news 2017

Jets of atoms shoot off together like fireworks from a central disc in a new quantum phenomenon discovered by UChicago scientists (color added for illustration). Scientists aren't normally treated to fireworks when they discover something about the universe. But a team of University of Chicago researchers found a show waiting for them at the atomic level-along with a new form of quantum behavior.

Research news Computer Tomography (CT) is a standard procedure in hospitals, but so far, the technology has not been suitable for imaging extremely small objects. In PNAS, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) describes a Nano-CT device that creates three-dimensional x-ray images at resolutions up to 100 nanometers.

In cities and large-scale manufacturing plants, a water leak in a complicated network of pipes can take tremendous time and effort to detect, as technicians must disassemble many pieces to locate the problem. The American Water Works Association indicates that nearly a quarter-million water line breaks occur each year in the U.S., costing public water utilities about $2.8 billion annually.

Small-angle x-ray scattering is used to observe ultra-fast carbon clustering and graphite and nanodiamond production in the insensitive explosive Plastic Bonded Explosive 9502. "The carbon particle size, shape, composition and their evolution in time helps us understand how explosives deliver energy over a given time frame." - Dana Dattelbaum, of Explosive Science and Shock Physics Division Los Alamos, New Mexico, Nov.

Scientists have designed gold nanoparticles, no bigger than 100 nanometres, which can be coated and used to track blood flow in the smallest blood vessels in the body. By improving our understanding of blood flow in vivo the nanoprobes represent an opportunity to help in the early diagnosis of disease.

The quantum world is fragile; error correction codes are needed to protect the information stored in a quantum object from the deteriorating effects of noise. Quantum physicists in Innsbruck have developed a protocol to pass quantum information between differently encoded building blocks of a future quantum computer, such as processors and memories.

Scientists have identified a key chemical within the 'memory' region of the brain that allows us to suppress unwanted thoughts, helping explain why people who suffer from disorders such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and schizophrenia often experience persistent intrusive thoughts when these circuits go awry.

The La Niña weather pattern can cause droughts in the southern United States, including parts of eastern Texas. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Two new studies from The University of Texas at Austin have significantly improved scientists' ability to predict the strength and duration of droughts caused by La Niña - a recurrent cooling pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Today's lithium-ion battery was invented so long ago, there are not many more efficiencies to wring out of it. Now researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) report major progress in cathodes made with so-called "disordered" materials, a promising new type of lithium battery.

Quantum physicists in Oriol Romero-Isart's research group in Innsbruck show in two current publications that, despite Earnshaw's theorem, nanomagnets can be stably levitated in an external static magnetic field owing to quantum mechanical principles. The quantum angular momentum of electrons, which also causes magnetism, is accountable for this mechanism.

ETH researchers have developed a scale for measuring cells. It allows the weight of individual living cells, and any changes in this weight, to be determined quickly and accurately for the first time. The invention has also aroused significant interest both in and outside the field of biology. From earthworms and sunflowers to human beings, we are all made up of cells, so it's no surprise that researchers are hard at work investigating these building blocks of life.

Most metals and semiconductors, from the steel in a knife blade to the silicon in a solar panel, are made up of many tiny crystalline grains. The way these grains meet at their edges can have a major impact on the solid's properties, including mechanical strength, electrical conductivity, thermal properties, flexibility, and so on.

A materials expert says quantum computers may be able to come out of the cold, thanks to his research breakthrough. Dr Jonathan Breeze is from the Department of Materials at Imperial College London. He says his research breakthrough may help scientists overcome a major obstacle with quantum computers - the fact that they have to operate in conditions that are colder than deep space.

Transitions occurring in nanoscale systems, such as a chemical reaction or the folding of a protein, are strongly affected by friction and thermal noise. Almost 80 years ago, the Dutch physicist Hendrik Kramers predicted that such transitions occur most frequently at intermediate friction, an effect known as Kramers turnover.

New study finds "messy" microscopic structures on petals of some flowers manipulate light to produce a blue colour effect that is easily seen by bee pollinators. Researchers say these petal grooves evolved independently multiple times across flowering plants, but produce the same result: a floral halo of blue-to-ultraviolet light.

New study finds "messy" microscopic structures on petals of some flowers manipulate light to produce a blue colour effect that is easily seen by bee pollinators. Researchers say these petal grooves evolved independently multiple times across flowering plants, but produce the same result: a floral halo of blue-to-ultraviolet light.

It confirms Einstein's prediction that gravitational waves travel at the same speed as gamma rays: the speed of light. "As soon as I heard the news, I knew that understanding all of the implications would require input from a broad, multi-disciplinary set of scientists." - Chris Fryer Gravitational-wave observation confirms heavy-elements theory LOS ALAMOS, N.M. Oct.

A Sydney team was the first in the world to confirm radiowaves from the latest gravitational waves event, resulting from a spectacular neutron star merger that has produced light and radio waves as well as gravitational waves. An Australian group was the first in the world to confirm the radio emission from a gravitational wave event, discovered by collaborators in the United States being announced today.

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Bedfordshire, in collaboration with multinational company ABB, have designed and tested a series of plasmonic nanoantenna arrays that could lead to the development of a new generation of ultrasensitive and low-cost fluorescence sensors that could be used to monitor water quality.

ESA's Integral satellite recently played a crucial role in discovering the flash of gamma rays linked to the gravitational waves released by the collision of two neutron stars. On 17 August, a burst of gamma rays lit up in space for almost two seconds. It was promptly recorded by Integral and NASA's Fermi satellite.