NASA sees 'watershed' cosmic blast in unique detail

(Phys.org) —On April 27, a blast of light from a dying star in a distant galaxy became the focus of astronomers around the world. The explosion, known as a gamma-ray burst and designated GRB 130427A, tops the charts as ...

Seeing a photon without absorbing it

Light is of fundamental importance. It allows us to see the world around us and record pictures of our environment. It enables communication over long distances through optical fibers. All current methods of detecting light ...

Plant cell architecture: Growth toward a light source

Inside every plant cell, a cytoskeleton provides an interior scaffolding to direct construction of the cell's walls, and thus the growth of the organism as a whole. Environmental and hormonal signals that modulate cell growth ...

Why plants usually live longer then animals

Stem cells are crucial for the continuous generation of new cells. Although the importance of stem cells in fuelling plant growth and development still many questions on their tight molecular control remain unanswered. Plant ...

Why lithium-ion-batteries fail

Materials in lithium ion battery electrodes expand and contract during charge and discharge. These volume changes drive particle fracture, which shortens battery lifetime. A group of ETH scientists together with colleagues ...

New model of Earth's interior reveals clues to hotspot volcanoes

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have detected previously unknown channels of slow-moving seismic waves in Earth's upper mantle, a discovery that helps explain "hotspot volcanoes" that give birth to island ...

Novel topological crystalline insulator shows mass appeal

Disrupting the symmetrical structure of a solid-state topological crystalline insulator creates mass in previously mass-less electrons and imparts an unexpected level of control in this nascent class of materials, an international ...

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