Managing large software development projects using existing management tools can be a little imprecise. An altogether softer approach has been developed as a commercial tool, enabling project managers to get inside the development process and optimise resources. The drawback with conventional software project management tools is that they are unforgiving. There isn’t a means of ascribing levels of confidence or uncertainty and, as a consequence, the resulting answers may or may not be believable. T

ESO’s Telescopes Uncover Super Star Cluster in the Milky Way

Super star clusters are groups of hundreds of thousands of very young stars packed into an unbelievably small volume. They represent the most extreme environments in which stars and planets can form.

Until now, super star clusters were only known to exist very far away, mostly in pairs or groups of interacting galaxies. Now, however, a team of European astronomers have used ESO’s telescopes to uncover such a mon

Peculiar outbursts of X-rays coming from a black hole have provided evidence that it has a mass of about 10,000 Suns, which would place it in a possible new class of black holes. The timing and regularity of these outbursts, observed with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, make the object one of the best candidates yet for a so-called intermediate-mass black hole.

Scientists have strong evidence for the existence of stellar black holes that are about 10 times as massive as the Sun

In the quest to unravel the characteristics of the mysterious neutrino particle, millions of which pass through us undetected every day, scientists from several international universities have joined forces with UK research colleagues to build a unique engineering technology demonstrator at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. Known as MICE [Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment] the experiment will prove one of the key requirements to produce intense beams of neutrinos at a dedicated

Physicists trace the “hopping” of single electrons in magnetic materials

How much energy does it take for an electron to hop from atom to atom, and how do the magnetic properties of the material influence the rate or ease of hopping? Answers to those questions could help explain why some materials, like those used in a computer hard drive, become conductors only in a magnetic field while they are very strong insulators otherwise. They might also help scientists learn how to use

In three spatial dimensions, it is a close relative of the quark-gluon plasma, the super-hot state of matter that hasn’t existed since the tiniest fraction of a second after the big bang that started the universe. When viewed in 10 dimensions, the minimum number prescribed by what physicists call “string theory,” it is a black hole.

No matter what you call it, though, that substance and others similar to it could be the most-perfect fluids in existence because they have ultr

On 17 March the ESA Council, at its meeting in Paris, unanimously approved a cooperation agreement between ESA and the Indian Space Research Organisation for India’s first moon mission – Chandrayaan-1.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), founded in 1969, launched its first satellite in 1975. Since then it has developed a number of launch vehicles as well as satellites for Earth observation, remote sensing, telecommunications and weather forecasting. India has its own

Researchers working on the room temperature spintronics (SPIN) research project are the first in Europe to successfully produce GaMnN layers, which are ferromagnetic at room temperature. The layer properties were examined using electric, optic, x-ray and positron measurements. The Academy-funded SPIN project is comprised of four participating entities, i.e. the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) Departments of Electron Physics, Optoelectronics and Physics laboratories and the VTT Tech

Lord Sainsbury, UK Minister for Science and Innovation will officially open the University of Dundee’s new Space Technology Centre that will carry out advanced research into planetary landing simulators and develop support technology for many space missions.

Opening on Friday 18 March the Space Technology Centre comprises the NERC Satellite Receiving Station at Dundee, The Space Systems Research Group and commercialisation activities including spin-out company STAR-Dundee.

This image, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, shows flow features most likely formed by glaciers or ‘block’ glaciers.

This unusual ‘hourglass’-shaped structure is located in Promethei Terra at the eastern rim of the Hellas Basin, at about latitude 38º South and longitude 104º East. A so-called ‘block’ glacier, an ice stream with a large amount of scree (small rocks of assorted sizes), flowed from a flank of the massif into a

Dutch researcher Mirela Tanase has developed a new technique for finding images using search engines. Her technique is based on how the human eye recognises objects. It can increase the success rate of certain search operations for objects from 10 to 70 percent.

Tanase developed two methods for decomposing objects into parts, which are then used to search for similar objects. The first method decomposes the interior of the shape. Humans find this task easy, but a computer often

Italian, US cosmologists present alternate explanation for accelerating expansion of the universe

Why is the universe expanding at an accelerating rate, spreading its contents over ever greater dimensions of space? An original solution to this puzzle, certainly the most fascinating question in modern cosmology, was put forward by four theoretical physicists, Edward W. Kolb of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Chicago (USA): Sabino Matarrese of the

The Cassini spacecraft’s two flybys of the icy moon Enceladus have revealed that the moon has a significant atmosphere. Scientists using Cassini’s magnetometer instrument for their studies, say the source may be due to volcanism, geysers, or gases escaping from the surface or its interior.

When the Cassini had its first encounter with Enceladus on 17th February 2005 at an altitude of 1,167 kilometres (725 miles), the magnetometer instrument saw a striking signature in the ma

Astrophysicists in recent years have found evidence for a force they call dark energy in observations from the farthest reaches of the universe, billions of light years away.

Now an international team of researchers has used data from powerful computer models, supported by observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, to find evidence of dark energy right in our own cosmic neighborhood.

The data paint a picture of the universe as a virtual sea of dark energy, with billi

A revolutionary machine which can make everything from a cup to a clarinet quickly and cheaply could be in all our homes in the next few years.

Research by engineers at the University of Bath could transform the manufacture of almost all everyday household objects by allowing people to produce them in their own homes at the cost of a few pounds.

The new system is based upon rapid prototype machines, which are now used to produce plastic components for industry such as

Many activities in our daily lives use products and devices based on silicon chips – from computers and televisions to medical equipment and defense systems. As these products and applications become increasingly complex and miniature, so must the chips.

Chips are manufactured on a silicon wafer. Each chip is surrounded by electrical contacts (‘plots’) through which data enters and exits. The plots are connected to each other through extremely fine wires. In 1994 the distance be