http://phys.org/physics-news/physics/ en-us Phys.Org provides the latest news on physics, materials, nanotech, science and technology. For the first time, scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated a new type of lens that bends and focuses ultraviolet (UV) light in such an unusual way that it can create ghostly, 3D images of objects that float in free space. The easy-to-build lens could lead to improved photolithography, nanoscale manipulation and manufacturing, and even high-resolution three-dimensional imaging, as well as a number of as-yet-unimagined applications in a diverse range of fields. http://phys.org/news288632618.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 24 May 2013 16:46:14 EST news288632618 (Phys.org) —The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has begun delivery of germanium-76 detectors to an underground laboratory in South Dakota in a team research effort that might explain the puzzling imbalance between matter and antimatter generated by the Big Bang. http://phys.org/news288625320.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 24 May 2013 14:42:06 EST news288625320 (Phys.org) —A team of Harvard University physicists has proposed the possible existence of a type of dark matter not described by current physics models. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team suggests it's possible that not all dark matter is cold and collision-less. http://phys.org/news288605978.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 24 May 2013 09:30:01 EST news288605978 (Phys.org) —Minuscule crystals that glow different colors may be the missing ingredient for white LED lighting that illuminates homes and offices as effectively as natural sunlight. http://phys.org/news288600359.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 24 May 2013 07:46:06 EST news288600359 A systematic error has been eliminated from a measurement technique for analysing the physical properties of the Earth's atmosphere using signals from GPS satellites – thanks to an Austrian Science Fund FWF project. As part of this project, the radio occultation technique, which is based on phase shifts in GPS signals, was systematically tested for error sources. A significant error was found through a day-night comparison of measurement data recorded over a ten-year period. The findings have now been published along with a correction proposal. This will make it possible to attain greater accuracy using this method, which is set to become the future gold standard of sensing techniques used in climate research. http://phys.org/news288525184.html Physics - General Physics Thu, 23 May 2013 10:53:11 EST news288525184 A team of researchers, including a University of British Columbia engineer have made a breakthrough utilizing spray-on technology that could revolutionize the way optical lenses are made and used. http://phys.org/news288523134.html Physics - General Physics Thu, 23 May 2013 10:21:55 EST news288523134 Things not always run smoothly. It may happen, actually, that when an object slides on another, the advancement may occur through a 'stop and go' series in the characteristic manner which scientists call "stick-slip", a pervasive phenomenon at every scale, from earthquakes to daily-life objects, up to the "nano" dimension. Davide Mandelli, Andrea Vanossi and Erio Tosatti of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste have studied the conditions in which at the nanoscopic level the switch from smooth sliding to stick-slip regime occurs, simulating 'toy-like' systems of 'cold ions'. http://phys.org/news288515408.html Physics - General Physics Thu, 23 May 2013 08:10:15 EST news288515408 Exactly 50 years after the US-American meteorologist Edward Lorenz discovered chaos (remember the "butterfly effect"?) the topic is still as fascinating as ever. A new visualization technique developed at the University of Vienna helps to make chaos visible to the naked eye. The method, which is being published in Royal Society journal Interface, allows for the intuitive interpretation of chaotic or nearly chaotic phenomena, and thus makes the fascinating world of chaos theory more accessible to the scientific community. http://phys.org/news288448410.html Physics - General Physics Wed, 22 May 2013 13:33:50 EST news288448410 (Phys.org) —In order to study many complex phenomena, physicists seek to isolate them in potential wells or boxes with easily described forms and boundary conditions. These features in turn dictate various behaviors of the system under study like, for example, equilibrium states or resonances. In recent times it has emerged that constraining particles on extremely small scales can result in interesting new behaviors. Artificial atom systems, like quantum dots, can be fine-tuned in this way to specific color or conductivity according to their dimension. In some cases, even the phase of a material can be manipulated. A group of researchers has recently demonstrated the ability to precisely control the phase structure of superfluid helium-3 by manipulating the geometry of the container that holds it, and applying an appropriate magnetic field. Their new paper, recently published in Science, describes how they used an ultra-sensitive SQUID detector to readout the NMR spectra that reveals the phase information. http://phys.org/news288436371.html Physics - General Physics Wed, 22 May 2013 10:13:38 EST news288436371 (Phys.org) —If you've been lucky enough to catch all the green lights as you drive down a busy street, you may have been benefiting from intentional synchronization called a "green wave." The green wave concept has been around in the US since the 1920s, but it doesn't always work as it should. When traffic gets backed up for some reason, "green wave breakdown" occurs. In a new paper, physicist Boris Kerner at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Essen, Germany, has modeled and analyzed the causes of green wave breakdown, and the results may lead to better coordinated green waves and more efficient traffic flow. http://phys.org/news288428648.html Physics - General Physics Wed, 22 May 2013 09:00:03 EST news288428648 (Phys.org) —Two SLAC physicists with decades of particle accelerator experience helped a Silicon Valley company design and build X-ray devices that scan cargo containers for nuclear materials and other hazards. A version of this screening system is now in commercial use, and on May 16, the company received national recognition for its successful development from the federal Small Business Administration. http://phys.org/news288429861.html Physics - General Physics Wed, 22 May 2013 08:50:02 EST news288429861 (Phys.org) —Now that it looks like the hunt for the Higgs boson is over, particles of dark matter are at the top of the physics "Most Wanted" list. Dozens of experiments have been searching for them, but often come up with contradictory results. http://phys.org/news288429886.html Physics - General Physics Wed, 22 May 2013 08:25:01 EST news288429886 (Phys.org) —Lasers are an unseen backbone of modern society. They're integral to technologies ranging from high-speed Internet services to Blu-ray players. http://phys.org/news288335525.html Physics - General Physics Tue, 21 May 2013 06:13:01 EST news288335525 (Phys.org) —Using a laser, the St Andrews scientists can now carry out detailed analysis of a spirit sample no bigger than a teardrop and can even confirm whether it is toxic or not. It's hoped the testing breakthrough will help cut the worldwide toll of death and serious injury arising from consumption of fake and adulterated spirits. http://phys.org/news288260416.html Physics - General Physics Mon, 20 May 2013 09:20:31 EST news288260416 An international team of scientists using a new X-ray method recorded the internal structure and cell movement inside a living frog embryo in greater detail than ever before. http://phys.org/news288002003.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 17 May 2013 09:33:39 EST news288002003 Spinning-disk confocal microscopy is an optical imaging technique that can be used to generate detailed three-dimensional fluorescence images of living cells and their contents. Although a powerful tool for observing dynamic processes in living organisms, it has proved difficult to use for all but the thinnest biological specimens. Motivated by a need to see more deeply into living cells, Yuko Mimori-Kiyosue at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology and colleagues have now made major technical improvements to the technique that deliver greatly improved resolution and clarity. http://phys.org/news288001026.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 17 May 2013 09:17:19 EST news288001026 Most cells exist in a hydrated state and often live suspended in solution. In order to be imaged, cells must generally be frozen or dried, and then stained with substances such as heavy metals. Unfortunately, these processes can also alter the structure and chemical composition of the cells, resulting in inaccurate observations. Imaging the internal structures of whole, intact cells in their natural state has therefore been a particular challenge for scientists. http://phys.org/news287999387.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 17 May 2013 09:10:01 EST news287999387 Andong He saw a phenomenon at work in his breakfast bowl that he couldn't explain. It prompted this question: How does cereal shape influence the way cereals floating in the milk join? http://phys.org/news287997193.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 17 May 2013 08:13:22 EST news287997193 (Phys.org) —Physicists may have created the smallest drops of liquid ever made in the lab. That possibility has been raised by the results of a recent experiment conducted by Vanderbilt physicist Julia Velkovska and her colleagues at the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle collider located at the European Laboratory for Nuclear and Particle Physics (CERN) in Switzerland. Evidence of the minuscule droplets was extracted from the results of colliding protons with lead ions at velocities approaching the speed of light. http://phys.org/news287995914.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 17 May 2013 07:52:11 EST news287995914 A new window into the nature of the universe may be possible with a device proposed by scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno and Stanford University that would detect elusive gravity waves from the other end of the cosmos. Their paper describing the device and process was published in the prestigious physics journal Physical Review Letters. http://phys.org/news287940091.html Physics - General Physics Thu, 16 May 2013 16:21:37 EST news287940091 (Phys.org) —A massive telescope in the Antarctic ice reports the detection of 28 extremely high-energy neutrinos that might have their origin in cosmic sources. Two of these reached energies greater than 1 petaelectronvolt (PeV), an energy level thousands of times higher than the highest energy neutrino yet produced in a manmade accelerator. http://phys.org/news287908466.html Physics - General Physics Thu, 16 May 2013 07:34:49 EST news287908466 Physicists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have found out how tiny islands of magnetic material align themselves when sorted on a regular lattice - by measurements at BESSY II. Contrary to expectations, the north and south poles of the magnetic islands did not arrange themselves in a zigzag pattern, but in chains. http://phys.org/news287850787.html Physics - General Physics Wed, 15 May 2013 15:33:26 EST news287850787 An international team of scientists, including a University of York researcher, has carried out ground-breaking experiments to investigate the atomic structure of astatine (Z=85), the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth. http://phys.org/news287688641.html Physics - General Physics Tue, 14 May 2013 11:00:07 EST news287688641 (Phys.org) —Today, Los Alamos National Laboratory announced that for the first time, irradiated uranium fuel has been recycled and reused for molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) production, with virtually no losses in Mo-99 yields or uranium recovery. This demonstrates the viability of the separation process, as well as the potential for environmentally- and cost-friendly fuel recycling. Medical isotope production technology has advanced significantly now that scientists have made key advances in separating Mo-99 from an irradiated, low-enriched uranium (LEU) solution. http://phys.org/news287740670.html Physics - General Physics Tue, 14 May 2013 09:10:02 EST news287740670 New York University physicists have uncovered how energy is released and dispersed in magnetic materials in a process akin to the spread of forest fires, a finding that has the potential to deepen our understanding of self-sustained chemical reactions. http://phys.org/news287667453.html Physics - General Physics Mon, 13 May 2013 12:39:05 EST news287667453 Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden can now reveal the mechanism behind the curved path of a curling stone. The discovery by the researchers, who usually study friction and wear in industrial and technical applications, is now published in the scientific journal Wear. http://phys.org/news287667179.html Physics - General Physics Mon, 13 May 2013 12:33:10 EST news287667179 (Phys.org) —It is widely known that the optical properties of certain materials can be modified by using lasers to control the quantum states of their optical electrons. Lasers that can generate ultra-short pulses in the attosecond range at very high power can now be used to probe and control nanostructures like photonic crystals, metal hole arrays, and conductance in quantum dots. The light absorption spectrum of a material reveals critical details about its microstructure. Depending on different factors, this spectrum can take on a symmetric Lorentzian line shape, or an antisymmetric Fano line shape. A new paper in Science now demonstrates that this absorption profile can by changed from a Lorentzian shape, to a Fano shape, by manipulating laser intensity. Led by Christian Ott, from the Max Planck Institut in Germany, the researchers achieved this by co-propagating a broadband UV pulse train with a "few cycle" near-infrared (NIR) beam in a helium target. http://phys.org/news287662687.html Physics - General Physics Mon, 13 May 2013 11:18:38 EST news287662687 (Phys.org) —In today's wireless communication systems, the wireless signals are non-chaotic, meaning they have a well-defined period and frequency. Non-chaotic wireless signals are used in many applications, such as satellite communications, GPS navigation, cell phones, and Wi-Fi devices. However, as many people know first-hand, wireless systems usually have inferior performance compared to wired systems. The problem is due to physical impediments that the wireless signal faces in open space caused by the atmosphere, water, mountains, buildings, and other different media. Now in a new study, researchers have investigated how wireless communication could be implemented with chaotic signals, and found that chaotic signals could overcome some of these physical constraints and lead to superior performance. http://phys.org/news287642002.html Physics - General Physics Mon, 13 May 2013 09:00:02 EST news287642002 (Phys.org) —A team of researchers at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has developed a new class of metamaterials that allow for control of the spread of light in communications devices. As the team explains in their paper published in the journal Science, the new materials are able to alter the standard characteristics of light waves. http://phys.org/news287395536.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 10 May 2013 09:50:01 EST news287395536 X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) produce higher-power laser pulses over a broader range of energies compared with most other x-ray sources. Although the pulse durations currently available are enormously useful for the study of materials, even shorter pulses are needed to observe features such as electrons at subatomic scales. Takashi Tanaka from the RIKEN SPring-8 Center has now proposed a theoretical pulse-amplification scheme that allows for the production of ultrashort x-ray pulses at extremely high energies. http://phys.org/news287394015.html Physics - General Physics Fri, 10 May 2013 08:50:01 EST news287394015