MedWorm.com provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest items from the 'Physics Today News Picks' source. Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:33:11 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3382345&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Flarge-hadron-collider-breaks-o.html Physics Today: At just after 5:20 this morning central european time, two 3.5 TeV proton beams successfully circulated in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This is the highest energy yet achieved in a particle accelerator. The first attempt to collide beams at 7 TeV (3.5 TeV per beam) is expected in the near future. "Getting the beams to 3.5 TeV is testimony to the soundness of the LHC's overall design, and the improvements we've made since the breakdown in September 2008," says CERN's director for accelerators and technology, Steve Myers. "And it's a great credit to the patience and dedication of the LHC team." The current LHC run began on 20 November 2009, with the first circulating beam at 0.45 TeV. Shortly afterwards on the 23 November, two circulating beams went around the collid... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3382345 Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3382345 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3382344&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fhunt-for-the-sterile-neutrino.html Nature News: Neutrinos like to keep to themselves. These ghostly particles are so reluctant to interact with ordinary matter that billions zip harmlessly through each person every day, and it takes giant, specialized detectors to capture even a handful of them. Now astronomers are finding hints of an even more elusive type of neutrino, one so shy that it could never be detected directly: the sterile neutrino. “The question of sterile neutrinos is absolutely crucial for nuclear particle physics and astrophysics.” For more than a decade, this subatomic spectre has intrigued theorists and experimenters, but experimental efforts have had trouble catching them. Now, two observations in space—one in microwaves and the other in X rays—are raising hopes again. (Source: Physics To... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3382344 Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3382344 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3382343&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fboeing-designs-ship-based-lase.html Physics Today: In April 2009, Boeing Co was awarded an Office of Naval Research contract valued at up to $163 million—with an initial task order of $6.9 million—to begin developing a free electron laser (FEL) weapon system. The company finally presented its design of a 100 kW FEL last week to the US Navy at a Boeing facility in Arlington, Virginia The FEL operates by passing a beam of high-energy electrons through a series of powerful magnetic fields, generating an intense emission of laser light that can disable or destroy targets. FEL's are attractive for the navy for three reasons, they can operate for long periods of time (unlike the chemical laser used in Boeing's overbudget and frequently delayed prototype airborne missile defense plane, which has to reload afte... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3382343 Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3382343 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3382342&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fsuppressing-turbulence-in-pipe.html Science: Pipes feature strongly in the infrastructure of everyday life, from domestic water pipes to oil and natural gas conduits. A primary consequence of the onset of turbulence in the fluid flowing through the pipes is the dramatically increased power required to pump stuff at the same rate. Thus, the incentives to understand and control the transition process are strong. More than 100 years after Osborne Reynolds's seminal experiments on the transition of flow through a pipe from a laminar (smooth) to a turbulent state, the exact physical mechanism that drives this phenomenon still vexes the fluid mechanics community. In Science Björn Hof and associates describe a mechanism that feeds energy into a turbulent flow system, allowing the onset of the transition to be manipulated and e... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3382342 Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3382342 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3382349&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fusec-cascades-new-centifuge-de.html Physics Today: USEC Inc. has taken a major step forward towards building the first new uranium enrichment plant in the US in decades. Instead of relying on a gaseous diffusion technique, like it's existing Paducah, Kentucky, for enriching uranium, USEC chose to develop a new type of centrifuge called the AC100 series (image left), which uses significantly less energy to make 235U. In a centrifuge the heavier gas molecules containing 238U move toward the outside of the cylinder and the lighter gas molecules rich in 235U collect closer to the center. USEC announced that the company has started operation of a cascade of AC100 centrifuge machines in a commercial-plant configuration in Piketon, Ohio. By adding a number of centrifuges together enrichment can happen at a faster rate and ... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3382349 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3382349 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3382348&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fquantum-properties-in-the-mech.html Various: Andrew Cleland, John Martinis, and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have provided the first clear demonstration that the theory of quantum mechanics applies to the mechanical motion of an object large enough to be seen by the naked eye. Their work satisfies a longstanding goal among physicists. Their paper, which was published in Nature today, describes the first demonstration of a mechanical resonator that has been cooled to the quantum ground state, the lowest level of vibration allowed by quantum mechanics. With the mechanical resonator as close as possible to being perfectly still, they added a single quantum of energy to the resonator using a quantum bit (qubit) to produce the excitation. The resonator responded precisely as predicted by the th... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3382348 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3382348 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3382347&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fstudying-fake-dark-matter-to-c.html New Scientist: Dark matter is hypothetical, invisible stuff that cosmologists invoke to explain why the universe appears to contain much less matter than their calculations say it should, and some think that it is made up of hypothetical particles called axions. Even though we haven't yet found a genuine axion, however, materials called topological insulators can be used to mimic them, say Shoucheng Zhang and colleagues at Stanford University, California. Magnetic fluctuations in the materials produce a field just like an axion field, his team found. "They are an exact mathematical analogy," says Zhang, who presented his work at the March APS meeting. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3382347 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3382347 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3382346&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Ftitans-cold-interior.html Science: The interior structure and composition of solar system bodies are key to understanding their origin and evolution. Saturn's largest icy moon, Titan, and the jovian moons, Ganymede and Callisto, are of similar size, mean density, and primordial ice-rock fraction from which the satellites formed. Titan is distinct due to its dense nitrogen atmosphere, with methane as the next most abundant constituent, which precludes direct observations of the surface. Before the arrival of the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft to study the Saturn system in 2004, little was known about the nature of Titan's interior—information as to its origin, evolution, and the rate at which it degasses was limited. In Science, Luciano Iess of Sapienza University of Rome in Italy and associates report evidence ... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3382346 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3382346 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3377897&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fhaiti-earthquake-devastation-p.html NPR: Geologists working in Haiti say they've been able to trace the exact location of the earthquake fault that gave way on 12 January and killed more than 200,000 people. They've also discovered that decades of deforestation in Haiti actually contributed to the earthquake's toll along the coastline by allowing sediment to drain from the mountains and form a flood plain which people built on. This loose soil liquified in the earthquake, causing loss of life. Related news picks The Haiti earthquake Haiti likely to suffer more aftershock tremors More science from the Haiti earthquake (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3377897 Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3377897 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3377896&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fanalyzing-smuggled-uranium.html The Economist: Between 1992 and 2007, according to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicist Ian Hutcheon, 17kg of highly enriched uranium was seized from smugglers around the world, along with 400 grams of plutonium. In neither case is that enough for a proper atom bomb, but it is still worrying says the Economist. Presumably, more is out there. Even if it is not, the material that has been found could have been used to make a “radiological” weapon, by blowing it up and scattering it around a city using conventional explosives. Hutcheon is one of those charged with analyzing this captured material, to discover how dangerous it really is and where it came from. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3377896 Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3377896 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3377895&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fthe-complex-dynamics-of-jupite.html Physics Today: New thermal images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot have provided the first detailed interior weather map of the giant storm system. Image credit: NASA/JPL/ESO and NASA/ESA/GSF The observations reveal that the reddest color of the Great Red Spot corresponds to a warm core within the otherwise cold storm system, and images show dark lanes at the edge of the storm where gases are descending into the deeper regions of the planet. These types of data, detailed in Icarus, give scientists a sense of the circulation patterns within the solar system's best-known storm system. "This is our first detailed look inside the biggest storm of the solar system," said coauthor Glenn Orton, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We once thought the Great Red Spot wa... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3377895 Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3377895 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3373758&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fan-airborne-weightless-science.html SPACE.com: A commercial company is offering researchers a chance to fly in a plane that simulates weightless and low-gravity environments like the moon, Mars, and Earth-orbit. Zero Gravity Corporation (ZERO-G) announced the new program, known as ZERO-G Weightless Lab, on Thursday. The lab flights, costs about $30,000 (plus tax) and is open to academic, corporate and government agency customers. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3373758 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3373758 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3373757&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fthe-physics-of-scoring-in-bask.html washingtonpost.com: March Madness—the annual NCAA basketball playoff spectacle—begins in earnest this week. The Washington Post takes a look at research started by Peter Brancazio, a physics professor at Brooklyn College, who in the 1980s wrote a book on the physics of sport and how to optimize scoring. In basketball, the ball typically follows the parabola, it's the elegant arched trajectory naturally formed by any projectile, from an artillery round to a tomato, moving in a gravitational field. According to Brancazio, the correct angle for scoring from free throws is to create a parabola curve by angling the throw at 45°, except when it isn't, which is most of the time. The reason is that 45° only works if the ball is shot as the same height as the basket. For t... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3373757 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3373757 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3373756&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fcooling-down-computer-chips-on.html Physics Today: Heat is the bane of computer manufacturers as it places severe limits on how fast computer chips can run. Some computer systems, such as Intel's Pentium desktops, have fans that blow cool air onto the circuit boards. Other solutions, which usually involve supercomputers, include dipping the entire computer in a fast moving fluid to keep the equipment cool. But what if we could design a liquid cooling system that could be built onto the silicon chip? Chunlei Guo and Anatoliy Vorobyev at the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester have come up with one technique that could be applied to create such a system. Their paper in Optics Express describe how to make liquid flow vertically upward along a silicon surface, overcoming the pull of gravity, without pumps or o... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3373756 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3373756 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3369954&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fdirecting-light-at-the-nanscal.html Nature News: If quantum computing networks are ever to become a reality, physicists must find a way to direct and harness the light emitted in quantum experiments without using cumbersome apparatus. Now, Holger Hofmann, at the Department of Quantum Matter at Hiroshima University in Japan. and his colleagues have developed a way to control the direction of light on the nanoscale. Their technique is based on the workings of the Yagi-Uda antenna commonly used to transmit and detect shortwave radio waves. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3369954 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3369954 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3377898&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fbuilding-a-view-of-the-earth-f.html Science: On 23 September 1966, NASA's Nimbus II satellite soared over Earth in a polar orbit every 108 minutes, taking pictures of cloud cover and measuring heat radiated from the planet's surface. The data documented the extent of polar ice shelves and the paths of two typhoons, but like thousands of other Nimbus II records, the information was originally stored on analog tapes and later forgotten for decades. Then last month, researchers working out of an abandoned McDonald's restaurant on the grounds of NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, recovered the Nimbus data from that day in 1966, creating a photo mosaic of the globe 43 years ago. The resulting image (above) is the oldest and most detailed from NASA's Earth-observing satellites. It's also the latest succe... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3377898 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3377898 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3369957&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fsolar-activity-cycle-influence.html Science News: From 2008 through the first half of 2009, the Sun had a puzzling dearth of sunspots, flares and other storms, extending the usual lull at the end of the 11-year solar activity cycle for an extra 15 months. The reason why may be explained by David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and Lisa Rightmire of the University of Memphis in Tennessee, who analyzed 13 years of measurements from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (also known as SOHO) that tracked the movement of ionized gas from the solar equator to the poles. The researchers found that the relatively slow gas movement, known as the meridional flow—the flow of material along meridian lines from the equator toward the poles at the surface and from the poles to the equator deep inside—sp... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3369957 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3369957 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3369956&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fbuilding-a-view-of-the-earth-f.html Science: On 23 September 1966, NASA's Nimbus II satellite soared over Earth in a polar orbit every 108 minutes, taking pictures of cloud cover and measuring heat radiated from the planet's surface. The data documented the extent of polar ice shelves and the paths of two typhoons, but like thousands of other Nimbus II records, the information was originally stored on analog tapes and later forgotten for decades. Then last month, researchers working out of an abandoned McDonald's restaurant on the grounds of NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, recovered the Nimbus data from that day in 1966, creating a photo mosaic of the globe 43 years ago. The resulting images (above) is the oldest and most detailed from NASA's Earth-observing satellites. It's also the latest succe... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3369956 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3369956 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3369955&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fthe-mathematical-premise-of-al.html NPR: Author Lewis Carroll was also a math teacher in Oxford, England, and mathematicians say Alice in Wonderland and its sequel Alice Through the Looking-Glass are full of algebraic lessons—such as why a raven is like a writing desk. That's the riddle the Mad Hatter asks Alice. And, as Keith Devlin from Stanford University tells NPR's Jacki Lyden, "That particular scene—and lots of other scenes in Alice in Wonderland—were a reflection on the increasing abstraction that was going on in mathematics in the 19th century." Related links Algebra in Wonderland New York Times Alice's adventures in algebra: Wonderland solved New Scientist (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3369955 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3369955 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3365891&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fweighing-superheavy-atoms.html Nature News: Using a special trap, researchers have captured and weighed three isotopes of the superheavy element nobelium—the heaviest element so far to have its mass measured directly. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3365891 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3365891 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3365893&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Ffor-quantum-computer-add-a-das.html Science News: Embracing chaos just might help physicists build a quantum brain. A new study shows that disorder can enhance the coupling between light and matter in quantum systems, a find that could eventually lead to fast, easy-to-build quantum computers. Related link Qavity quantum electrodynamics with anderson-localized modes (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3365893 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3365893 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3365892&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fapollo-moon-rocks-contained-ev.html Nature News: Talks at the first Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held in 1970, described an analysis of Moon rocks collected during the Apollo 11 mission. Petrologist Larry Taylor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, described how he saw only pure metallic iron in the samples—a sign that there wasn't any water around to rust the iron. This and other results that year led to the party line: the Moon is, and always was, bone dry. Forty years on, at the same annual conference, Taylor and his colleagues announced that they have been wrong all along. Three groups presented evidence that certain crystals in the volcanic rocks collected by Apollo astronauts contain as much as several thousand parts per million of water. The results suggest that the lunar interior has alway... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3365892 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3365892 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3358503&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fwhy-iron-based-superconductors.html Science: The first superconductors were discovered in 1911. Half a century passed before physicists came up with a theory that could explain why some compounds had zero resistance at a few degrees above absolute zero. In 1986, researchers discovered complex compounds nicknamed "cuprates" containing copper and oxygen that become superconductors at much higher "critical temperatures"—now as high as 138 kelvin, but couldn't explain how or why they worked. In the last couple of years, researchers have discovered a new type, four families of iron-based superconductors with distinct crystal structures, that superconduct at temperatures as high at 27 Kelvin. Using tools honed on the cuprates they have made measurements that took decades to achieve in the older materials. More importantly... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3358503 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3358503 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3358502&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fspace-station-could-operate-un.html AFP: The consortium of agencies building the International Space Station (ISS) wants to see if the orbital outpost can operate until 2028, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3358502 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3358502 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3358507&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fis-fusion-power-really-viable.html BBC News: 2010 is a big year for nuclear fusion but experts fear that a lack of fuel could push the dream of cheap, safe, clean and limitless energy far into the future. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3358507 Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3358507 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3358506&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fvlatko-vedral-on-information.html guardian.co.uk: Physicist Vlatko Vedral explains to Aleks Krotoski why he believes the fundamental stuff of the universe is information. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3358506 Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3358506 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3358505&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fpublic-outreach-program-catche.html Nature News: Scientists say they have caught the first pieces of interstellar dust—the fundamental building blocks of the Sun, Earth and the rest of the Solar System. The discovery required an army of volunteers, including a Canadian man who spent 15 hours a day studying images online and eventually discovered the first dust sample. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3358505 Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3358505 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3358504&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fantarctic-ice-is-melting.html NPR: In Antarctica, you'll find 90 percent of the world's glacial ice, but new research from the US Geological Survey shows that every ice front in the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula is retreating. Jane Ferrigno US Geological Survey is the lead author of that new report. She tells NPR that scientists have known for a while that some of the peninsula's ice shelves are breaking up. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3358504 Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3358504 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3358509&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fcan-you-still-be-an-audiophile.html Sciencebase: Back in the 1970s LP's were the common medium of choice for Hi-fi enthusiasts. When the compact disc emerged on to the market with its claims of superior quality and scratch resistance, the hi-fi enthusiasts split into two camps: those who clung to vinyl and those who went digital. But, was concentrating on audio quality all for nothing? Within another generation the notion of digital audio had changed with compressed formats such as MP3's becoming popular. Jerald Hughes of University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg writing in the International Journal Services and Standards has a nice table showing the technical specification of the human ear and comparing it to the various analogue formats. It turns out that if you want the best quality, LP's are not the way to go, an ol... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3358509 Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3358509 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3358508&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fthe-uks-weapon-labs-scalpel.html Nature News: With the launch of a powerful laser facility, called Orion, the UK's atomic weapons establishment (AWE), which is generally closed to academic research, is opening up. Researchers will use Orion to explore two key parameters for materials used in nuclear weapons: their opacity and their equation of state. The first describes how radiation travels through a material—in this case, the two stages that make up a weapon, particularly as how the opacity changes with age The other parameter—the equation of state—describes how a material behaves at enormous pressures and temperatures. By generating data on these and other crucial parameters, Orion will give nuclear-weapons scientists the information they need to ensure that their models are correct. If the US N... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3358508 Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3358508 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3353933&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fearths-magnetic-field-older-th.html Science News: Evidence for the existence of Earth’s magnetic field has been pushed back about 250 million years, new research suggests. The field may therefore be old enough to have shielded some of the planet's earliest life from the sun’s most harmful cosmic radiation. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3353933 Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3353933 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3353932&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fan-interview-with-brian-greene.html Discover magazine: Columbia University physicist Brian Greene has become the public face of string theory. He has provided insight into the topology of those additional dimensions, and in 1999 he introduced the theory to nonscientists in a best-selling book, The Elegant Universe. In 2008 he cofounded the World Science Festival, an annual event that brings together scientists, artists, and ordinary people who are simply interested in the great questions of the universe. Greene talked to discover about how string theory has evolved, the attempts to find supporting evidence through new experiments, and the challenges of making science exciting to the general public. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3353932 Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3353932 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3349879&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fdetecting-nuclear-smuggling-in.html Nature News: Georgia's borders are guarded by some of the best radiation detectors available—so why are nuclear smugglers still slipping through? asks Sharon Weinberger. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3349879 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3349879 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3349878&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fion-engines-for-interplanetary.html SPACE.com: Former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz has been developing a new rocket engine that draws upon electric power and magnetic fields to channel superheated plasma out the back. That stream of plasma generates steady, efficient thrust that uses low amounts of propellant and builds up speed over time. The rocket technology could drastically cut down the amount of time a spacecraft needs to fly between Earth and Mars. The idea behind ion engines has been around for more than 60 years, and has been used in some small experimental micro-satellites in Earth orbit. The Ad Astra Rocket Company is now trying to successfully build an interplanetary engine called the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) by competing for some R&D funds from NASA. (Source: Physics Today ... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3349878 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3349878 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3349877&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fdeep-sea-robot-lost-at-sea.html Physics Today: A pioneering deep-sea exploration robot—one of the first successful submersible vehicles that was both unmanned and untethered to surface ships—was lost at sea on a research expedition to explore the Chile Triple Junction—the only place on Earth where a mid-ocean ridge is being subducted (or pushed) beneath a continent (South America) in a deep ocean trench. The 15-year-old Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE), was launched late Thursday night by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and had reached the seafloor to begin its 222nd research dive when, in the early hours of Friday morning, all contact with the surface vessel Melville abruptly ceased. All efforts to reestablish contact failed. “The loss had nothing to do with earthquake activity off... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3349877 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3349877 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3349876&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fcan-we-monitor-greenhouse-gase.html The Economist: You might think that measuring the global levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would be a priority. If you did think that, though, you would be wrong. No such system exists, because NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), a satellite that would have fulfilled the role, was lost on launch this time last year. The purpose of OCO was to work out the fate of carbon dioxide that is emitted by industrial processes but does not then stay in the atmosphere—about 60% of the total. America is planning to build a new OCO. In the meantime, however, a small group of scientists are doing their best to monitor emissions at ground level. At the end of February a number of these researchers met at the Royal Society in London, to discuss what they were up to. (Source: Physics To... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3349876 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3349876 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3346159&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fchile-as-the-ideal-seismic-lab.html washingtonpost.com: Earthquake scientists, many of them from the US, have been flocking to Chile since the 27 February 8.8 magnitude earthquake in order to search for clues that will help them better forecast large earthquakes. Time is of the essence as valuable data could be lost, is a vast number of sensors aren't deployed over the coming weeks. Related news picks The Chilean earthquake: The plate tectonics The Chilean earthquake: The observatories The earthquake risk to megacities (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3346159 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3346159 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3346158&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fqutrits-for-quantum-cryptograp.html MIT Technology Review: Quantum cryptography only works if Alice and Bob share their relative positions in advance. Now Anthony Laing from the University of Bristol and associates have figured out how to get round this by using entangled triplets of photons, so-called qutrits, rather than entangled pairs. This solves the problem by embedding it in an extra abstract dimension, which is independent of space. So as long as both Alice and Bob know the way in which all these abstract dimensions are related, the third provides a reference against which measurements of the other two can be made says their arXiv paper. Related link Reference frame independent quantum key distribution (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3346158 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3346158 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3346157&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fsaving-energy-through-an-intel.html Science: Buildings use 40% of the primary energy supplied in the US, and more than 70% of all generated electricity, primarily for heating, cooling, and lighting. About 20% of the energy used by buildings can potentially be saved by correcting faults, including malfunctions and unnecessary operation. Another 10 to 20% can be saved by deploying advanced control systems to regulate temperature and air flow inside the buildings. The energy efficiency resource recoverable through such improved building controls and fault detection corresponds to the output from hundreds of power plants, equivalent to more than one-third of US coal-fired power production. Realizing these substantial savings will require introducing intelligence into the infrastructure of buildings, to distribute the optim... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3346157 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3346157 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3346156&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fnobel-scientists-play-nobel-ph.html latimes.com: Yesterday, two Nobel Prize-winning scientists, chemist Alan Heeger (2000) and physicist David Gross (2004), portrayed two Nobel Prize-winning physicists, Niels Bohr (1922) and Werner Heisenberg (1932), in a reading from Copenhagen, a play that revolves around quantum mechanics and the development of nuclear weapons. The sellout event was for the theater company at Santa Barbara's Music Academy of the West. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3346156 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3346156 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3339594&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Frobot-planes-get-a-dose-of-sci.html Nature News: Later this month a remote-controlled aircraft is scheduled to take off from the Mojave Desert in California and veer west over the Pacific Ocean. The Global Hawk, a slim-winged, high-flying jet, was designed for military reconnaissance and tested in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But this time the plane will fly for science. The plane will measure concentrations of ozone, aerosols and various trace gases along a 15000 kilometer loop around Hawaii. At the same time, atmospheric scientists hope that the drone's flight will usher in an era of unmanned scientific aircraft that can probe parts of the sky normally inaccessible to manned planes. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3339594 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3339594 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3337940&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fexotic-heavy-antimatter-detect.html This study of the new antihypernucleus also yields a valuable sample of normal hypernuclei, and has implications for our understanding of the structure of collapsed stars. “The strangeness value could be non-zero in the core of collapsed stars,” said Jinhui Chen, one of the lead authors, a postdoctoral researcher at Kent State University and currently a staff scientist at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, “so the present measurements at RHIC will help us distinguish between models that describe these exotic states of matter.” The findings also pave the way towards exploring violations of fundamental symmetries between matter and antimatter that occurred in the early universe, making possible the very existence of our world. Collisions at RHIC fleetingly produce conditio... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3337940 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3337940 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3337939&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fpredicting-the-different-types.html The Economist: Eskimos have numerous ways to describe different types of snow, whether its 'sticky,' flakey, wet, or dry. And as the recent snowstorms on the East coast of the US have shown, the type of snow that falls on the ground (heavy and wet with the first snowstorm, leading to power outages, felled trees, and blocked roads for days, and light and fluffy for the second, which caused less disruption) can have a big impact on whether utilities and governments can still provide core services. Forecasting what sort of snow will fall is not easy. But Jim Steenburgh and Trevor Alcott from the University of Utah think they have found a correlation between weather conditions at the time of a snowfall and the amount of water in the snow that fell. This is called the snow-to-liquid ratio (b... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3337939 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3337939 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3337938&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Ffrozen-arctic-methane-shows-si.html This study is a testament to sustained, careful observations and to international cooperation in research," said Henrietta Edmonds of the National Science Foundation, which partially funded the study. "The Arctic is a difficult place to get to and to work in, but it is important that we do so in order to understand its role in global climate and its response and contribution to ongoing environmental change. It is important to understand the size of the reservoir—the amount of trapped methane that potentially could be released—as well as the processes that have kept it "trapped" and those that control the release. Work like this helps us to understand and document these processes." Earlier studies in Siberia focused on methane escaping from thawing terrestrial permafrost. Semil... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3337938 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3337938 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3337943&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fsea-filled-with-plastics.html Science News: Recent studies show that the oceans may hold more “garbage patches” of fine plastic flotsam than scientists realized and that the fragments extend well below the sea surface. Most of these items are the size of fingernail clippings or smaller. They are the wave-shattered remnants of items such as rubbish, abandoned fishing gear and floats from fishing nets and scientific instruments. These plastic bits are especially common in a region of the Pacific Ocean southwest of California that is sometimes called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Recent cruises reveal that there’s more garbage in this patch than often meets the eye, oceanographer Giora Proskurowski of the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Mass., reported February 24 at the American Geophysical Union’... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3337943 Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3337943 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3337942&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fthe-data-crunch.html The Economist: WHEN the Sloan Digital Sky Survey started work in 2000, its telescope in New Mexico collected more data in its first few weeks than had been amassed in the entire history of astronomy. Now, a decade later, its archive contains a whopping 140 terabytes of information. Despite the abundance of tools to capture, process and share all this information—sensors, computers, mobile phones and the like—it already exceeds the available storage space. Moreover, ensuring data security and protecting privacy is becoming harder as the information multiplies and is shared ever more widely around the world. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3337942 Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3337942 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3337941&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fprotecting-hearing-at-an-early.html NYTimes.com: Specialists say such safeguards, such as ear muffs at loud stadiums, are critical for young ears in a deafening world. Hearing loss from exposure to loud noises is cumulative and irreversible; if such exposure starts in infancy, children can live “half their lives with hearing loss,” said Brian Fligor, director of diagnostic audiology at Children’s Hospital Boston. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3337941 Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3337941 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3334829&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Ficeball-mars.html Science: The running joke is that somebody's about to announce the discovery of water on Mars, again," says planetary scientist Robert Grimm of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. Actually, it was more than 30 years ago that researchers first discovered water on Mars, more than a million cubic kilometers of it frozen in the north polar ice cap. Planetary scientists reported the latest water-ice findings at December's American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, California. Jeffrey Plaut of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, and Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) team members reported detecting ice-rich deposits as deep as 1 kilometer beneath the 3-million-square-kilometer Dorsa Argentea Form... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3334829 Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3334829 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3326520&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fchina-to-launch-space-station.html Xin Hunanet: China plans to launch Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace), an 8.5 ton unmanned space module next year which will eventually form the basis of a permeant space station. The module is being used to test China's docking capability. After Tiangong-1 has successfully docked with three Shenzhou spacecraft, which are expected to be put into space within two years following the module's launch, additional modules will be added to expand the station's size to about 20 tons said Qi Faren, former chief designer of the Shenzhou spacecraft. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3326520 Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3326520 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3326519&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fhow-the-chilean-earthquake-mov.html How The Chilean Quake Moved An Entire Planet : NPR: The magnitude 8.8 quake in Chile this weekend apparently changed the length of the day — and shifted the way the Earth wobbles, according to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Related news picks The Chilean Earthquake: The plate tectonics The Chilean earthquake: The observatories (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3326519 Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3326519 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3326518&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fless-greedy-galaxies-gulp-gas.html Nature: The cool molecular gas from which stars form has been detected in relatively ordinary faraway galaxies. The results point to a continuous fueling of gas into the star-forming guts of assembling galaxies. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3326518 Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3326518 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3326523&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fhow-arm-dominated-mobile-chip.html ACM Queue: If you were looking for lessons on energy-efficient computing, one person you would want to speak with would be Steve Furber, principal designer of the highly successful ARM (Acorn RISC Machine) processor. Currently running in billions of cellphones around the world, the ARM is a prime example of a chip that is simple, low power, and low cost. Furber led development of the ARM in the 1980s while at Acorn, the UK company also known for the BBC Microcomputer, which Furber played a major role in developing. David Brown interviews Furber about some of the lessons on energy-efficient computing he has learned through working on these and subsequent projects. Furber also talks about his current project, SpiNNaker (Spiking Neural Network Architecture), a massively parallel system... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3326523 Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3326523 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3326522&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fwater-ice-estimates-for-the-mo.html Physics Today: Using data from a NASA radar that flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists have detected ice deposits near the moon's north pole. NASA's Mini-SAR instrument, a lightweight, synthetic aperture radar, found more than 40 small craters with water ice. The craters range in size from 2 to 15 km in diameter. Although the total amount of ice depends on its thickness in each crater, it's estimated there could be at least 600 million metric tons of water ice. The Mini-SAR has imaged many of the permanently shadowed regions that exist at both poles of the Moons. These dark areas are extremely cold and it has been hypothesized that volatile material, including water ice, could be present in quantity here.  The main science object of the Mini-SAR experiment is to ma... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3326522 Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3326522 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3326521&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fa-wall-that-lights-at-the-flip.html The Economist: Ludvig Edman of Umea University and Nathaniel Robinson of Linkoping in Sweden may have found a way to tweak organic light-emitting diodes, or OLED's, by blending the semiconducting polymer with potassium trifluoromethylsulfonate. The result is a sheet similar to wallpaper that can illuminate itself at the flick of a switch. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3326521 Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3326521 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3321885&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fgoogles-influence-on-chinese-r.html Nature News: Google's search engine is a powerful tool for helping scientists to find academic papers and details of conferences or identify potential collaborators. And for most researchers around the world, access to Google—and all its related products, including the literature search Google Scholar—is unfettered. Despite some google results being censored by the Chinese government, the tool is widely used in China. So Google's move to withdraw from the Chinese market after a series of hacking attempts on its servers, may have an unintended impact on access to the latest scientific research papers by Chinese scientists. Alternately, it may strengthen use of more specialized search engine products produced by scientific publishers who offer access to China at a free or disco... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3321885 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3321885 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3321884&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Felement-112-named-copernicium.html Science News: There’s a new heavy in town. Element 112, a “superheavy” element with an atomic mass of 278, has been officially named copernicium, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry announced February 19. It is the heaviest named element to date. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3321884 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3321884 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3321883&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fthe-chilean-earthquake-aftersh.html Physics Today: Chile has ideal weather conditions for observing the night sky in the Southern hemisphere, with high altitude and low humidity, which has led to some major international astronomical facilities being based there. The European Southern Observatory, has three main sites in Chile at La Silla, Paranal, and Chajnantor, for instruments such as the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the partly built Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), and the newly completed Vista telescope. ESO Staff expressed their deepest condolences to the families of the victims, and its sympathy and support for all those affected by the earthquake through a message on their web site. There were no casualties among ESO staff but power cuts and network interruptions were impacting communications from the teles... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3321883 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3321883 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3321882&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fthe-chilean-earthquake-the-pla.html Physics Today: Chile is a highly seismic area because of its proximity to the stressed Nazca and South American tectonic plates which are converging at a rate of 80 mm per year, one of the fastest rates on Earth. Since 1973 there have been 13 events of magnitude 7.0 or greater on the richter scale. Sometimes the earlier quakes in the region, such as the 1960 9.5 earthquake of May, 1960—the largest earthquake worldwide in the last 200 years or more—can cause increased stress that leads to other earthquakes. Geologist Jian Lin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says this is what happened on Saturday, 27 February, when a 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile in an offshore zone about 230 km north of the source region of the 1960 quake. The quake was approximately 300-50... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3321882 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3321882 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3318064&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F03%2Fneutrons-as-a-research-tool.html redOrbit: Unless you're interested in isotopic labeling, neutrons don't figure much into chemistry. Neutral in charge and a bit bigger than a proton, the neutron neither gives an atom its name nor determines much about its reactivity. But neutrons have some unsung properties that make them useful for investigating matter. Because they are neutral, they can penetrate deeper into a sample than electrons can. Because they have mass and spin, they have a magnetic moment and can probe magnetism. Because they interact with nuclei rather than electron orbitals, they are sensitive to light elements and can even distinguish between hydrogen and deuterium. And they're nondestructive. These features are inspiring researchers to use neutrons to analyze a variety of materials, from coal and complex fl... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3318064 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3318064 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3314432&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fafter-glitches-mars-rover-inch.html BBC News: It weighs almost a ton, has cost more than $2 billon and, in 2013, it will be lowered on to the surface of Mars with a landing system that has never been tried before. The Mars Science Laboratory will "revolutionize investigations in science on other planets," says Doug McCuistion, director of Nasa's Mars exploration program. It will, he says, lay the foundations for future missions that will eventually bring Martian rocks to Earth. "The ability to put a metric ton on the surface... gives us the capability to undertake sample collection," says McCuistion. "To collect and launch samples back into orbit will require that size of a vehicle." But it has been a rather bumpy road to revolution, including 1000 parts made from a "bad batch" of titanium The project has been struggling... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3314432 Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3314432 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3314431&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fis-the-debate-over-light-momen.html Science: What is the formula for the momentum of light zipping through a transparent material? That may sound like a question on a high-school physics quiz, but physicists have been debating the matter ever since two different formulas were proposed more than 100 years ago. Now Stephen Barnett, a theorist at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, U.K., says he has resolved the famed "Abraham-Minkowski dilemma." Both formulas are correct, he says, but they denote different things and apply in different contexts. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3314431 Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3314431 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3314430&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fthe-molecular-interactions-of.html New Scientist: Using crime data from southern California, Jeffrey Brantingham of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his colleagues set out to calculate how the movements of criminals and victims create opportunities for crime, and how police can reduce it. They came up with a pair of equations that could explain how local crime hotspots form—which turned out to be similar to those that describe molecular reactions and diffusion. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3314430 Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3314430 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3311144&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fdid-design-flaws-doom-the-lhc.html Nature News: Running more than a year behind schedule and at half its intended energy, the world's most powerful particle accelerator is slated to begin its first full scientific run this week. Along with relief, the occasion is bringing some soul-searching. One senior scientist who helped to build the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, is claiming that the cause of the delay—a major accident in 2008—could have been avoided. "Any technical fault is a human fault," says Lucio Rossi, a physicist who oversaw the production of the accelerator's superconducting magnets. In a paper published this week, he concludes that the catastrophic failure of a splice between two magnets was not a freak accident but the result of ... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3311144 Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3311144 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3311149&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fthe-earthquake-risk-to-megacit.html washingtonpost.com: Megacities are something new on the planet. Earthquakes are something very old. The two are a lethal combination, as seen in the recent tragedy in Port-au-Prince, where more than 200 000 people perished—a catastrophe that scientists say is certain to be repeated somewhere, and probably soon, with death tolls that once again stagger the mind. Related news story Disaster awaits cities in earthquake zones New York Times (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3311149 Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3311149 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3311148&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fa-simple-concussion-test.html NPR: Doctors use expensive CT scanners and MRI machines thousands of times every day to look for brain damage. But sometimes cheap and simple is definitely better. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3311148 Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3311148 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3311147&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fwaves-broke-wilkins-ice-shelf.html The Economist: In 2008 part of the Wilkins ice shelf on the edge of the Antarctic peninsula suddenly disintegrated. The Wilkins shelf may or may not have been the victim, ultimately, of climate change. Regardless of what weakened it, though, it was not rising temperatures that caused the sudden breakup. Peter Bromirski of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego thinks he knows what did: a little-studied phenomenon called infragravity waves. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3311147 Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3311147 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3311146&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Finterest-in-tabletop-x-ray-las.html AAAS Meeting: Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn group at JILA, a joint institute of the University of Colorado at Boulder and NIST, has made some breakthroughs on how to build a tabletop x-ray laser. The laser could be used for super high-resolution imaging, while also giving scientists a new way to at the nanoscale at objects such as a single cell. Murnane and Kapteyn presented highlights of their research at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in San Diego. "Our goal is to create a laser beam that contains a broad range of x-ray wavelengths all at once that can be focused both in time and space," Murnane said. "If we have this source of coherent light that spans a huge region of the electromagnetic spectrum, we would be able to make the highest resol... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3311146 Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3311146 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3311145&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Ft2k-neutrino-observed-at-super.html KEK: The Japanese-led multinational T2K collaboration announced today that they had made the first detection of a neutrino which had travelled 295 km from their neutrino beamline at the Japanese Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) facility in Tokai village to the Super- Kamiokande underground neutrino detector near the west coast of Japan. "Switching on one of the world's first neutrino superbeams is a great achievement," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "Even in a time of financial difficulty around the globe, it's important not to lose sight of the fact that basic science is and always will be a crucial element of progress. It is therefore heartening to see such an important new basic science initiative getting underway now." "It is a big step forward," said T2K spokes... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3311145 Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3311145 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3306306&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fscientists-dispute-climate-sce.html guardian.co.uk: Ex-weatherman Anthony Watts says many US weather stations produce unreliable data because they are located next to artificial heat—but a scientific analysis suggests that, if anything, such stations underestimate warming. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3306306 Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3306306 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3306305&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fhighlights-from-the-aaas-meeti.html The Atlantic: In an age when scientists slice, dice, and replicate the human genome for research purposes, is our DNA private property? As ever more countries—and even private companies—launch spacecraft into the universe, shouldn’t we have clear rules in place about appropriate space etiquette? And with more kids than ever mastering Guitar Hero instead of hitting the books, isn’t there something different we can try to get them excited about math and science? At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science this week, these were just a few of the topics explored by the scientists, engineers, educators, and policymakers in attendance. The Atlantic takes a look at some of the conversations. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3306305 Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3306305 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3306304&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Ffermion-surprise-in-low-temper.html Nature: The finding that the normal phase of an ultracold gas of fermionic atoms in the strongly interacting regime is close to a Fermi liquid isn't quite what theorists expected for these systems. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3306304 Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3306304 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3306303&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fraw-climate-data-to-be-made-av.html Yahoo! News: The world weather agencies have agreed to collect more precise temperature data under a proposal from the UK's Met Office. The proposal asks climate scientists around the world to measure land surface temperatures as often as several times a day, and allow independent scrutiny of the data—a move that would go some way toward answering demands by skeptics for access to the raw figures used to predict climate change. "This effort will ensure that the datasets are completely robust and that all methods are transparent," said the Met Office in a release statement. The agency added that "any such analysis does not undermine the existing independent datasets that all reflect a warming trend." The proposal was approved in principle by some 150 delegates meeting under the aus... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3306303 Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3306303 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3297952&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fuk-hiper-over-fusion-project.html Times Online: The UK research councils (RCUK), which oversees the UK government’s spending on science and technology, has said it believes that many of the obstacles associated with producing fusion power are close to being overcome. The RCUK wants to commit Britain to a 20-year research and construction plan that would see a fusion power station in operation around 2030. Didcot in Oxfordshire is among the sites under consideration for the European High Power laser Energy Research (HiPER) project: a facility dedicated to demonstrating the feasibility of laser driven fusion as a future energy source. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3297952 Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3297952 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3297951&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fseeing-quantum-fractals.html Science: A view of a coastline appears as a fractal—an object that appears the same at all length scales (perhaps only statistically). Fractals actually abound in nature, but fractals can occur in the quantum realm as well, even though they have never been observed there, until, perhaps, now. In Science, Anthony Richardella and associates report direct measurements of quantum mechanical electron waves that indicate that they may also possess a fractal nature. Related link Visualizing critical correlations near the metal-insulator transition in Ga1-xMnxAs (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3297951 Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3297951 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3297950&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fstellar-baby-boom-of-early-uni.html SPACE.com: The stellar birth rate of the young universe has long been known to be much higher than it is today, but scientists weren't sure why the early universe was so fertile. A new study finds that this could be because early galaxies had more cold gas to "feed" to forming baby stars. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3297950 Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3297950 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3297949&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fsilicon-whiskers-catch-the-sun.html Nature News: Roll out the micro-carpet—a new solar-cell design based on a blanket of silicon rods could produce electricity at a fraction of the cost of conventional solar devices. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3297949 Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3297949 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3297953&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fchinas-patents-push-nature-new.html Nature News: International patent applications in 2009 dropped for the first time on the back of a double-digit fall in US applications—but China, with a 30% surge, claimed a bigger piece of the shrunken pie. Yet observers say the quality of Chinese applications has not kept pace with their volume, and the country still has far to go before it can establish itself as a dominant player in intellectual property. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3297953 Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3297953 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3294210&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fwhy-do-so-few-young-scientists.html WSJ.com: Scientific revolutions are often led by the youngest scientists and yet such innovation in the US could be at risk, says Jonah Lehrer in the Wall Street Journal as the number of successful young scientists is dramatically shrinking. In 1980, the largest share of grants from the National Institutes of Health went to scientists in their late 30s. By 2006 the curve had been shifted sharply to the right, with the highest proportion of grants going to scientists in their late 40s. This shift came largely at the expense of young scientists. In 1980, researchers between the ages of 31 and 33 received nearly 10% of all grants; by 2006 they accounted for approximately 1%. And the trend shows no signs of abating: In 2007, the most recent year available, there were more grants to 70-year-o... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3294210 Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3294210 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3294209&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fusing-printing-techniques-to-m.html The Economist: The great hope of transplant surgeons is that they will, one day, be able to order replacement body parts on demand. That possibility may be closer with the arrival of the first commercial 3D bio-printer for manufacturing human tissue and organs. The new machine, which costs around $200,000, has been developed by San Diego-based Organovo, a company that specializes in regenerative medicine, and an Australian engineering and automation firm called Invetech. To start with, only simple tissues, such as skin, muscle and short stretches of blood vessels, will be made for research purposes. Organovo expects that within five years, once clinical trials are complete, the printers will produce blood vessels for use as grafts in bypass surgery. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3294209 Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3294209 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3294208&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fchinas-patents-push-nature-new.html Nature News: International patent applications in 2009 dropped for the first time on the back of a double-digit fall in US applications—but China, with a 30% surge, claimed a bigger piece of the shrunken pie. Yet observers say the quality of Chinese applications has not kept pace with their volume, and the country still has far to go before it can establish itself as a dominant player in intellectual property. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3294208 Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3294208 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3290581&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Faps-fellow-blocked-from-attend.html Science: Last fall, Iranian physicist Farhad Ardala was named a fellow of the American Physical Society, in part because of his efforts to connect Iran to the global scientific community and strengthen bonds between Iran and the US. The new class of fellows will be honored at the society's meeting next month in Portland, Oregon. But US consular officials have derailed Ardalan's application for a visa after telling him that US government records show he was arrested in the US in 1983 for an unspecified offense. They also say that he may have been involved in deportation proceedings 20 years earlier. Ardalan denies both charges, and his US colleagues say that the State Department is making a big mistake. "He is precisely the kind of person who should be welcomed to the US," says Stanford ... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3290581 Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3290581 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3290582&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fclimategate-review-panellist-q.html The Guardian: Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature, was forced to resign from an independent panel to investigate claims that climate scientists covered up flawed data on global warming, after skeptics questioned his impartiality. The news came just hours after the panel's official launch, and after an interview emerged in which he said there was nothing to suggest a cover-up by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia. Related links Climate data allegations to be investigated Jones steps down as head of climate unit (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3290582 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3290582 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3287337&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fflorida-state-university-lays.html Tallahassee Democrat: Florida State lured Mike Wetz away from the University of North Carolina with the offer of an assistant professor position in Florida State University’s highly regarded Department of Oceanography. Wetz’s first day at FSU was 23 December 2008. Less than six months later, in June 2009, Wetz received a layoff notice. Wetz had done nothing wrong, by all accounts. He was one of five faculty members in his 15-person department whose positions were being eliminated as FSU decided to merge oceanography, geological sciences and meteorology in the wake of massive reductions in state revenue. Two of his colleagues being terminated are tenured, which traditionally means their positions are secure. Geological sciences fared even worse, losing 6 of 13 positions incl... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3287337 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3287337 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3287336&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fclimategate-review-panellist-q.html The Guardian: Philip Campbell, editor in chief of Nature, was forced to resign from an independent panel to investigate claims that climate scientists covered up flawed data on global warming after skeptics questioned his impartiality. The news came just hours after its official launch, and after an interview emerged in which he said there was nothing to suggest a cover-up by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia. Related links Climate data allegations to be investigated Jones steps down as head of climate unit (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3287336 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3287336 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3287335&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fthe-lowdown-on-heavy-fermions.html Science: One of the quests of condensed matter physics is to discover materials with new types of collective electronic properties, such as the giant magnetoresistance materials now used for memory storage or high-temperature superconductors. Such "strongly correlated electron" materials challenge our understanding and provide the grist for future technologies. However, identifying new kinds of electronic behavior is still serendipitous, largely because the materials structures of greatest interest do not crystallize to order. In Science H. Shishido and associates introduce a systematic approach based on molecular beam epitaxy for the preparation of complex interacting electron materials, thus opening up the possibility of making available many new structures not currently accessible... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3287335 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3287335 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3287334&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fthe-predictability-of-travel-p.html NPR: A new study used cell phone billing data for 50,00 people in a European country to show that people's travel patterns are extremely predictable. That's true for both homebodies and jet setters. Regardless of age, language group, etc, people's movements were predictable 93 percent of the time. The study shows the emerging power of using cell phone data for social science research. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3287334 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3287334 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3287333&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fa-precise-touch-with-quantum-m.html Nature: A technique used primarily to study fundamental issues in quantum mechanics has now been shown to have promise as a powerful practical tool for making ultra-precise measurements. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3287333 Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3287333 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3283210&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fpolish-reactor-may-aid-medical.html NYTimes.com: Just as the worldwide shortage of technetium 99—radioactive isotope used in millions of medical procedures—is about to get worse, officials say a new source for the substance has emerged: a nuclear reactor in Poland. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3283210 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3283210 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3283209&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fcosmic-rays-from-supernovae.html APS Meeting - ISNS: A new gamma ray map of the universe produced by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope shows that some cosmic rays are coming from exploding stars known as supernovas. The map was made public in Washington DC at the April meeting of the American Physical Society. Credit: NASA|DOE|Fermi LAT Collaboration Cosmic rays are energetic particles that stream through the universe. Some slam into Earth's atmosphere, triggering a cascade of other particles detectable on the ground. A popular theory in astrophysics holds that cosmic rays are created in supernovas. Until now this has been difficult to prove due to the considerable distance cosmic rays must travel before they reach Earth. In addition magnetic forces can deflect cosmic rays during their trip through space, confusing ... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3283209 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3283209 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3279589&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fdusty-lunar-mirrors-impact-rel.html APS Meeting - New Scientist: Several times a month, teams of astronomers from three observatories blast the moon with pulses of light from a powerful laser and wait for the reflections from a network of mirrors placed on the lunar surface by the Apollo missions, as well as two Soviet Lunokhod landers. By timing the light's round trip, they can pinpoint the distance to the moon with an accuracy of around a millimeter—a measurement so precise that it has the potential to reveal problems with general relativity. But now Tom Murphy from the University of California, San Diego, thinks the mirrors have become coated in moon dust. "The lunar reflectors are not as good as they used to be by a factor of 10," he says. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3279589 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3279589 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3279588&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fwhy-mars-has-a-rippled-surface.html Science News: Once Martian sand grains hop, they don’t stop. That’s the conclusion of a new aeolian study that finds sand can move on Mars without much windy encouragement. Related link Difference in the wind speeds required for initiation versus continuation of sand transport on Mars: Implications for dunes and dust storms Related story Dunes on Mars: How sand shifts without wind NPR (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3279588 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3279588 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3279587&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fis-climate-change-hiding-the-d.html Nature News: The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil releases carbon dioxide that alters the balance of carbon isotopes naturally found in the environment—an effect that is now being found in food, reveals a US study. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3279587 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3279587 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3279586&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fsolar-maximum-may-cause-sat-na.html The Daily Telegraph: The Sun follows an 11-year cycle in which its radiation output and Sunspot activity waxes and wanes. Currently the Sun is at its minimum radiation output. A new report in the UK suggests that as the Sun's output rises to a new maximum, satellite navigation devices will be susceptible from the expected increase in solar flares. The bursts of radiation caused by the flares interfere with signals from satellites orbiting the earth, causing receivers to fail and lose track of their position. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3279586 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3279586 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3279591&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fgrabbing-high-speed-video-chea-1.html New Scientist: Gil Bub and Peter Kohl's team at the University of Oxford wanted to record rat heart cells in action, so they trained two cameras on tissue samples in their lab. A high-speed movie camera filmed the cell's pulsing activity, while a normal stills camera captured detailed images. But aligning the two sets of images proved fiddly and frustrating. So the team took an off-the-shelf video camera to pieces and rebuilt it to perform both roles, simultaneously recording high-speed video and high-resolution stills. Related Link Temporal pixel multiplexing for simultaneous high-speed, high-resolution imaging Nature Methods (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3279591 Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3279591 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3279590&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Frhic-finds-hints-to-why-we-exi.html APS Meeting: Physics Today: Physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), have discovered some additional experimental hints of why there is matter in the universe by replicating the conditions of the first microseconds after the Big Bang. The results from RHIC's Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment (PHENIX) and STAR detector were discussed at the April meeting of the American Physical Society yesterday and published in Physical Review Letters. When the Big Bang occurred, according to the symmetry rules that govern the universe, equal parts of matter and antimatter should have been created leading to all matter being annihilated. But this was not the case: Why? A hot start To find out, you have to replicate conditions of the ea... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3279590 Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3279590 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3279592&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fis-nuclear-proliferation-this.html Wired.com: In 2006, Oleg Khinsagov was caught trying to smuggle 100 grams of refined uranium into Georgia with the aim of selling it to a Muslim man he believed was connected to “a serious organization.” The amount was small, but enriched enough to make a bomb, and Khinsagov said he had another 2 to 3 kilograms stored in his apartment that he was willing to sell. That should be the opening scene of a new documentary on nuclear proliferation, but instead it’s tucked into the middle of Countdown to Zero, which aims to do for antinuclear proliferation what An Inconvenient Truth did for the environmental movement. The film takes a while to work up to its most important point—that anyone with a relatively small amount of money has the ability to obtain enough nuclear... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3279592 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3279592 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3275478&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fis-nuclear-proliferation-this.html Wired.com: In 2006, Oleg Khinsagov was caught trying to smuggle 100 grams of refined uranium into Georgia with the aim of selling it to a Muslim man whom he believed was connected to “a serious organization.” The amount was small, but enriched enough to make a bomb, and Khinsagov said he had another 2 to 3 kilograms stored in his apartment that he was willing to sell. That should be the opening scene of a new documentary on nuclear proliferation, but instead it’s tucked into the middle of Countdown to Zero, which aims to do for anti-nuclear proliferation what An Inconvenient Truth did for the environmental movement. The film takes a while to work up to its most important point—that anyone with a relatively small amount of money has the ability to obtain enough n... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3275478 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3275478 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3275477&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fwarming-planet-can-mean-more-w.html NPR: Although climate change skeptics have been arguing that the recent snow storms blanketing the east coast shows that climate change isn't happening, climate scientists express a different view. "The fact that the oceans are warmer now than they were, say, 30 years ago means there's about on average 4 percent more water vapor lurking around over the oceans than there was, say, in the 1970s," says Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. Warmer water means more water vapor rises up into the air, and what goes up must come down. "So one of the consequences of a warming ocean near a coastline like the East Coast and Washington, DC, for instance, is that you can get dumped on with more snow partly as a consequence of global warming... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3275477 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3275477 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3275476&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fnew-solar-telescope-could-clos.html Arizona Daily Star: These are heady times for solar astronomers, with the Solar Dynamics Observatory launched and accelerated funding found for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope situated on Haleakala Peak, on Hawaii's Maui Island. But the new facilities come at a cost, the McMath-Pierce solar telescope which has been based on Kitt Peak since 1962 could close as funding for other areas of solar astronomy face a tight squeeze. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3275476 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3275476 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3275475&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fminiaturizing-noise-canceling.html The Economist: Thanks to advances in manufacturing techniques, which allow miniature mechanical components to be built into electronic chips, it is now possible to add better noise-canceling features to phones, and also to other products, such as the small “earbuds” used to listen to music players. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3275475 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3275475 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3266581&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Ffirst-light-for-germanium-lase.html optics.org: The first infrared-emitting germanium laser has been created by researchers in the US. The development could be an important step towards creating optical components such as lasers from silicon—which like germanium is an indirect-gap semiconductor—rather than direct-gap materials such as indium phosphide. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3266581 Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3266581 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3266580&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fultracold-chemistry.html Science: New techniques are now making it possible to produce molecules and trap them at temperatures within one-millionth of a degree of absolute zero. Here, all the thermal averaging is removed; the molecules occupy the lowest possible quantum translational states, and all their motions are completely controllable. Ospelkaus and colleagues describe chemical reactions between molecules in this new regime and find that tiny changes, such as flipping the orientation of a single nuclear spin, can have profound consequences for how (and whether) chemical reactions occur. Related link Quantum-state controlled chemical reactions of ultracold potassium-rubidium molecules (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3266580 Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3266580 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3266579&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fcatching-a-ride-with-commerica.html Nature News: Scientists are foreseeing unprecedented opportunities to send up research payloads on anything from a suborbital trip of a few minutes to a sojourn lasting several weeks on a commercial space station by using a new generation of commercial space launchers such as the Falcon 9. "We have never had a capability like this in 50 years of human space exploration," says planetary scientist Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Stern is a former science chief for NASA and is helping to organize the first meeting dedicated to research opportunities in suborbital space, to be held on 18–20 February in Boulder. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3266579 Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3266579 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3266578&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fin-2010-a-space-opera.html Science Friday: For the past week, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York has been home to an unusual sight—performances of "Il Mondo Della Luna," a comic opera about the moon written by Joseph Haydn in 1777. The performance blends traditional opera with laser and light technology provided by the planetarium. NPR's Science Friday's Ira Flatow talks with the director of the performance. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3266578 Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3266578 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3262350&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Firan-steps-up-nuclear-program.html Various: Iran has began enrichment of higher grade uranium reports the Guardian. The news has caused the Obama administration to increase work with its allies on a series of sanctions that would take aim at the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran, says the New York Times, publicly singling out the organization’s vast array of companies, banks and other entities in an effort to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3262350 Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3262350 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3262349&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fsplitting-spin-states-on-a-chi.html Science: The different colors on the surface of a soap bubble arise from the interference of light waves reflecting from the outer and inner surface of the liquid film. As the thickness of the film varies, so will the wavelength of light that undergoes constructive interference and remains visible. According to quantum mechanics, even material particles such as electrons behave like waves. In addition to their charge, electrons also have two distinguishable spin states, spin-up and spin-down. In Science, Petta et al. demonstrate beam splitting and interferometry for the spin degrees of freedom of two electrons on a semiconductor chip. Related link A coherent beam splitter for electronic spin states (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3262349 Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3262349 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3262348&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fmath-professor-helps-uncover-a.html NPR: Determining what is real and what is fake has long been a problem for art curators. It is estimated that 20 percent of the worldwide art market is made up of forgeries. But art lover and Dartmouth College mathematics department Chairman Daniel Rockmore has developed a technique that is helping to determine the difference between excellent copy and the real McCoy. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3262348 Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3262348 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3262352&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fiter-delays-prompt-personnel-r.html Nature News: In an effort to put the world's largest scientific experiment back on track after delays and cost overruns, Europe is shaking up the agency overseeing its portion of the multinational ITER reactor. On 16 February, Frank Briscoe, a UK fusion scientist, will take the reins as interim director of Fusion for Energy (F4E), the agency in Barcelona, Spain, that manages Europe's ITER contribution—the largest of any partner's. Briscoe replaces Didier Gambier, a French physicist who joined the F4E as director when it formed in 2007. Gambier was originally appointed for a five-year term. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3262352 Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3262352 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3262351&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fthe-unstoppable-spirit-of-inqu.html The Daily Telegraph: Royal Society president Martin Rees, celebrates 350 years of one of the UK's greatest institutions and looks towards the changing nature of scientific publishing. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3262351 Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3262351 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3258446&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fan-academic-approach-to-geothe.html NPR: In northeastern Indiana, environmentalists are closely watching a project on a scale that hasn't been attempted before in the US. Ball State University is constructing the largest geothermal heating and cooling system of its kind—and promises to cut its carbon emissions in half. It works because a few dozen meters below Earth's surface, the temperature is between 11 and 13 °C. Depending on the time of year, geothermal systems use the Earth's temperature as a heat source—or sink—by sending water through miles of pipes and concentrating it to meet the temperature the thermostat calls for. Ball State is attempting to use more than 660 acres to heat and cool nearly 50 buildings as part of it's project. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3258446 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3258446 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3258445&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fwhat-happens-when-a-space-prog.html Slate: What will NASA do with all the technology that it has already developed but can no longer continue financing? Give it away, sell it, or toss it. When NASA cancels a program or no longer needs certain pieces of equipment, it hands the material over to a property disposal officer who then finds the best way to get rid of it. Related Physics Today article NASA sells technology rights to highest bidder January 2009 (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3258445 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3258445 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3258444&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fwomen-to-head-european-unions.html Science: The two women tapped to head the European Union's efforts on science and climate over the next 5 years have a lot in common. Both were elected to parliament in their mid-20s—one in Denmark and the other in Ireland—but left politics later on. Both wrote for national newspapers and had stints in television broadcasting. Both are described as strong-willed and smart. The difference is that one is virtually unknown to scientists and science policymakers, and the other is almost an international celebrity. Danish energy and climate minister Connie Hedegaard, was nominated to become the first European commissioner for climate action. Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, the proposed new commissioner for research and innovation, has spent the past 9 years examining the EU's f... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3258444 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3258444 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3258443&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fmitsubishi-to-work-with-south.html BusinessWeek: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. of Japan has agreed to work with South Africa’s Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Ltd. to “explore cooperation” and the possible construction of a mini nuclear reactor. The troubled PBMR prototype is behind schedule and over budget. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3258443 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3258443 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3258442&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fthe-technology-race-in-the-ame.html NYTimes.com: The America’s Cup has always been a showcase for innovation: the 1895 victor, Defender, for example, used aluminum, steel and bronze in the hull, an unheard—of combination at the time. And sailing in general, and high-level racing in particular, are no strangers to technology. But it has not been used at such an extreme scale before. The most obvious advance can be seen rising above USA-17, which is owned by Lawrence J. Ellison, president of the software company Oracle. It looks as if someone wrenched a wing off a large jetliner and perched it, tip up, atop a trailer hitch on the boat’s middle hull. Related Physics Today articles The Physics of Sailing February 2008 Sailing and the physics of lift (letters about the previous article) September 2008 Ship hyd... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3258442 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3258442 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3254029&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fopinion-the-right-message-for.html WSJ.com Steven Weinberg has declared that the Obama administration's new approach to NASA's future is a positive development because the "manned space flight program frequently masquerades as science, but actually crowds out real science at NASA, which is all done on unmanned missions." Weinberg writes: Soon after Mr. Bush's [2004] announcement [of the "Vision for Space Exploration"] I predicted that sending astronauts to the moon and Mars would be so expensive that future administrations would abandon the plan. This prediction seems to have come true. All of the brilliant past discoveries in astronomy for which NASA can take credit have been made by unmanned satellite-borne observatories, and there is much more to be done. By studying the polarization of cosmic microwave radiation, we... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3254029 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3254029 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3254028&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fmethanes-glow-from-an-exoplane.html CSMonitor.com: For the first time, astronomers have detected methane gas glowing like a fluorescent bulb in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star. Researchers have had glimpses of the atmospheres of so-called exoplanets before, but never in this way. The fluorescent signature of HD 189733b, a Jupiter-size planet in the faint constellation of Vulpecula, could help astronomers explore exoplanets in more detail—including ways that help them in the search for life elsewhere in the galaxy. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3254028 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3254028 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3246663&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fbohr-proof-confirmed-its-bette.html ScienceNOW: Have you ever noticed that the first gunslinger to draw his gun in a movie is invariably the one to get shot? Nobel prize winning physicist Niels Bohr did, once arranging mock duels to test the validity of this cinematic curiosity. Following Bohr's example, researchers have now confirmed that people move faster if they are reacting to another person's movements than if they are taking the lead themselves. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3246663 Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3246663 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3246662&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fworlds-fastest-graphene-transi.html Physics Today: IBM researchers demonstrated a radio-frequency graphene transistor with the highest cut-off frequency achieved so far for any graphene device—100 billion cycles/second (100 GigaHertz). The high frequency record was achieved using wafer-scale, epitaxially grown graphene using processing technology compatible to that used in advanced silicon device fabrication. "A key advantage of graphene lies in the very high speeds in which electrons propagate, which is essential for achieving high-speed, high-performance next generation transistors," said T.C. Chen, vice president of science and technology, IBM Research. "The breakthrough we are announcing demonstrates clearly that graphene can be utilized to produce high performance devices and integrated circuits." Graphene is a... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3246662 Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3246662 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3243278&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fsharing-supercomputer-simulati.html msnbc.com: Supercomputing has helped astrophysicists create massive models of the universe, but such simulations remain out of reach for many in the US and around the world. To compensate, groups around the world—such as the University of Chicago and CERN in Switzerland—are developing ways in which different research groups can contribute and see the results of supercomputer simulations in real-time by streaming the results over the Internet. One of the first tests of such a system occurred last week in which scientists in Portland, Oregon watched a Chicago-based simulation of how ordinary matter and mysterious dark matter evolved in the early universe. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3243278 Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3243278 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3243277&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fcold-air-blows-on-regional-us.html NYTimes.com: Wind could replace coal and natural gas for 20% to 30% of the electricity used in the eastern two-thirds of the US by 2024, according to a study released by the US Department of Energy. But doing so would require a reorganization of the power grid and a significant increase in costs. And it would have only a modest impact on cutting emissions linked to global warming, the study found. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3243277 Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3243277 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3243281&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Ffour-ways-to-reinvent-the-inte.html Nature News: The Internet is struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing demands placed on it. Freelance writer Katharine Gammon looks at ways to fix it. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3243281 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3243281 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3243280&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fcrystal-twins-hint-at-hydrogen.html New Scientist: Two crystals identical in appearance and chemical formula—and even with the same crystal symmetry—turn out to differ wildly in their capacity for storing hydrogen, much to the surprise of the chemists who made them. The finding hints that there may be a previously unknown class of crystals that would be useful for gas storage or catalysis. Related link An unusual case of symmetry-preserving isomerism (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3243280 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3243280 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3243279&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fthe-physics-of-freestyle-aeria.html NYTimes.com: Freestyle aerialists, skiers that hurtle off a curved ramp at 30 miles per hour, soaring six stories in the air while doing three back flips and up to five body twists, are not actually throwing caution to the winds. It is not fate that plops them down at the end of their jumps, more or less upright and safe, in a cloud of powdery snow. It is physics, and plenty of preparation. “The forces are pretty simple,” said Adam Johnston, a physics professor at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. “There’s the force of the ramp on his skis, and the force of gravity on him,” Johnston said, after Ryan St. Onge, the reigning world champion in men’s aerials, zipped down a steep inrun, leaned back as he entered the curved ramp until he was nearly horizontal and flew off at a ... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3243279 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3243279 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3239148&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fwmap-peers-back-to-the-early-u.html Wired.com: New papers based on the first seven years of data taken by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have been posted to Arxiv (see list below). The data has helped researchers calculate the most accurate determination yet of the age of the cosmos. Moreover, WMAP directly detected primordial helium gas for the first time, and has discovered a key signature of inflation, the leading cosmological model of how the universe developed from its earliest beginings. The data also provides new evidence that the mysterious entity speeding up the expansion of the universe resembles Einstein’s cosmological constant, a factor he inserted but later removed from his theory of general relativity. In addition, the data reveal that theorists don’t have the right model to explai... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3239148 Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3239148 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3235424&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fcolossus-the-worlds-first-larg.html BBC News: The world's first large-scale, electronic programmable computer was created to do one job—crack the wartime codes used by the Germans in World War II. Engineers and code-crackers describe life working on Colossus as part of a BBC News series on computer pioneers. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3235424 Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3235424 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3235423&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fglobal-deal-on-climate-change.html The Guardian: A global deal to tackle climate change is all but impossible in 2010, leaving the scale and pace of action to slow global warming in coming decades uncertain, according to senior figures across the world involved in the negotiations. "The forces trying to tackle climate change are in disarray, wandering in small groups around the battlefield like a beaten army," said a senior UK diplomat. An important factor cited is an impasse within the UN organization charged with delivering a global deal, which this week is assessing the pledges made by individual countries by a deadline that passed at the end of January. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3235423 Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3235423 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3235422&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fthe-links-between-space-weathe.html NPR: Airlines are paying extra attention to the weather these days: the weather in space. That's because more commercial flights are using shortcuts that take them near the North Pole or the South Pole. And in polar regions, flights are vulnerable to cosmic storms that can interfere with communication and navigation systems, or even expose travelers to doses of radiation above usual safety levels. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3235422 Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3235422 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3235425&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fasian-link-to-western-us-smog.html This study did not quantify how much of the ozone increase is solely due to Asia," Cooper said. "But we can say that the background ozone entering North America increased over the past 14 years and probably over the past 25 years." (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3235425 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3235425 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3231038&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fcapturing-cesium-137.html ScienceNOW: Of all the radioactive isotopes left over from nuclear weapons testing and nuclear power plants, cesium-137 is among the most dangerous. The soft, silvery-white metal has a half-life of 30 years, enters the body quickly, and can trigger cancer even decades after exposure. Removing cesium-137 from the environment has proven difficult, but researchers say they have a promising new way to clean it up: a flexible, porous solid that grabs cesium ions much like a Venus flytrap ensnares its prey Related link Selective incarceration of caesium ions by Venus flytrap action of a flexible framework sulfide Nature Chemistry (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3231038 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3231038 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3231037&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fopinion-the-risks-associated-w.html NPR: Genetically modified food, vaccines and synthetic biology are all hot-button issues. But they shouldn't be, according to guest Michael Specter, author of the new book Denialism. He argues that the scariest threat is not science itself, but the reluctance to discuss it. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3231037 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3231037 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3231036&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fsurvey-on-near-earth-asteroids.html Wired.com: If we’re going to protect the Earth from an asteroid, we need to find the dangerous ones whizzing about in the emptiness of space. Unfortunately, the United States will not complete the survey of large near-Earth objects by 2020 as mandated, but not funded, by Congress in 2005. That’s the conclusion of a new National Resource Council Report, Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3231036 Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3231036 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3227335&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fatmospheric-dry-spell-eases-gl.html This study increases the likelihood that it is a blip, and warming remains a long-term trend. The researchers do call however for a "closer examination" of the way climate computer models consider water vapor. A number of publications reported the news, including NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3227335 Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3227335 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3227334&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fbill-gates-funds-geoengineerin.html Wired.com: Bill Gates has sunk at least $4.5 million of his personal wealth into geoengineering research. While it’s only a small chunk of his vast personal fortune, it’s a sign that the founder of Microsoft thinks we should at least be looking into the controversial practice of intentionally altering the Earth’s climate on a global scale. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3227334 Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3227334 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3227333&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fis-clean-energy-chinas-moon-sh.html CNET News: The global race to develop clean technology is not just about who can build the best solar parks or wind farms. It is also shaping up as a contest between Chinese-style capitalism and the more market-oriented approach fancied by the US and Europe. The failure in Copenhagen to agree to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new global climate treaty when it expires in 2012 has thrown the focus on national measures. And by almost all accounts, the Chinese are coming on strong. The chinese government has made clear their intention to dominate this new industry, up and down the value ladder. And in their quest for the prize, they are not burdened by concerns facing their Western counterparts—such as the impact of wind turbines on landscapes, higher energy prices for consumers, or... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3227333 Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3227333 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3227332&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fbundling-with-x-rays.html Science: In the natural sciences, x ray crystallography has clarified how the shapes of proteins and related complexes relate to their cellular function, and x ray scattering has elucidated the structure and dynamics, mechanical properties, and intermolecular interactions of countless materials. In Science, Cui et al. report a new twist in the application of x ray scattering, where synchrotron x ray irradiation, in addition to its usual role in probing structure, acts as a reversible switch for self-assembly from a disordered to an ordered state of bundled filaments Related link Spontaneous and x-ray–triggered crystallization at long range in self-assembling filament networks (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3227332 Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3227332 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3227331&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F02%2Fthe-structure-of-membranes.html Nature: A living cell can be thought of as a building of extremely peculiar architecture, in which the walls are formed by films just a few nanometers thick—the cell membranes. The diversity and dynamics of membrane shapes are vital for the cell's physiology. One of the biggest challenges in cell biology and biophysics is therefore to understand the molecular mechanisms that enable cell membranes to bend easily and rapidly into highly curved, dynamic shapes. Reporting in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Yu et al. describe a promising synthetic model of membranes that can be used to assess experimentally the combined influence of lipids and proteins on membrane curvature. Related link Vesicle budding induced by a pore-forming peptide (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3227331 Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3227331 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3222943&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fchina-scientists-lead-world-in.html FT.com: China has experienced the strongest growth in scientific research over the past three decades of any country, according to figures compiled for the Financial Times, and the pace shows no sign of slowing. Jonathan Adams, research evaluation director at Thomson Reuters, said China’s “awe-inspiring” growth had put it in second place to the US—and if it continues on its trajectory it will be the largest producer of scientific knowledge by 2020. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3222943 Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3222943 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3222942&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fnrc-urges-rethink-over-sale-of.html Science: In 1996, the US Congress decided to sell the 1 billion cubic meters of gaseous helium—specifically the heavier isotope, helium-4—that the country had stockpiled. But conditions it imposed on the sales are keeping the price of helium artificially low and encouraging waste of a substance indispensable for numerous scientific and technological applications, says a National Research Council report released last week. Related link Selling the nation's helium reserve NRC report (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3222942 Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3222942 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3222941&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fan-quantum-simultion-of-realit.html Science News: Groups at Harvard and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, have designed and built a quantum computer to simulate and calculate the behavior of a molecular, quantum system. The simulation mimics reality exactly. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3222941 Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3222941 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3220041&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fcan-the-us-prevent-an-wmd-atta.html NPR: Chances are better than ever that terrorists will unleash a chemical or biological weapon in the next three years—that was the finding of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism a year ago. This week, the commission issues a report card on progress in preventing such a disaster. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3220041 Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3220041 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3216006&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fcan-the-us-prevent-an-wmd-atta.html NPR: Chances are better than ever that terrorists will unleash a chemical or biological weapon in the next three years—that was the finding of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism a year ago. This week, the commission issues a report card on progress in preventing such a disaster (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3216006 Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3216006 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3216005&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fnational-ignition-facility-rea.html Physics Today: The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), which is at the heart of the stockpile stewardship program to to maintain the reliability of US nuclear weapons without conducting nuclear underground tests, has successfully delivered more than 1 megajoule of laser energy to a target in a few billionths of a second. This is about 30 times the energy ever delivered by any other group of lasers in the world, including NIF's clone, Megajoule in France which is still under construction. Composite photo shows all three floors containing the 132 ton, 10-meter diameter target chamber. Diagnostic instruments will be attached to the round hatches. Credit:Jacqueline McBride/LLNL "This accomplishment is a major milestone that demonstrates both th... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3216005 Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3216005 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3216004&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fwhats-producing-methane-on-mar.html Nature: The surprising discovery of methane in Mars's atmosphere could be a sign of life there. Researchers are now working out how to find its source, reports Nature's Katharine Sanderson. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3216004 Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3216004 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3216008&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fspirit-lives-on-mars.html Physics Today: After six years of successfully exploring Mars, NASA has given up trying to drive the Spirit Mars rover out from where it got stuck several months ago. Spirit's twin rover Opportunity still remains free and is currently heading towards a large crater called Endeavor. End of the road for Spirit (credit: NASA/JPL) In the next few weeks, Spirit will be to optimized to survive the severe Martian winter so that it can operate as a stationary science platform for years to come. The two rovers were originally designed to last just 90 days, and have driven more than 12 miles across the surface. "Spirit is not dead; it has just entered another phase of its long life," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters in Washington. "We told the... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3216008 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3216008 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3216007&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fthe-pros-and-cons-medical-radi.html NYTimes.com: Americans today receive far more medical radiation than ever before. The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation has increased sevenfold since 1980, and more than half of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy. Without a doubt, radiation saves countless lives, and serious accidents are rare. But patients often know little about the harm that can result when safety rules are violated and ever more powerful and technologically complex machines go awry. To better understand those risks, the New York Times has examined thousands of pages of public and private records and interviewed physicians, medical physicists, researchers and government regulators. It found that while this new technology allows doctors to more accurately attack tumors and reduce certain mistakes... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3216007 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3216007 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3211869&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fscience-under-barack-obama.html BBC Radio 3: Philip Dodd presents an edition of Night Waves dedicated to assessing science in America under Barack Obama. One year ago today Barack Obama's inaugural address pledged that "We will restore science to its rightful place...our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed." These words brought delight to many in the science world and provoked anger amongst others. Under President Bush science in America had become a hotly contested subject with accusations of inappropriate political interference, skepticism of climate change science was widespread and federal funding for stem cell research restricted on religious grounds. Obama had made many science-related promises on the campaign trail, so a year on... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3211869 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3211869 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3211868&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fa-moldable-gel-that-can-heal-i.html Science News: Pulling yourself back together after a break up can be tough to do. But a new hydrogel has no trouble. Using little more than water, clay and a new, designer compound, scientists have created a moldable gel that is both strong and can heal itself in seconds when split in two. The gel may advance efforts in tissue engineering and environmentally friendly chemistry. (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3211868 Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3211868 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3211871&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fhigh-school-student-discovers.html Physics Today: A 15-year-old high-school student has discovered a new pulsar through an NSF-funded program called the Pulsar Search Collaboratory (PSC), which is a joint project of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and West Virginia University. Shay Bloxton, (left image. credit NRAO/AUI/NSF), a sophomore at Nicholas County High School in Summersville, West Virginia, spotted evidence of the pulsar on 15 October 2009 in data from the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). "I was very excited when I found out I had actually made a discovery," says Bloxton. One month later, Bloxton was invited to the GBT to confirm her analysis of the object with NRAO astronomers through a new observation—which proved that the object is a pulsar, a rotating, superdense neutron star. "Part... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3211871 Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3211871 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3211870&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fgirls-may-learn-math-anxiety-f.html USAToday.com: Girls may learn to fear math from the women who are their earliest teachers. Despite gains in recent years, women still trail men in the US in some areas of math achievement, and the question of why has provoked controversy. Now, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of first- and second-graders suggests what may be part of the answer: Female elementary-school teachers who are concerned about their own math skills could be passing that along to the little girls they teach. Related link Female teachers' math anxiety impacts girls' math achievement (Source: Physics Today News Picks) Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3211870 Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3211870 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3207960&cid=s_37771_75_f&fid=37771&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.physicstoday.org%2Fnewspicks%2F2010%2F01%2Fhigh-school-student-discovers.html Physics Today: A 15-year-old high-school student has discovered a new pulsar through a NSF-funded program called the Pulsar Search Collaboratory (PSC) between the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and West Virginia University. Shay Bloxton, (left image. credit NRAO/AUI/NSF), a sophomore at Nicholas County High School in Summersville, West Virginia, spotted evidence of the pulsar on 15 October 2009 in data from the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). "I was very excited when I found out I had actually made a discovery," says Bloxton. One month later, Bloxton was invited to the GBT to confirm her analysis of the object with NRAO astronomers through a new observation—which proved that the object is a pulsar, a rotating, superdense neutron star. "Participating in the PSC h... Physics Today News Picks news http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3207960 Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100 3207960