Physics in the News

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Scientists use world’s largest laser to recreate Jupiter’s core

The interior of the target chamber at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The object entering from the left is the target positioner, on which a millimeter-scale target is mounted. Researchers recently used NIF to study the interior state of giant planets. (Credit: Image by Damien Jemison/LLNL)

via sciencedaily

Panning for dark matter in an Australian gold mine

Michael Slezak goes deep under the outback to find a home for the southern hemisphere's first WIMP detector, which could confirm our best direct signal yet(Credit: Michael Slezak) — Michael Slezak goes deep under the outback to find a home for the southern hemisphere’s first WIMP detector, which could confirm our best direct signal yet(Credit: Michael Slezak)

via newscientist

Let me ask you this: ‘Are bananas radioactive and is it true that eating too many can kill you?’

Yes, you will certainly die from radiation poisoning if you are able to eat 10,000,000 bananas at once. You may also witness chronic symptoms if you eat 274 bananas a day for seven years. — Yes, you will certainly die from radiation poisoning if you are able to eat 10,000,000 bananas at once. You may also witness chronic symptoms if you eat 274 bananas a day for seven years. (Credit: Ping Zhu)

via independent

Higgs boson glimpsed at work for first time

Fresh from the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (Credit: CERN)

via newscientist

Scattered neutrons could mimic DAMA-LIBRA’s ‘dark matter’ modulation

On a high: do muons and neutrinos mimic DAMA's signal? (Credit: DAMA/LIMA) — On a high: do muons and neutrinos mimic DAMA’s signal? (Credit: DAMA/LIMA)

via physicsworld

OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission will use Canadian 3D technology

Canada is about to build technology that will be used to map an asteroid in 3D using lasers on an upcoming space mission. — Canada is about to build technology that will be used to map an asteroid in 3D using lasers on an upcoming space mission. (Credit CSA)

via cbc

Physics in the News

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Stalking the Shadow Universe(VIDEO)

The mathematics of quantum computing

(Credit: Ritvars Skuja) — The Quantum Computer Science project was completed in August 2013. The project focused on the mathematical aspects of quantum computing. Andris Ambainis, a theoretical computer scientist at the University of Latvia in Riga, was the principal coordinator of the project. (Credit: Ritvars Skuja)

Perth’s planet hunter helps discover unusual exoplanet

Perth engineer ‘TG’ Tan hunts planets with his backyard observatory in Mt Claremont. (Credit: TG Tan)

Touchdown! Supply capsule arrives at International Space Station

The International Space Station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, grapples the Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus cargo craft. (Source: NASA TV) — The International Space Station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, grapples the Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus cargo craft. (Credit NASA TV)

via cbs

The machine learning community contest to take on the Higgs

(Credit: Sandbox Studio, Chicago) — Kaggle is currently running about 20 contests on its site. Most of them will attract between 300 and 500 teams. But the Higgs contest, which does not end until September, has already drawn almost 970. Names appear and drop off of the leader board every day. (Credit: Sandbox Studio, Chicago)

via symmetrymagazine

Pentagon enlists Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson to design a space plane

DARPA wants its new experimental spaceship to fly 10 times within in 10 days and it wants the contractor to show that the vessel can fly at 10 times the speed of sound or more. (Credit: DARPA)

via thedailybeast

Physicists propose molecular clock to expose new physics

(Credit: S. Schiller et al., Phys. Rev. Lett (2014)) — A lot of physics is based on the assumption that the mass of a proton remains constant over time—pretty much forever. But what if that’s not true? What if it grows or shrinks over time? That would mean that the ratio between them and electrons changes as well, and if that’s true, then physicists are going to have to come up with some new ideas to explain what that might mean. (Credit: S. Schiller et al., Phys. Rev. Lett (2014))

Holographic displays coming to smartphones

Quantum Photonic Imager: Ostendo’s light-field display produces 3-D images using light-emitting pixels and piles of pixel-level processing. (Credit: Ostendo Technologies) — Light-field displays for mobile devices might be only a year away. Ostendo’s light-field display produces 3-D images using light-emitting pixels and piles of pixel-level processing. (Credit: Ostendo Technologies)

Physics in the News

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Breaking news on the ISEE-3 mission: It may not be lost – it’s those “O” rings again

High temperatures expanding the seal material could have either impeded the flow, or have precluded the latch valve from opening even with the microswitch indicated to telemetry that the valve was open. — High temperatures expanding the seal material could have either impeded the flow, or have precluded the latch valve from opening even with the microswitch indicated to telemetry that the valve was open. (Credit: Farquhar, R, Muhonen, D, Church, L, Curtis, M.S)

via wattsupwiththat

Deep-space radio waves ‘heard’ at opposite points on Earth(VIDEO)

New data shows Earth’s magnetic field is weakening fast(VIDEO)

via weather.com

Happy birthday, Matt Bunting! Dmitri hexapod creator

Physicists detect process even rarer than the long-sought Higgs particle

Brookhaven Lab/ATLAS physicist Marc-André Pleier adjusting detector components. (Credit: Brookhaven Lab/ATLAS) — Physicist Marc-André Pleier adjusting detector components. (Credit: Brookhaven Lab/ATLAS)

via bnl

Huge Meteorite on Mars Discovered by NASA’s Curiosity Rover

This photo by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the huge iron meteorite "Lebanon" (7 feet wide) and its smaller companion "Lebanon B." The two meteorites were found by Curiosity on May 25, 2014. The circular insets are more detailed views by Curiosity's Chem-Cam instrument overlaid on an image by the rover's Remote Micro-Imager. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/IAS/MSSS) — This photo by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows the huge iron meteorite “Lebanon” (7 feet wide) and its smaller companion “Lebanon B.” The two meteorites were found by Curiosity on May 25, 2014. The circular insets are more detailed views by Curiosity’s Chem-Cam instrument overlaid on an image by the rover’s Remote Micro-Imager.
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/LPGNantes/CNRS/IAS/MSSS)

Single hotspot may be the source of many ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays

The hotspot map for ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. (Credit: Telescope Array)

via arstechnica

Cassini spacecraft’s new look at Saturn’s colossal hexagon storm

(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI) — The clear central eye of the storm is about 2000 km across – ten times the typical size on Earth – and clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane on Saturn are moving at more than 500 kph – rather faster than on Earth. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

via dailygalaxy

Large number of dark matter peaks found using gravitational lensing

This map shows the distribution of dark matter (black) in the Universe, overlapping with optical measured clusters of galaxies (red circles). The mass peaks in the map contain significant cosmological information, will provide us with an improved understanding about the dark side of the Universe. The size of this map is about 4 square degrees corresponding to only 2.5% of the full CS82 survey footprint shown in the next figure. (Credit: CS82, SDSS)

Scientists Believe There May Be An Ancient Earth Older Than The Moon Inside Earth

(Credit: NASA)

Physics in the News

Monday, July 7, 2014

Fluids Flowing at the Nanoscale (VIDEO)

via theepochtimes

Solved: Signals Thought Originating from Habitable-Zone Planets (VIDEO)

via dailygalaxy

NASA OK’s spending on a new rocket built for deep space exploration

NASA plans to spend $6.8 billion of its funding for the SLS project. (Credit: NASA)

via venturebeat

Satellite X-ray observations reveal neutron star with donut-shaped magnetic field and axial wobble

An artist's impression of a magnetar with an intense torroidal magnetic field in its core. (Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss) — An artist’s impression of a magnetar with an intense torroidal magnetic field in its core. (Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)

Small, but plentiful: How the faintest galaxies illuminated the early universe

A view of the entire simulation volume showing the large scale structure of the gas, which is distributed in filaments and clumps. The red regions are heated by UV light coming from the galaxies, highlighted in white. These galaxies are over 1000 times less massive than the Milky Way and contributed nearly one-third of the UV light during re-ionisation. The field of view of this image is 400,000 light years across, when the universe was only 700 million years old. (Credit: John Wise)

Two years ago the discovery of the Higgs boson was announced. What’s new?

A worker rides on his bicycle in the CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel during maintenance works. (Credit: AFP / FABRICE COFFRINIFABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images) — A worker rides on his bicycle in the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel during maintenance works. (Credit: AFP / FABRICE COFFRINIFABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

via theguardian

Physics in the News

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Not quite beam me up, but Star Trek technology’s moved beyond science fiction

Teleportation aside, they'd feel right at home on earth. (Credit: AP) — Teleportation aside, they’d feel right at home on earth. (Credit: AP)

via scmp

A Bold Critic of the Big Bang’s ‘Smoking Gun’

David Spergel, a theoretical astrophysicist at Princeton University who was a theorist on NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe mission. (Credit: Princeton)

via simonsfoundation

Bruno Zumino Dies at 91; Sought to Tie Together Laws of Universe

Bruno Zumino in 1985. (Credit: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

Physicist Louis Del Monte believes that by 2045 machines will threaten human survival

Part human, part machine, the future of artificial intelligence. (Credit: Getty Images)

Meet the brazen scientist who’s taking over NASA’s high-powered climate lab

Gavin Schmidt (Credit: Christy Field)

Physician-Scientists: The Newest Endangered Species

Dr. J. Michael Bishop- (Credit: Christian Flemming/Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings)

via scientificamerican