Science X Newsletter Week 41

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Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for week 41:

	UW fusion reactor concept could be cheaper than coal Fusion energy almost sounds too good to be true – zero greenhouse gas emissions, no long-lived radioactive waste, a nearly unlimited fuel supply.
	Dark matter half what we thought, say scientists A new measurement of dark matter in the Milky Way has revealed there is half as much of the mysterious substance as previously thought.
	What is the upper limit for massive stars? Yesterday I mentioned that hypernovae (super-supernovae) are the result of the explosion of a star that's about as massive as a star can be (about 150-200 solar masses). But how exactly do we know that this is an upper limit?
	Discovery of new subatomic particle sheds light on fundamental force of nature The discovery of a new particle will "transform our understanding" of the fundamental force of nature that binds the nuclei of atoms, researchers argue.
	First ultraluminous pulsar: NuSTAR discovers impossibly bright dead star Astronomers working with NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), led by Caltech's Fiona Harrison, have found a pulsating dead star beaming with the energy of about 10 million suns. The object, previously thought to be a black hole because it is so powerful, is in fact a pulsar—the incredibly dense rotating remains of a star.
	Fermilab's 500-mile neutrino experiment up and running (Phys.org) —It's the most powerful accelerator-based neutrino experiment ever built in the United States, and the longest-distance one in the world. It's called NOvA, and after nearly five years of construction, scientists are now using the two massive detectors – placed 500 miles apart – to study one of nature's most elusive subatomic particles.
	Stunning finds from ancient Greek shipwreck A Greek and international team of divers and archaeologists has retrieved stunning new finds from an ancient Greek ship that sank more than 2,000 years ago off the remote island of Antikythera. The rescued antiquities include tableware, ship components, and a giant bronze spear that would have belonged to a life-sized warrior statue.
	Unstoppable magnetoresistance Mazhar Ali, a fifth-year graduate student in the laboratory of Bob Cava, the Russell Wellman Moore Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University, has spent his academic career discovering new superconductors, materials coveted for their ability to let electrons flow without resistance. While testing his latest candidate, the semimetal tungsten ditelluride (WTe2), he noticed a peculiar result.
	Some suggest it's time to rethink which direction we point our solar panels Recently, the New York Times newspaper ran an article questioning the logic of tacking solar panels onto rooftops facing south (instead of say, north, east or west). The thinking has gone, they report, that doing so will allow for collecting the most energy over a whole day—for panels that don't move to follow the sun of course. As the sun comes up in the east, some of that light can hit a southern facing panel. Over the course of the day, as the sun rises and then falls, some degree of sunlight will continue to hit the panel, providing the most amount of electricity over the course of a day. But now, some have begun to question that logic and the way solar energy is used in conjunction with the grid.
	Two Japanese, one American win Nobel Prize in physics An invention that promises to revolutionize the way the world lights its homes and offices—and already helps create the glowing screens of mobile phones, computers and TVs— earned a Nobel Prize on Tuesday for two Japanese scientists and a Japanese-born American.
	Hypothetical new cosmological model known as Higgsogenesis Recently in the news there's been talk of a new cosmological model known as Higgsogenesis. A paper outlining this model has been recently been published Physical Review Letters. The term Higgsogenesis refers to the first appearance of Higgs particles in the early universe, just as baryogenesis refers to the appearance of baryons (protons and neutrons) in the early moments after the big bang. While baryogenesis is a fairly well understood process, Higgsogenesis is still very hypothetical.
	Hungry black hole eats faster than thought possible Astronomers have discovered a black hole that is consuming gas from a nearby star 10 times faster than previously thought possible. The black hole—known as P13—lies on the outskirts of the galaxy NGC7793 about 12 million light years from Earth and is ingesting a weight equivalent to 100 billion billion hot dogs every minute.
	Tesla unveils new electric car for bad weather Electric car giant Tesla on Thursday unveiled a new two-engine vehicle designed to perform in bad weather, featuring four-wheel drive and anti-collision technology.
	US tidal floods will be 'chronic' in 15 yrs, study claims Many US coastal communities already struggle with flooding at high tides, a problem that will become "chronic" in the coming 15 years due to global warming, scientists said Wednesday.
Fundamentals of physics confirmed: Experiments testing Einstein's time dilation and quantum electrodynamics The special theory of relativity of Albert Einstein and quantum electrodynamics, which was formulated by, among others, Richard Feynman, are two important fundaments of modern physics. In cooperation with colleagues from several international universities and institutes, the research group of Professor Wilfried Nörtershäuser (Institute for Nuclear Physics, TU Darmstadt) re-examined these theories in experiments at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research.
	Study using OpenStreetMap and mathematics reveals there are only four unique city topologies (Phys.org) —A pair of researchers, a physicist and a mathematician, has used data from OpenStreetMap and mathematical analysis to come up with the idea that there are only four main types of city topologies. In their paper published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Rémi Louf and Marc Barthelemy describe how they used publicly available data to compare the topologies of 131 cities around the world and what their study has revealed.
	Hybrid materials could smash the solar efficiency ceiling (Phys.org) —A new method for transferring energy from organic to inorganic semiconductors could boost the efficiency of widely used inorganic solar cells.
	How do neutrinos with "fuzzy" quantum mass solve the solar neutrino problem? Neutrinos are perhaps the most enigmatic particles in the universe. They were first discovered in the 1950s as a product of radioactive decay, but they are also produced in nuclear fusion reactions. As a result, copious amounts of neutrinos are produced in the Sun through the pp-chain and CNO nuclear fusion processes in the core of our star. This makes the Sun a perfect candidate for doing neutrino astronomy. But when we first starting observing solar neutrinos in the 1960s, revealed mystery known as the solar neutrino problem. The solution to this problem wasn't proven until the late 1990s, and it demonstrated that neutrinos are far more strange than we had imagined.
	IBM Research, Airlight Energy work on affordable solar tech A system that can concentrate the sun's radiation by 2,000 times and convert 80 percent of it into useful energy has been developed by IBM Research in a team effort with Airlight Energy of Switzerland.
	Scientists discover a 'good' fat that fights diabetes Scientists at the Salk Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston have discovered a new class of molecules—produced in human and mouse fat—that protects against diabetes.

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