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. It's easy to get in a jam. But it's much harder to explain exactly how or when it started. http://phys.org/news243081802.html Physics Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:00:09 EST news243081802 In their search for smaller, faster information-storage devices, physicists have been exploring ways to encode magnetic data using electric fields. One advantage of this voltage-induced magnet control is that less power is needed to encode information than in a traditional system. http://phys.org/news233837649.html Physics Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:54:29 EST news233837649 As politicians know, repetition is often key to getting your message across. Now a former physicist studying linguistics at the Polish Academy of Sciences has taken this intuitive concept and incorporated it into a mathematical model of human communication. http://phys.org/news233837580.html Other Sciences Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:53:12 EST news233837580 A new type of laser scanning confocal microscope (LSCM) holds the promise of diagnosing skin cancer in a single snapshot. http://phys.org/news233836611.html Physics Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:37:13 EST news233836611 (PhysOrg.com) -- Sometimes the simplest of things become complicated and complex when looked at more closely. Gravity is but one example. Another is the mechanics involved in creating a crumpled ball from a single sheet of paper. Why does it end up shaped the way it does, despite the fact that it is created in such a random fashion? And why does it become stronger? Two physicists from the University of Massachusetts , Amherst, Narayan Menon and Anne Dominique Cambou have been looking at such questions and have published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://phys.org/news233314054.html Physics Tue, 23 Aug 2011 10:27:53 EST news233314054 A team of University of Pennsylvania physicists has shown how to disrupt the "coffee ring effect" — the ring-shaped stain of particles leftover after coffee drops evaporate — by changing the particle shape. The discovery provides new tools for engineers to deposit uniform coatings. http://phys.org/news232804972.html Physics Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:03:31 EST news232804972 (PhysOrg.com) -- It's been seven months since Italian physicists Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi publicly demonstrated a device that they claimed could generate large amounts of excess heat through some kind of low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR). (Previous descriptions of the process as “cold fusion” are incorrect; although the process is not completely understood, it is likely a weak interaction involving neutrons, without fusion.) The physicists call this device the Energy Catalyzer, or E-Cat. Due to the major potential impact such a device could have for energy production, the scientists have received visits and inquiries from all over the world, but so far the claims seem to be lacking credibility. http://phys.org/news232284721.html Physics Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:32:33 EST news232284721 Although physicists from two experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider and from Fermilab’s Tevatron collider recently reported at the Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics that they didn't find the Higgs boson, they're continuing to home in on the elusive particle, prompting Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the Director General of CERN, to go on record that he believes a neutral Higgs boson will be found by the LHC by the end of 2012. http://phys.org/news232281371.html Physics Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:36:28 EST news232281371 (PhysOrg.com) -- Alexey Snezhko and Igor Aronson, physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, have coaxed "micro-robots" to do their bidding. http://phys.org/news232102804.html Physics Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:10:03 EST news232102804 Physicists at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the universities of Kiel and Hamburg are the first to discover a regular lattice of stable magnetic skyrmions – radial spiral structures made up of atomic-scale spins – on a surface instead of in bulk materials. Such tiny formations could one day form the basis of a new generation of smaller and more efficient data storage units in the field of information technology. http://phys.org/news231309480.html Physics Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:00:01 EST news231309480 Although high-temperature superconductors are widely used in technologies such as MRI machines, explaining the unusual properties of these materials remains an unsolved problem for theoretical physicists. Major progress in this important field has now been reported by physicists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in a pair of papers published back-to-back in the July 29 issue of Physical Review Letters. http://phys.org/news231163120.html Physics Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:02:46 EST news231163120 International collaboration including MPQ scientists sets a new value for the antiproton mass relative to the electron with unprecedented precision. http://phys.org/news231048093.html Physics Thu, 28 Jul 2011 05:01:59 EST news231048093 Birmingham particle physicists are today trawling through the data from particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider that could indicate the existence of the Higgs boson.  http://phys.org/news230890115.html Physics Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:08:53 EST news230890115 (PhysOrg.com) -- As early communications systems using quantum cryptography become commercially available, physicists have been investigating new types of security attacks in an effort to defend against them. In a recent study, researchers have identified and demonstrated a new, highly effective way to eavesdrop on a quantum key distribution (QKD) system that involves blinding the receiver’s detector during the "dead time" of single-photon detectors. For the first time, the eavesdropper does not even have to intercept the quantum channel to compromise the system’s security, making this attack technologically very simple. http://phys.org/news230803423.html Physics Mon, 25 Jul 2011 09:04:16 EST news230803423 A sort of Holy Grail for physicists and information scientists is the quantum computer. Such a computer, operating on the highly complex principles of quantum mechanics, would be capable of performing specific calculations with capabilities far beyond even the most advanced modern supercomputers. It could be used for breaking computer security codes as well as for incredibly detailed, data-heavy simulations of quantum systems. http://phys.org/news229958542.html Physics Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:23:08 EST news229958542 A better knowledge about the composition of sub-atomic particles such as protons and neutrons has sparked conjecture about, as yet, unseen particles. A tool based on theoretical calculations that could aid the search for these particles has been developed by a team of researchers in Japan called the HAL QCD Collaboration. http://phys.org/news229946566.html Physics Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:50:03 EST news229946566 (PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists at the University of California, Riverside report that they have discovered a new way to create positronium, an exotic and short-lived atom that could help answer what happened to antimatter in the universe, why nature favored matter over antimatter at the universe's creation. http://phys.org/news229623470.html Physics Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:18:05 EST news229623470 (PhysOrg.com) -- In a new study published in Science, researchers, led by physicist Neil Johnson from the University of Miami, show that attacks by groups such as the Taliban or Hezbollah may seem sporadic, they eventually begin to follow a mathematical pattern. http://phys.org/news228742466.html Other Sciences Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:34:57 EST news228742466 Every Friday afternoon for several years in the 1970s, a group of underemployed quantum physicists met at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, in Northern California, to talk about a subject so peculiar it was rarely discussed in mainstream science: entanglement. Did subatomic particles influence each other from a distance? What were the implications? http://phys.org/news228379180.html Physics Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:40:06 EST news228379180 (PhysOrg.com) -- The simplest, most sensible "Big Bang" universe, theoretical physicists believe, would be one in which equal numbers of particles and antiparticles are formed in pairs. As the universe cools, most of these particles would encounter their antiparticles, and they would annihilate. http://phys.org/news228122651.html Physics Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:24:36 EST news228122651 (PhysOrg.com) -- Acclaimed for a breakthrough algorithm, physicist Steven White is now first to model a new state of matter. http://phys.org/news227858182.html Physics Tue, 21 Jun 2011 07:50:01 EST news227858182 (PhysOrg.com) -- In quantum cryptography, scientists use quantum mechanical effects to encrypt and then communicate confidential information. Although quantum cryptography codes are unbreakable in principle, even the best techniques have loopholes in practice that scientists are trying to address. In a recent study, physicists have exposed one of these loopholes by hacking a quantum code, which involved copying a secret quantum key without being detected. http://phys.org/news227808368.html Physics Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:06:19 EST news227808368 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) -- Where did all the matter in the universe come from? This is one of the biggest mysteries in fundamental physics and exciting results released on 15 June 2011 from the international T2K neutrino experiment in Japan could be an important step towards resolving this puzzle. http://phys.org/news227347108.html Physics Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:58:53 EST news227347108 Will the future bring us the teleportation devices of "Star Trek" or the sinister machines of the "Matrix"? Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku of the City College of New York says that many of the things that were once the domain of science fiction - cars that navigate rush-hour traffic on their own, wallpaper that can switch colors when you remodel, an elevator that takes you into outer space - are already here, or well on their way. His book "Physics of the Future," published in March, looks at how the advancement of our understanding of the laws of physics will transform computers, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, space travel and the very ways in which we experience the world. http://phys.org/news227292928.html Other Sciences Tue, 14 Jun 2011 19:30:01 EST news227292928 From drawings to computer animation, the magic of cartoon movies allows audiences to explore a fantastical and imaginary world. To make animated characters life-like on the big-screen, the laws of physics have to be taken into account by film makers. To be believable, every character's movements have to have the fundamentals of physics supporting them. If film makers incorporate scientific principles in the creation of the animated movie, audiences can escape reality and enter a fantasy world. http://phys.org/news227264238.html Physics Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:57:47 EST news227264238 Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU, Germany) have built what is currently the strongest source of ultracold neutrons. Ultracold neutrons (UCNs) were first generated here five years ago. They are much slower than thermal neutrons and are characterized by the fact that they can be stored in special containers. This property makes them important tools for experiments to investigate why matter dominates over antimatter in our universe and how the lightest elements were created directly after the Big Bang. "We have commissioned a new UCN source and improved the overall procedure so that we can now generate and store considerably more ultracold neutrons than before and more than anybody else," says Professor Werner Heil of the Institute of Physics at Mainz University. Having so far managed to achieve a density of ten UCN per cubic centimeter, the Mainz research team of chemists and physicists has become one of the global leaders in this research field. http://phys.org/news226838206.html Physics Thu, 09 Jun 2011 11:40:15 EST news226838206 (PhysOrg.com) -- A group of physicists working out of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, have succeeded in proving what was until now, just theory; and that is, that visible photons could be produced from the virtual particles that have been thought to exist in a quantum vacuum. In a paper published on arXiv, the team describes how they used a specially created circuit called a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) to modulate a bit of wire length at a roughly five percent of the speed of light, to produce visible "sparks" from the nothingness of a vacuum. http://phys.org/news226574542.html Physics Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:23:04 EST news226574542 From a laptop warming a knee to a supercomputer heating a room, the idea that computers generate heat is familiar to everyone. But theoretical physicists have discovered something astonishing: not only do computational processes sometimes generate no heat, under certain conditions they can even have a cooling effect. Behind this finding are fundamental considerations relating to knowledge and a lack of knowledge. The researchers publish their findings today in the journal Nature. http://phys.org/news226149956.html Physics Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:00:06 EST news226149956 The world's biggest particle collider set a new record early Monday, a feat that should accelerate the quest to pinpoint the elusive particle known as the Higgs Boson, a senior physicist said. http://phys.org/news225386176.html Physics Mon, 23 May 2011 16:16:36 EST news225386176