http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. For several years, physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), USA, have studied an unusual state of matter called the quark–gluon plasma, which they believe mimics the hot, dense particle soup that existed immediately after the big bang. Now, the PHENIX collaboration at RHIC reports findings about a particle called the J/ψ meson that will help physicists distinguish the properties of the quark–gluon plasma (QGP) from those of normal matter.  http://phys.org/news248087364.html Physics Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:20:01 EST news248087364 (PhysOrg.com) -- Looking like a hoard of gems fit for an emperor's collection, this deep sky object called NGC 6752 is in fact far more worthy of admiration. It is a globular cluster, and at over 10 billion years old is one the most ancient collections of stars known. It has been blazing for well over twice as long as our solar system has existed. http://phys.org/news248000188.html Space & Earth Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:10:04 EST news248000188 Datasets are the currency of physics. As data accumulate, measurement uncertainty ranges shrink, increasing the potential for discoveries and making non-observations more stringent, with more far-reaching consequences. In collider experiments, the amount of data is measured by the total number of collisions observed and the rate of those collisions, called the luminosity. In 2011, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produced more collisions than scientists dared to expect, breaking the world record luminosity in April and then continuing to grow seven-fold. By the end of the proton collision run in November, 240 million protons were colliding each second. http://phys.org/news245923956.html Physics Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:44:48 EST news245923956 (PhysOrg.com) -- Black holes are irresistible sinks for matter and energy. They are so dense that not even light can escape from their gravitational clutches. Massive black holes (equal to millions or even billions of solar masses) develop during collisions between galaxies. More ordinary, stellar-mass-sized black holes form as remnants of the explosive deaths of stars, and are thought to contain not more than about twenty solar masses of material. http://phys.org/news245923158.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:59:29 EST news245923158 (PhysOrg.com) -- Two unexpected new hadrons containing bottom quarks have been discovered by the Belle Experiment using the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)'s B Factory (KEKB), a highly-luminous, electron-positron collider. These new particles have electric charge and are thought to be "exotic" hadrons -- non-standard hadrons, containing at least four quarks. Previously, a series of new and unexpected exotic hadrons containing charm and anti-charm quarks have been observed. This latest discovery from Belle demonstrates the existence of exotic hadrons containing at least four quarks in a particle system including bottom quarks . http://phys.org/news245402378.html Physics Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:20:22 EST news245402378 The probability of being killed at work is 25 times higher for a coastal fisherman than for an offshore worker, according to a study from the UiS. Seafarers also run a high risk of accidents. http://phys.org/news245065635.html Other Sciences Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:47:25 EST news245065635 When NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around giant asteroid Vesta in July, scientists fully expected the probe to reveal some surprising sights. But no one expected a 13-mile high mountain, two and a half times higher than Mount Everest, to be one of them. http://phys.org/news244711847.html Space & Earth Mon, 02 Jan 2012 07:33:51 EST news244711847 When flamingos, storks, pelicans and other migratory birds undertake their long seasonal flights, they risk their lives winging their way through the endless power grids that cover the world. http://phys.org/news241536478.html Biology Sat, 26 Nov 2011 13:36:13 EST news241536478 (PhysOrg.com) -- Interview with Prof. Dr. Siegfried Bethke, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Physics in Munich, about the current research results from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). http://phys.org/news241344782.html Physics Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:30:01 EST news241344782 Brown University physicists have set the strongest limit for the mass of dark matter, the mysterious particles believed to make up nearly a quarter of the universe. The researchers report in Physical Review Letters that dark matter must have a mass greater than 40 giga-electron volts. The distinction is important because it casts doubt on recent results from underground experiments that have reported detecting dark matter. http://phys.org/news241276015.html Physics Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:07:06 EST news241276015 Why the temperatures in the solar wind are almost the same in certain directions, and why different energy densities are practically identical, was until now not clear. http://phys.org/news240575574.html Physics Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:33:21 EST news240575574 It was an unprecedented event: On October 6, 2008, asteroid 2008 TC3 was spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey Telescope in Arizona. Plotting its trajectory, astronomers knew the 80-ton rock was heading for a collision course with Earth. Just 19 hours later, 2008 TC3 streaked over skies of northern Sudan and then exploded about 37 km above the Nubian Desert. This was the first time an asteroid was predicted – and predicted correctly — to impact Earth. Luckily, it wasn’t big enough to cause any problems, and its path brought it over a remote area. But this presented scientists with an exciting and unparalleled opportunity to possibly study fragments of an asteroid that had been spectrally classified before striking Earth. http://phys.org/news239357167.html Space & Earth Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:06:30 EST news239357167 (PhysOrg.com) -- Fat doughnut-shaped dust shrouds that obscure about half of supermassive black holes could be the result of high speed crashes between planets and asteroids, according to a new theory from an international team of astronomers. The scientists, led by Dr. Sergei Nayakshin of the University of Leicester, publish their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. http://phys.org/news239015245.html Space & Earth Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:08:15 EST news239015245 (PhysOrg.com) -- The beauty and majesty of birds in flight has long captured the attention of artists and photographers. http://phys.org/news239012170.html Biology Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:16:26 EST news239012170 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new analysis of images from the Hubble Space Telescope combined with supercomputer simulations of galaxy collisions has cleared up years of confusion about the rate at which smaller galaxies merge to form bigger ones. This paper, led by Jennifer Lotz of Space Telescope Science Institute, is about to be published in the Astrophysical Journal. http://phys.org/news238927914.html Space & Earth Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:52:18 EST news238927914 Collisions between wild deer and vehicles not only hinder conservation efforts but pose a serious danger to drivers. In new research, published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, Canadian scientists examined locations and time periods of high rates of deer vehicle collision to assess the effectiveness of warning signs to prevent fatalities. http://phys.org/news237631564.html Biology Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:46:16 EST news237631564 (PhysOrg.com) -- Analysis of fragments of the Almahata Sitta meteorite, which landed in Sudan in 2008, has shown that the parent asteroid was probably formed through collisions of three different types of asteroids.  The meteorites are of particular interest because they contain material both primitive and evolved types of asteroids. The results will be presented at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011 in Nantes, France, by Dr. Julie Gayon-Markt on Friday 7th October. http://phys.org/news237199727.html Space & Earth Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:48:58 EST news237199727 (PhysOrg.com) -- Collisions of neutron stars produce the heaviest elements such as gold or lead. The cosmic site where the heaviest chemical elements such as lead or gold are formed has most likely been identified: Ejected matter from neutron stars merging in a violent collision provides ideal conditions. In detailed numerical simulations, scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and affiliated to the Excellence Cluster Universe and of the Free University of Brussels have verified that the relevant reactions of atomic nuclei do take place in this environment, producing the heaviest elements in the correct abundances. http://phys.org/news234778217.html Space & Earth Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:11:03 EST news234778217 The elusive Higgs Boson, known as the "God particle", is -- if it exists -- running out of places to hide, the head of the mammoth experiment designed to find it said on Thursday. http://phys.org/news233481121.html Physics Thu, 25 Aug 2011 08:52:22 EST news233481121 (PhysOrg.com) -- ESO's Very Large Telescope has taken a striking image of a beautiful yet peculiar pair of galaxies nicknamed The Eyes. The larger of these, NGC 4438, was once a spiral galaxy but has become badly deformed by collisions with other galaxies in the last few hundred million years. This picture is the first to come out of ESO's Cosmic Gems programme, an initiative in which ESO has granted dedicated observing time for outreach purposes. http://phys.org/news233394193.html Space & Earth Wed, 24 Aug 2011 08:46:33 EST news233394193 Denmark on Monday presented its "Arctic Strategy" for the next decade, confirming that it intends to lay claim to the North Pole sea bed by 2014 at the latest. http://phys.org/news233248601.html Space & Earth Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:17:25 EST news233248601 The save-the-Earth rehearsal mission Don Quijote, commissioned by the European Space Agency, is planned to test the potential of a real life-or-death mission to deflect a mass-extinction-inducing asteroid from a collision course with Earth. http://phys.org/news232626571.html Space & Earth Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:29:57 EST news232626571 (PhysOrg.com) -- Over the past several years, many scientists and armchair enthusiasts alike have offered up a possible solution to the ever growing cloud of space junk circling the Earth; the result of leftover missions, collisions and inadvertent accidents. http://phys.org/news232362006.html Space & Earth Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:00:47 EST news232362006 Driver assistance technologies, such as adaptive cruise control and automatic braking, promise to someday ease traffic on crowded routes and prevent accidents. Proving that these automated systems will work as intended is a daunting task, but computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have now demonstrated it is possible to verify the safety of these highly complex systems. http://phys.org/news227867131.html Technology Tue, 21 Jun 2011 09:25:54 EST news227867131 In this image from November 2010, the U.S. Air Force's ACAT F-16D flew through Sierra Nevada canyons and past peaks during ground collision avoidance test flights. http://phys.org/news227770669.html Space & Earth Mon, 20 Jun 2011 06:39:01 EST news227770669 Today at around 10:50 CEST, the amount of data accumulated by Large Hadron Collider experiments ATLAS and CMS clicked over from 0.999 to 1 inverse femtobarn, signalling an important milestone in the experiments' quest for new physics. The number signifies a quantity physicists call integrated luminosity, which is a measure of the total number of collisions produced. One inverse femtobarn equates to around 70 million million (70 x 1012) collisions, and in 2010 it was the target set for the 2011 run. That it has been achieved just three months after the first beams of 2011 is testimony to how well the LHC is running. http://phys.org/news227715679.html Physics Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:21:36 EST news227715679 (PhysOrg.com) -- Late last year, astronomers noticed an asteroid named Scheila had unexpectedly brightened, and it was sporting short-lived plumes. Data from NASA's Swift satellite and Hubble Space Telescope showed these changes likely occurred after Scheila was struck by a much smaller asteroid. http://phys.org/news223229733.html Space & Earth Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:16:41 EST news223229733 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have developed a new model for the behavior of pedestrians and crowds. It can help to understand and prevent tragic crowd disasters, to develop better architectural designs and new navigation approaches in robotics. http://phys.org/news222420650.html Technology Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:32:13 EST news222420650 Just as the site for the 2013 America's Cup has been announced, a study from Rhode Island Hospital highlights that the sport isn't always smooth sailing. The study was published recently in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. http://phys.org/news213374893.html Medicine & Health Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:48:27 EST news213374893 (PhysOrg.com) -- European Southern Observatory astronomers have produced a spectacular new image of the famous Atoms-for-Peace galaxy (NGC 7252). This galactic pile-up, formed by the collision of two galaxies, provides an excellent opportunity for astronomers to study how mergers affect the evolution of the Universe. http://phys.org/news208603767.html Space & Earth Wed, 10 Nov 2010 09:29:51 EST news208603767