A team of scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science has recently demonstrated conclusively that, in very specific circumstances, spin can become separated from charge and progress independently down a wire
Two properties of an electron – its spin and its charge – are generally thought to be inseparable, intrinsic characteristics, no more given to sudden changes or going off on their own than say, the fur on a cat or the paint on a bicycle. But a team of scientists at the W
Using a technique called ultrasonic spray pyrolysis, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created an improved catalyst for removing smelly sulfur-containing compounds from gasoline and other fossil fuels. The improved catalyst is a form of molybdenum disulfide, most commonly recognized as the black lubricant used to grease automobiles and machinery.
Molybdenum disulfide is made of long flat layers of molybdenum metal atoms sandwiched above and belo
New York University physicists have applied a ground-breaking nanotechnology method to create three-dimensional quasicrystals, highly ordered structures that, unlike conventional crystals, never repeat themselves.
Metallic quasicrystals created from exotic alloys have shown promise for storing hydrogen more efficiently than crystalline hosts. Their non-repeating structure has the potential to dramatically strengthen industrial and commercial products. The NYU quasicrystals, by
Two new Cassini views of Saturn’s tumbling moon Hyperion offer the best looks yet at one of the icy, irregularly-shaped moons that orbit the giant, ringed planet.
The image products released today include a movie sequence and a 3D view, and are available at http://ciclops.org, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini.
The views were acquired between June 9 and June 11, 2005, during Cassini’s first brush with Hyperion.
Hyperion is decidedly no
Here come the X-rays, on cue. Scientists studying the Deep Impact collision using NASA’s Swift satellite report that comet Tempel 1 is getting brighter and brighter in X-ray light with each passing day.
The X-rays provide a direct measurement of how much material was kicked up in the impact. This is because the X-rays are created by the newly liberated material lifted into the comet’s thin atmosphere and illuminated by the high-energy solar wind from the Sun. The more m
Astronomers from across Europe today (July 7th) took a step closer to making their plans for a giant telescope a reality when they unveiled the scientific case for an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) – a monster telescope with a light capturing mirror of between 50 and 100 metres, dwarfing all previous optical telescope facilities. The announcement was made at a meeting in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands and initiates the design phase of the project. Astronomers plan to use the ELT to search for p
Computers, telephones, music players keep getting smaller and more powerful, but the technology making this possible can only be shrunk so far. Leeds researchers have won £2.6m to develop the ‘disruptive technology’ of the century by exploiting nature’s ability to work on the nanoscale – heralding a revolution in the way our gadgets operate.
Semiconductor chips, containing millions of transistors, are now found in everything from cars to fridges. However, the technology behind t
Global warming could be controlled if we all became vegetarians and stopped eating meat. That’s the view of British physicist Alan Calverd, who thinks that giving up pork chops, lamb cutlets and chicken burgers would do more for the environment than burning less oil and gas.
Writing in this month’s Physics World, Calvert calculates that the animals we eat emit 21% of all the carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity. We could therefore slash man-made emissions of carbon d
New, higher precision data that could only have been gathered at the Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) shows the Theta-plus pentaquark doesn’t appear in another place it was expected. This intriguing finding contradicts evidence previously presented by Jefferson Lab researchers that they had sighted a pentaquark, a particle built of five quarks. Volker Burkert, a Jefferson Lab Experimental Hall Leader, will present this preliminary result in a
As of 6 July 2005, 990 comets have been discovered using the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, which is expected to discover its 1000th comet this summer.
The SOHO spacecraft, a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, has been so prolific that it has accounted for almost half of all comet discoveries for which orbits have been computed in the history of astronomy.
Before SOHO was launched, only 16 ‘sungrazing’ comets had be
Quantum computers that store information in so-called quantum bits (or qubits) will be confronted with a fundamental limitation. This is the claim made by Dutch theoretical physicists from the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) and Leiden University in an article recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
A quantum computer can only function if the information exists for long enough to be processed. The so-called coherence of the qubit ensures that the qu
Dutch researcher Bram Wijngaarden investigated how bottom quarks are created during collisions between protons and antiprotons. Wijngaarden’s measurements have contributed to a better understanding of the theory, and can be used to explain why the production of these quarks during such collisions is higher than had originally been expected.
Bram Wijngaarden investigated the creation of bottom quarks using the D zero experiment of the particle accelerator at the Fermi lab in
ESA’s XMM-Newton observations of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 revealed that the object is a weak X-ray source. These data were acquired on 4 July 2005 by one of the EPIC X-ray cameras on board the spacecraft during the post-impact observation phase.
XMM-Newton observed that Tempel 1 emits X-rays, as suspected from previous observations of comets, but this emission is very weak. It is not certain whether it is possible to obtain spectral data which indicate the mechanisms by which the c
Scientists using the Swift satellite witnessed a tale of fire and ice today, as NASA’s Deep Impact probe slammed into the frozen comet Tempel 1. The collision briefly lit the dim comet’s surface and exposed, for the first time, a section of ancient and virgin material from the comet’s interior.
Swift is providing the only simultaneous multi-wavelength observation of this rare event, with a suite of instruments capable of detecting optical light, ultraviolet, X-ray
A new research article outlines another aspect of Quantum Cryptography
In “No Signaling and quantum key distribution”, a new paper published in Physical Review Letters 95 (010503 – 2005), Barrett, Hardy and Kent give the first example of a way of implementing quantum cryptography which is provably secure – even if quantum theory is incorrect, so long as a successor theory shares with quantum theory the features which make faster-than-light signaling impossible. The scheme can b
Its name is Y(4260) and it is not a new humanoid of Stars Wars, but a particle identified for the first time by BaBar experiment: an international collaboration – formed by the large participation of the Italian physicists of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (Infn) – that has its seat in Stanford (California). Y(4260) represents an interesting element with respect of particles’ field and it will provide very useful signs about character of the strong force, that is the force that holds tog
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