Dear Reader ,
Here is your customized PHYSorg.com Newsletter for week 10:
LED's efficiency exceeds 100%
(PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that an LED can emit more optical power than the electrical power it consumes. Although scientifically intriguing, the results won’t immediately result in ultra-efficient commercial LEDs since the demonstration works only for LEDs with very low input power that produce very small amounts of light.
Why we've got the cosmological constant all wrong
(PhysOrg.com) -- Some scientists call the cosmological constant the "worst prediction of physics." And when today’s theories give an estimated value that is about 120 orders of magnitude larger than the measured value, it’s hard to argue with that title. In a new study, a team of physicists has taken a different view of the cosmological constant, Λ, which drives the accelerated expansion of the universe. While the cosmological constant is usually interpreted as a vacuum energy, here the physicists provide evidence to support the possibility that the mysterious force instead emerges from a microscopic quantum theory of gravity, which is currently beyond physicists’ reach.
'Anti-atomic fingerprint': Physicists manipulate anti-hydrogen atoms for the first time (Update)
The ALPHA collaboration at CERN in Geneva has scored another coup on the antimatter front by performing the first-ever spectroscopic measurements of the internal state of the antihydrogen atom. Their results are reported in a forthcoming issue of Nature and are now online.
Oldest organism with skeleton discovered in Australia
A team of paleontologists has discovered the oldest animal with a skeleton. Called Coronacollina acula, the organism is between 560 million and 550 million years old, which places it in the Ediacaran period, before the explosion of life and diversification of organisms took place on Earth in the Cambrian.
Spider silk conducts heat as well as metals, study finds
Xinwei Wang had a hunch that spider webs were worth a much closer look.
Proposed nuclear clock may keep time with the Universe
(PhysOrg.com) -- A proposed new time-keeping system tied to the orbiting of a neutron around an atomic nucleus could have such unprecedented accuracy that it neither gains nor loses 1/20th of a second in 14 billion years - the age of the Universe.
Study supports theory of extraterrestrial impact
A 16-member international team of researchers that includes James Kennett, professor of earth science at UC Santa Barbara, has identified a nearly 13,000-year-old layer of thin, dark sediment buried in the floor of Lake Cuitzeo in central Mexico. The sediment layer contains an exotic assemblage of materials, including nanodiamonds, impact spherules, and more, which, according to the researchers, are the result of a cosmic body impacting Earth.
First-ever images of atoms moving in a molecule captured
Using a new ultrafast camera, researchers have recorded the first real-time image of two atoms vibrating in a molecule.
Human origins traced to worm fossil in Canada
(PhysOrg.com) -- Most primitive known vertebrate and therefore the ancestor of all descendant vertebrates, including humans, discovered.
Apollo 11: 'A stark beauty all its own'
(PhysOrg.com) -- This image of the Apollo 11 landing site captured from just 24 km (15 miles) above the surface provides LRO's best look yet at humanity’s first venture to another world. When Neil Armstrong took his famous first steps onto the lunar surface, he kicked around the soil. “Yes, the surface is fine and powdery.” Gazing at the flat horizon, he took in the view. “Isn’t that something! Magnificent sight out here.” After collecting a contingency sample Neil looked around and observed, "it has a stark beauty all its own. It's like much of the high desert of the United States. It's different, but it's very pretty out here." A few minutes later Buzz Aldrin descended the ladder and joined Neil on the surface of the Moon!
First results from Daya Bay find new kind of neutrino transformation
The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment, a multinational collaboration operating in the south of China, today reported the first results of its search for the last, most elusive piece of a long-standing puzzle: how is it that neutrinos can appear to vanish as they travel? The surprising answer opens a gateway to a new understanding of fundamental physics and may eventually solve the riddle of why there is far more ordinary matter than antimatter in the universe today.
Gravitational lens reveals details of distant, ancient galaxy
Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, University of Chicago scientists working with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have obtained a uniquely close-up look at the brightest gravitationally magnified galaxy yet discovered.
US National Academies panel recommends expanding alternative nuclear fusion experiments
(PhysOrg.com) -- The National Academies in the United States, made up of the four organizations: the National Academies of Science and Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, has issued an interim report in the National Academies Press, advocating that additional research be put into studying alternative technologies for imploding fuel used in fusion reactions.
'Holey Optochip' first to transfer one trillion bits of information per second using the power of light
(PhysOrg.com) -- IBM scientists today will report on a prototype optical chipset, dubbed “Holey Optochip”, that is the first parallel optical transceiver to transfer one trillion bits – one terabit – of information per second, the equivalent of downloading 500 high definition movies. The report will be presented at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference taking place in Los Angeles.
New type of extra-chromosomal DNA discovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists from the University of Virginia and University of North Carolina in the US have discovered a previously unidentified type of small circular DNA molecule occurring outside the chromosomes in mouse and human cells. The circular DNA is 200-400 base pairs in length and consists of non-repeating sequences. The new type of extra-chromosomal circular DNA (eccDNA) has been dubbed microDNA. Unlike other forms of eccDNA, in microDNA the sequences of base pairs are non-repetitive and are usually found associated with particular genes. This suggests they may be produced by micro-deletions of small sections of the chromosomal DNA.
Nanotrees harvest the sun's energy to turn water into hydrogen fuel
(PhysOrg.com) -- University of California, San Diego electrical engineers are building a forest of tiny nanowire trees in order to cleanly capture solar energy without using fossil fuels and harvest it for hydrogen fuel generation. Reporting in the journal Nanoscale, the team said nanowires, which are made from abundant natural materials like silicon and zinc oxide, also offer a cheap way to deliver hydrogen fuel on a mass scale.
New design for a metamaterial could be far more efficient at capturing sunlight than existing solar cells
Metamaterials are a new class of artificial substances with properties unlike anything found in the natural world. Some have been designed to act as invisibility cloaks; others as superlenses, antenna systems or highly sensitive detectors. Now, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found a way to use metamaterials to absorb a wide range of light with extremely high efficiency, which they say could lead to a new generation of solar cells or optical sensors.
Researchers revolutionize electron microscope
Researchers at the University of Sheffield have revolutionised the electron microscope by developing a new method which could create the highest resolution images ever seen.
Researchers prove Landauer was right in saying heat is dissipated when memory is erased
(PhysOrg.com) -- For over half a century, physicists and computer scientists have been troubled by a theoretical concept set forth by Rolf Landauer. He suggested that the very act of erasing a bit of memory in a digital system causes heat to be dissipated. This little idea has bothered researchers for two reasons. One is because if true, it will mean there will come a time within the next couple of decades when fabricated memories will reach a point where they cannot be made any smaller due to the heat that will be dissipated when memory is erased. The other reason is because until now, no one has been able to prove whether it was really true or not; now all that has changed, much to the dismay of computer engineers. Eric Lutz and his colleagues at the University of Augsburg in Germany have devised an experiment that proves that Landauer was right. They have published their findings in the journal Nature.
NASA's RXTE captures thermonuclear behavior of unique neutron star
(PhysOrg.com) -- A neutron star is the closest thing to a black hole that astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times more mass than Earth into a sphere no larger than a city. In October 2010, a neutron star near the center of our galaxy erupted with hundreds of X-ray bursts that were powered by a barrage of thermonuclear explosions on the star's surface. NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) captured the month-long fusillade in extreme detail. Using this data, an international team of astronomers has been able to bridge a long-standing gap between theory and observation.
This email is a free service of PhysOrg.com
You received this email because you subscribed to our list.
If you no longer want to receive this email use the link below to unsubscribe.
http://www.physorg.com/profile/nwletter/
You are subscribed as jmabs1@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment