news

PASADENA, Calif.—For many years, most scientists studying Tibet have thought that a very hot and very weak lower and middle crust underlies its plateau, flowing like a fluid. Now, a team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is questioning this long-held belief and proposing that an entirely different mechanism is at play.

Nonscientists are the intended audience for a talk about the theory that sparked the famous debate between Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr over the nature of quantum physics. David Mermin, professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University, will give the 2011 Robert Hofstadter Memorial Lectures on the Stanford University campus Monday, April 4, and Tuesday, April 5.

Artificial turf is robust, durable and stands up to any weather. It allows to practise and to play all the year round and therefore became essential for today's football.

Future queen or tireless toiler? A paper wasp's destiny may lie in the antennal drumbeats of its caretaker. While feeding their colony's larvae, a paper wasp queen and other dominant females periodically beat their antennae in a rhythmic pattern against the nest chambers, a behavior known as antennal drumming.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. A water hammer can occur when a valve is suddenly opened or closed in a pipe carrying water or steam, causing a pressure wave to travel down the pipe with enough force that it can sometimes cause the pipes to burst. Now, new research shows that a similar effect takes places on a tiny scale whenever a droplet of water strikes a surface.

If you owned a mechanical device made out of the strongest material known to mankind, wouldn't you want to know under what circumstances it might fail? Marianetti, whose research focuses on modeling the behavior of materials at the atomic scale, was interested in the properties of graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon with myriad high-tech applications including smaller computers and longer-lasting batteries.

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle sets limits on Einstein's "spooky action at a distance", new research finds. Researchers have uncovered a fundamental link between the two defining properties of quantum physics. Jonathan Oppenheim, a physicist at the Department of Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics and a Fellow of Wolfson, and Stephanie Wehner of Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies and the National University of Singapore published their work today in the latest edition of the journal Science.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Wind power is likely to play a large role in the future of sustainable, clean energy, but wide-scale adoption has remained elusive. Now, researchers have found wind farms' effects on local temperatures and proposed strategies for mediating those effects, increasing the potential to expand wind farms to a utility-scale energy resource.

Prof. Schattschneider from Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna), together with colleagues from Belgium, is developing a method of producing rotating electron beams and is publishing the technology in the scientific journal "Nature". Manipulating materials with rotating quantum particles: a team from the University of Antwerp and TU Vienna (Professor Peter Schattschneider, Institute of Solid State Physics) has succeeded in producing what are known as vortex beams: rotating electron beams, which make it possible to investigate the magnetic properties of materials.

University of Sydney researchers have discovered a new super-strength light alloy and had their key findings published in the prestigious journal, Nature Communications . The alloy is much stronger than expected and the reasons are being revealed by top-end microscopy and microanalysis at the University's node of the Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Research Facility (AMMRF).

When it comes to refrigerators, size matters. Who hasn't at least once in their life wished for a bigger fridge' However, who can say they've wished for the extreme opposite ' the smallest conceivable one? But this is exactly what experts in quantum mechanics from the University of Bristol have done.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Physicists are divided on whether string theory is a viable theory of everything, but many agree that it offers a new way to look at physical phenomena that have otherwise proven difficult to describe. In the past decade, physicists have used string theory to build a connection between quantum and gravitational mechanics, known as gauge/gravity duality.

An immunofluorescence image of a human mesenchymal stem cell growing on a plate of microposts, which have the approximate consistency of Silly Putty. This image was taken after one day of culturing. The red dots are the microposts, which are relatively short in this sample. The green is the cell and the blue is its nucleus.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Understanding the processes that cause volcanic eruptions can help scientists predict how often and how violently a volcano will erupt. Although scientists have a general idea of how these processes work - the melting of magma below the volcano causes liquid magma and gases to force their way to Earth's surface ' eruptions happen so rarely, and often with little warning, that it can be difficult to study them in detail.

A world first model for predicting fluid flows close to surfaces will enable engineers to reduce drag in vehicles, and in turn, lead to more efficient and greener planes, cars and boats, according to a University of Melbourne study. Research team leader and Federation Fellow Professor Ivan Marusic from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Melbourne says skin-friction drag accounts for 50 per cent of fuel expenditure in aircraft, so even modest reductions in drag would save money and significantly reduce carbon emissions.

Today's trend in winter sports draws more and more people away from the designated slopes. Free riding and ski tours experience a massive boost in popularity.

An ANU-led team has developed the most efficient quantum memory for light in the world, taking us closer to a future of super-fast computers and communication secured by the laws of physics. The team at the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering used a technique they pioneered to stop and control light from a laser, manipulating electrons in a crystal cooled to a chilly -270 degrees Celcius.

The quest to derive energy from wind may soon be getting some help from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) fluid-dynamics expert John Dabiri-and a school of fish. As head of Caltech's Biological Propulsion Laboratory, Dabiri studies water- and wind-energy concepts that share the theme of bioinspiration: that is, identifying energy-related processes in biological systems that may provide insight into new approaches to-in this case-wind energy.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Thanks to an interdisciplinary team of researchers, scientists now have a more complete understanding of one of the human body's most vital structures: the red blood cell. Led by University of Illinois electrical and computer engineering professor Gabriel Popescu, the team developed a model that could lead to breakthroughs in screening and treatment of blood-cell-morphology diseases, such as malaria and sickle-cell disease.

March 31, 2010 — Coral Gables — University of Miami assistant professor in the College of Engineering, Na Li and her collaborators have developed a fast, economical and easy method to detect melamine in milk. Melamine is the compound found in contaminated pet food and in tainted dairy products from China in 2007 and 2008 respectively.