The journal Nature publishes this week a study of electronic dynamics (“Direct observation of electron dynamics in the attosecond domain”). The participants of this study, together with other researchers, have been professors Daniel Sánchez-Portal and Pedro Miguel Etxenike from the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).

A researcher group of various German laboratories has done the experimental part of the study, and the theoretical explanation based on quantum physics

Physicists have created the state of matter thought to have filled the Universe just a few microseconds after the big bang and found it to be different from what they were expecting. Instead of a gas, it is more like a liquid. Understanding why it is a liquid should take physicists a step closer to explaining the earliest moments of our Universe.

Not just any old liquid, either. Its collective movement is rather like the way a school of fish swims ‘as one’ and is a sign that the flu

Scientists have found that a star that exploded in 1979 is as bright today in X-ray light as it was when it was discovered years ago, a surprise finding because such objects usually fade significantly after only a few months.

Using ESA’s XMM-Newton space observatory, a team of astronomers has discovered that this supernova, called SN 1979C, shows no sign of fading. The scientists can document a unique history of the star, both before and after the explosion, by studying rings o

In a feat of astronomical and terrestrial alignment, a group of scientists from MIT (Cambridge, Mass.) and Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.) recently succeeded in observing distant Pluto’s tiny moon, Charon, hide a star. Such an event had been seen only once before, by a single telescope 25 years ago, and then not nearly as well. The MIT-Williams consortium spotted it with four telescopes in Chile on the night of July 10-11.

In addition to assessing whether Charon has an atm

An international consortium of 7 universities and research centres are seeking an alternative to silicon-based microelectronics in using molecules of DNA, which could enable a reduction in size of the current systems by a thousand times. The University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) is participating in this project through the research group led by Professor Ángel Rubio Secades of the Department of Materials Physics.

The really innovative nature of this project lies, on the one hand, in th

Four Kingston University engineering students are getting a taste of life in space taking part in a European Space Agency (ESA) flight that recreates the weightlessness felt by astronauts once they leave the Earth’s atmosphere. The four have been finding out what it is like to float in zero gravity aboard a special ESA aircraft in Bordeaux, France while carrying out experiments on a lightweight solar kite being developed by Kingston researchers.

The team is one of 30 from across Europe

Computer security will benefit

Computer code-makers may soon get the upper hand on code-breakers thanks to a new quantum cryptography method designed at the University of Toronto. Quantum cryptography uses particles of light to share secret encryption keys relayed through fibre-optic communications.

A paper published in the June 16 issue of the Physical Review Letter demonstrates how senders can vary the intensity of laser light particles (photons) used in fibre-optic co

Researchers from Korea, Italy, France and the ESRF have just observed how a molecule changes structure after being hit with a short flash of laser light. Thanks to very intense pulses of X-rays from the synchrotron and novel data analysis, they were able to confirm a long standing hypothesis regarding the evolution of this molecule. The results are published in the 14 July Science Express, the online counterpart of the journal Science.

The experiment was started by dissolving t

Germany joined the Preparatory Phase of the European Space Exploration Programme Aurora. It thus becomes the twelfth country participating in the programme (*), which allows scientists and industrial companies from Germany to participate in the Aurora Programme.

This decision has been warmly welcomed by ESA and unanimously endorsed by the eleven other Aurora Participating States at the 18th Aurora Board of Participants meeting held in Paris on 12 July 2005.

“After the recen

The four spacecraft of ESA’s Cluster fleet have reached their greatest distance from each other in the course of their mission to study Earth’s magnetosphere in three dimensions.

This operation, marking the fifth anniversary of Cluster in space, transforms Cluster in the first ‘multi-scale’ mission ever. In one of the most complex manoeuvres ever conducted by ESA spacecraft, three of the spacecraft were separated to 10 000 kilometres from each other, with the fourth spacecraft at 1

Astronomers and supporters from eight institutions around the country who are developing the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will gather at The University of Arizona Steward Observatory Mirror Lab on Saturday, July 23, to celebrate the casting of the first of seven 8.4- meter (27-foot) mirrors for the facility.

With this casting, the GMT becomes the first extremely large ground-based telescope to start construction.

The GMT will feature six giant off-axis mirrors around

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed an improved experimental X-ray detector that could pave the way to a new generation of wide-range, high-resolution trace chemical analysis instruments. In a recently published technical paper*, the researchers described how they used improved temperature-sensing and control systems to detect X-rays across a very broad range of energies (6 keV or more), with pinpoint energy resolution (an uncertainty of only

In the last few years, semiconductor circuit features have shrunk to sub-100 nanometer (nm) dimensions, while the size of the thin silicon wafers that these circuits are constructed on has grown from 200 millimeters (mm) to 300 mm (about 12 inches). The payoff is a higher yield of finished devices from fewer wafers.

The tough part, however, is to make wafers substantially larger while simultaneously meeting higher quality control specifications. The optics and materials for “print

Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) may be the next-generation patterning technique used to produce smaller and faster microchips with feature sizes of 32 nanometers and below. However, durable projection optics must be developed before this laboratory technique can become commercially viable. As part of its long-standing effort to develop EUVL metrology and calibration services (summarized in a recent paper*), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is creating a measurement s

For makers of computers, disk drives and other sophisticated technologies, a guiding principle is the smoother the surfaces of chips and other components, the better these devices and the products, themselves, will function.

So, some manufacturers might be surprised to learn that a fast and increasingly popular method for measuring surface texture can yield misleading results. As reported at recent conferences and in an upcoming issue of Applied Optics,* a team of National Instit

A team led by the Institute of Food Research has completed a 2-year study of food choices made at a North London school, to be published on Thursday. Scientists tested the viability of using “smart card” technology to monitor pupils’ mealtime choices.

Project leader Dr Nigel Lambert said: “School dinners are currently a highly political and emotive social issue. The government has pledged to tackle menus, but measuring children’s eating habits at school is fraught with difficultie