With the help of a solitary sea squirt, scientists have resolved the longstanding puzzle of the crystal structure of vaterite, an enigmatic geologic mineral and biomineral.

Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison - Discipline: Chemistry

The Earth's center is 1,000 degrees hotter than previously thought

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:00:01 -0500

Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth's centre to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 degrees hotter than in a previous experiment run 20 years ago. These measurements confirm geophysical models that the temperature difference between the solid core and the mantle above, must be at least 1500 degrees to explain why the Earth has a magnetic field. The scientis

Source: European Synchrotron Radiation Facility - Discipline: Geology

Piezoelectric 'taxel' arrays convert motion to electronic signals for tactile imaging

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:45:01 -0500

Using bundles of vertical zinc oxide nanowires, researchers have fabricated arrays of piezotronic transistors capable of converting mechanical motion directly into electronic controlling signals. The arrays could help give robots a more adaptive sense of touch, provide better security in handwritten signatures and offer new ways for humans to interact with electronic devices.

Source: Georgia Institute of Technology - Discipline: Materials Science