ESA’s Integral satellite is detecting gamma-ray bursts at a rate of nearly one per day, establishing itself as a key player in the hunt for these enigmatic explosions.

Launched in October 2002, Integral has just captured four bursts in the last four months right in the middle of its field of view. Such precision observations are providing scientists with a remarkable view of gamma-ray bursts, which occur randomly, fade within seconds, and yet shine with the intensity of millions

Telecoms systems contain an awkward mixture of optics and electronics. A purely optical system would permit the very high data rates needed by the Internet, but at the moment the switching and routing, as well as the “last mile” to the customer, still depend on slower electronic components. Speaking at the Institute of Physics Congress on Monday 24 March, Professor Robert Denning from Oxford University will explain how his novel holographic approach to making 3-dimensional photonics crystals could al

By constructing artificial materials that break long-standing rules of nature, a University of Toronto researcher has developed a flat lens that could significantly enhance the resolution of imaged objects. This, in turn, could lead to smaller and more effective antennas and devices for cell phones, increased space for data storage on CD-ROMs and more complex electronic circuits.

“This is new physics,” says George Eleftheriades, a U of T professor specializing in electromagnetic technology

Observations with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at the ESO Paranal Observatory (Chile) have provided the first-ever direct determination of the angular sizes of the disks of the solar-type stars Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. As the two largest members of this triple stellar system that also includes the much smaller Proxima Centauri, they are the Sun’s nearest neighbours in space at a distance of just over 4 light-years. Together with photometric and asteroseismic observati

Our planet is bombarded every second with a large number of chargeless, seemingly massless, particles that originate in nuclear fusion reactions that power the sun. They’re called neutrinos.

According to The Standard Solar Model – the most substantiated model of the sun – the sun should emit around three times more neutrinos than are actually measured on Earth. They are a source of great interest for scientists who seek to better understand elementary particles and the physics of the s

Researchers attack 100-year-old puzzle, learn how a single layer of particles can pack on the surface of a sphere ARLINGTON, Va. – In a discovery that is likely to impact fields as diverse as medicine and nanomanufacture, researchers have determined how nature arranges charged particles in a thin layer around a sphere. The leap forward in understanding this theoretical problem may help reveal structural chinks in the outer armor of viruses and bacteria (revealing potential drug targets

Computer experts at the University of Southampton have just released a new version of their hugely popular free-to-use email security system MailScanner, offering a high level of protection to companies and institutions wanting to safeguard their computer networks from viruses and the potential threat of cyberterrorism.

Developed by Julian Field of the University of Southampton’s world-renowned Department of Electronics and Computer Science, MailScanner processes over 500 million email mes

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, for the first time, astronomers have observed the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet evaporating off into space. Much of this planet may eventually disappear, leaving only a dense core. The planet is a type of extrasolar planet known as a ’hot Jupiter’. These giant, gaseous planets orbit their stars very closely, drawn to them like moths to a flame.

The scorched planet called HD 209458b orbits ‘only’ 7 million kilometres from its yellow Sun-like st

In a major breakthrough for understanding what one of them calls “the most exotic environment in the Universe,” a team of astronomers has discovered that powerful radio bursts in pulsars are generated by structures as small as a beach ball.

“These are by far the smallest objects ever detected outside our solar system,” said Tim Hankins, leader of the research team, which studied the pulsar at the center of the Crab Nebula, more than 6,000 light-years from Earth. “The small size of these regi

Early demo project identifies new brown dwarf

A new approach to finding undiscovered objects buried in immense astronomical databases has produced an early and unexpected payoff: a new instance of a hard-to-find type of star known as a brown dwarf.

Scientists working to create the National Virtual Observatory (NVO), an online portal for astronomical research unifying dozens of large astronomical databases, confirmed discovery of the new brown dwarf recently. The star emerge

An advanced technique for analysing radar images shows tremendous promise for scientists studying forests, agriculture, ice and other terrain types, but experts at a recent ESA workshop cautioned that research work is needed before practical applications can be developed.

More than 120 scientists and researchers from 20 countries gathered recently at ESA’s ESRIN facility in Frascati, Italy, for a three-day workshop to share the latest results on scientific tests and potential applications of

UK astronomers Elizabeth Stanway, Andrew Bunker and Richard McMahon at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, England, have used three of the most powerful telescopes in existence to identify some of the farthest galaxies yet seen. But at the same time, they have encountered a cosmic conundrum: it looks as if there were fewer galaxies forming stars at this early stage in the history of the Universe than in the more recent past. Their results, which will be published in the Monthly Notic

A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory astrophysicist, working with an international group of researchers, has discovered that high-energy neutrinos — particles that rarely interact with other matter — are produced in the accretion discs of neutron stars in amounts significant enough to be detected by the next-generation of neutrino telescopes.

Using computer simulations, the team of scientists, which includes Lab astrophysicist Diego Torres, has shown that magnetized, accreting neutron

A lot of attention has been paid in recent years to the asteroid threat issue. The International Asteroid Patrol has been set up to monitor the flight of potentially dangerous celestial rocks in visual diapason. However, the accuracy of optical methods for determining the trajectory leaves much to be desired. That accounts for inaccuracy of numerous forecasts predicting the date when the space “killer” is to collide with the Earth.

The scientists of the Radio-Astronomical Institute (

Information overload? It is becoming increasingly important for companies and developers to present complex coherences clearly and concisely. In order to structure the growing amount of information, new methods are being conceived at the man/machine interface. This is where GoVisual software, developed at the international caesar research center, comes into play. It automatically generates a clear layout for a number of different diagrams in a second; particularly for UML (Unified Modeling Language)

Mathematical models have given physicists a new look at DNA’s chemical counterpart, RNA.

The models – showing that RNA behaves differently depending on the temperature of its environment – may help biologists better understand how life evolved on Earth.

The models suggest that high temperatures give twisted strands of RNA the flexibility to fold into many different shapes, while low temperatures cause it to collapse into a single shape.

Ralf Bundschuh, assistant pro