news 2009

Astronomers have discovered the second super-Earth exoplanet for which they have determined the mass and radius, giving vital clues about its structure.

Cambridge, Mass. December 17, 2009 - Scientists at Harvard University have used light and genetic trickery to trace out neurons' ability to excite or inhibit one another, literally shedding new light on the question of how neurons interact with one another in live animals. The work is described in the current issue of the journal Nature Methods.

Physically active individuals have an increased sense of accomplishment, or situation-specific self-confidence, which in turn results in reduced depression and reduced fatigue, said Edward McAuley, a professor of kinesiology and community health at Illinois and lead author on the study. Photo by L. Brian Stauffer CHAMPAIGN, lll.

Not so long ago, our computers had a single core which had to be boosted for performance - making each machine into a great central heating system.

A talented academic at the University of Sheffield is set to lead the way in new research after being awarded a prestigious research fellowship title by the Royal Society - the UK's national academy of science. Dr Gino Hrkac, from the Department of Engineering Materials, was selected to be one of only 38 new University Research Fellows (URFs) across the UK for 2009 as a result of his research into the new phenomena of functional nano-magnetism and spintronics.

Birmingham physicists have played a key role in producing the first results from CERN's Large Hadron Collider, a 27km underground tunnel near Geneva, where scientists are colliding together particles to discover what happened a millionth of a second after the Big Bang. These results have come out of the ALICE collaboration's detector which will study the physics from ultra-high energy proton-proton and lead-lead interactions.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider has today become the world's highest energy particle accelerator, having accelerated its twin beams of protons to an energy of 1.

Birmingham physicists are delighted that their experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), that aim to find what happened just after the Big Bang, will soon be underway as scientists have successfully collided together two low-energy beams of protons for the first time. Based at the CERN laboratory, Geneva, the LHC is the world's largest machine and aims to discover many secrets of the nature of matter and the universe.

BERKELEY — Could it be that the generous Mother Teresa and the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge from “A Christmas Carol” were influenced by their genes? Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found compelling evidence that people who are more empathetic possess a particular variation of the oxytocin receptor gene.

Scientists use the Roadrunner supercomputer to model a fundamental process in physics that could help explain how stars begin to explode into supernovae Los Alamos, New Mexico, November 16, 2009 — Despite decades of research, understanding turbulence, the seemingly random motion of fluid flows, remains one of the major unsolved problems in physics.

Schoolchildren at the Pueblo of Jemez get hands-on learning at a geothermal well during a recent Earth Day event. The well may be used for power or warmth. Los Alamos National Laboratory is providing technical assistance in the project thanks to funding from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

Nanotechnology has shown great promise for applications in the areas of energy, information technology and the environment. In the health and medicine fields, however, its promise has progressed beyond possibility to become reality. Nanoscale research has led to techniques and devices with the potential to revolutionize health care, including imaging tools that detect cancers at the atomic level, nanomachines programmed to release drugs within specific cells, and biosensors that monitor changes from deep within body organs.

BERKELEY — An unusual supernova rediscovered in seven-year-old data may be the first example of a new type of exploding star, possibly from a binary star system where helium flows from one white dwarf onto another and detonates in a thermonuclear explosion. Artist's impression of an AM-CVn star system, where helium flows from one star, a helium white dwarf (upper right), onto another, piling up in an accretion disk around a small, dense primary star.

Recognizes sustained, outstanding scientific contributions Los Alamos, New Mexico, November 5, 2009—Antoinette "Toni" Taylor, Stephen Becker, Joachim Birn, Lowell Brown, Patrick Colestock, and Samuel "Tom" Picraux have been designated 2009 Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows in recognition of sustained, outstanding scientific contributions and exceptional promise for continued professional achievement.

Cambridge, Mass. November 4, 2009 - Physicists at Harvard University have created a quantum gas microscope that can be used to observe single atoms at temperatures so low the particles follow the rules of quantum mechanics, behaving in bizarre ways. The work, published this week in the journal Nature, represents the first time scientists have detected single atoms in a crystalline structure made solely of light, called a Bose Hubbard optical lattice.

The focus is to understand the three-dimensional evolution of thin electrical current layers where magnetic reconnection initially develops. Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in physics, the continuous breaking and rearrangement of magnetic field lines in a plasma Los Alamos, New Mexico, October 30, 2009—Although physicists have made considerable progress understanding magnetic reconnection, many important questions are still being debated.

Advances in experimental techniques and supercomputer performance, culminating with Roadrunner, have reduced the gap between experiment and simulation Los Alamos, New Mexico, October 30, 2009—The long-established and reliable SPaSM (Scalable Parallel Short-range Molecular dynamics) code, adapted to run on the world's fastest supercomputer, Roadrunner, is being used to study the physics of how materials break up, called "spall," and how pieces fly off, called "ejecta," from thin sheets of copper as shock waves force the material break apart at the atomic scale.

Through these simulations, scientists are developing a better understanding of how materials behave at the size scale of a nanometer, or one-billionth of a meter Los Alamos, New Mexico, October 29, 2009— Very tiny wires, called nanowires, made from such metals as silver and gold, may play a crucial role as electrical or mechanical switches in the development of future-generation ultrasmall nanodevices.

To achieve fusion scientists must put as much laser energy on target as possible, a task complicated by energy loss due to laser backscatter, or reflection Los Alamos, New Mexico, Oct 28, 2009—For years scientists have struggled with the difficult physics of inertial confinement fusion. This is the attempt to compress a target capsule containing isotopes of hydrogen with high-powered lasers to high enough pressure and temperature to initiate fusion burn.

Los Alamos, New Mexico, October 27, 2009—Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Sanjay Reddy talks about the nature of neutron stars in a Frontiers in Science lecture at 7 p.m. November 3, in the Duane Smith Auditorium at Los Alamos High School. Reddy will give the same lecture November 5, 10, and 16 in Albuquerque, Española, and Santa Fe, respectively.