Science X Newsletter Week 44

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Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for week 44:

	Many Interacting Worlds theory: Scientists propose existence and interaction of parallel worlds Griffith University academics are challenging the foundations of quantum science with a radical new theory based on the existence of, and interactions between, parallel universes.
	New solar power material converts 90 percent of captured light into heat A multidisciplinary engineering team at the University of California, San Diego developed a new nanoparticle-based material for concentrating solar power plants designed to absorb and convert to heat more than 90 percent of the sunlight it captures. The new material can also withstand temperatures greater than 700 degrees Celsius and survive many years outdoors in spite of exposure to air and humidity. Their work, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's SunShot program, was published recently in two separate articles in the journal Nano Energy.
	Can the wave function of an electron be divided and trapped? New research by physicists from Brown University puts the profound strangeness of quantum mechanics in a nutshell—or, more accurately, in a helium bubble.
	China's lunar test spacecraft takes incredible picture of Earth and Moon together The Chinese lunar test mission Chang'e 5T1 has sent back some amazing and unique views of the Moon's far side, with the Earth joining in for a cameo in the image above. According to the crew at UnmannedSpaceflight.com the images were taken with the spacecraft's solar array monitoring camera.
	Universe older than it looks When astronomers (Bond 2013) first dated the star HD 140283, which lies a mere 190 lightyears from Earth in the constellation of Libra, they were puzzled. This rare, star appeared to be rather ancient and was quickly nicknamed the Methuselah star. It is a metal-poor sub-giant with an apparent magnitude of 7.223. The star had been known for a century or so as a high-velocity star, but its presence in our solar neighborhood and its composition were at odds with theory. Moreover, HD140283 wasn't just an oddity from at the dawn of the Universe, formed short time after the Big Bang. Rather, it seems to be some 14.46 billion years old… which makes it older than the Universe itself, currently estimated to be 13.817 billion years old (estimated from the cosmic microwave background radiation).
	255 Terabits/s: Researchers demonstrate record data transmission over new type of fiber Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands and the University of Central Florida (CREOL), report in the journal Nature Photonics the successful transmission of a record high 255 Terabits/s over a new type of fiber allowing 21 times more bandwidth than currently available in communication networks. This new type of fiber could be an answer to mitigating the impending optical transmission capacity crunch caused by the increasing bandwidth demand.
	Cassini sees sunny seas on Titan (Phys.org) —As it soared past Saturn's large moon Titan recently, NASA's Cassini spacecraft caught a glimpse of bright sunlight reflecting off hydrocarbon seas.
	China completes first mission to moon and back China completed its first return mission to the moon early Saturday with the successful re-entry and landing of an unmanned probe, state media reported, in the latest step forward for Beijing's ambitious space programme.
	Scientists make enzyme that could help explain origins of life Mimicking natural evolution in a test tube, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised an enzyme with a unique property that might have been crucial to the origin of life on Earth.
	Ultracold disappearing act: 'Matter waves' move through one another but never share space A disappearing act was the last thing Rice University physicist Randy Hulet expected to see in his ultracold atomic experiments, but that is what he and his students produced by colliding pairs of Bose Einstein condensates (BECs) that were prepared in special states called solitons.
	Oxygen levels were only 0.1 percent of today's levels for roughly billion years before rise of animals (Phys.org) —Geologists are letting the air out of a nagging mystery about the development of animal life on Earth.
	AeroMobil 3.0 transforms from car to flying car A flying car is revealed: AeroMobil 3.0 was introduced this week at the Pioneers Festival in Vienna. The current prototype AeroMobil 3.0 incorporates improvements and upgrades to the previous AeroMobil 2.5.
	Lord of the microrings: Team reports breakthrough in microring laser cavities A significant breakthrough in laser technology has been reported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley. Scientists led by Xiang Zhang, a physicist with joint appointments at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, have developed a unique microring laser cavity that can produce single-mode lasing even from a conventional multi-mode laser cavity. This ability to provide single-mode lasing on demand holds ramifications for a wide range of applications including optical metrology and interferometry, optical data storage, high-resolution spectroscopy and optical communications.
	Universe may face a darker future New research offers a novel insight into the nature of dark matter and dark energy and what the future of our Universe might be.
	Massive geographic change may have triggered explosion of animal life A new analysis of geologic history may help solve the riddle of the "Cambrian explosion," the rapid diversification of animal life in the fossil record 530 million years ago that has puzzled scientists since the time of Charles Darwin.
	Swiss firm says it can make near invisible solar modules A Swiss research and development company said Tuesday it had discovered a way to make white solar modules, which can blend with a building's "skin" to become virtually invisible.
	Liberal or conservative? Reactions to disgust are a dead giveaway Maggot infestations, rotting carcasses, unidentifiable gunk in the kitchen sink – how much your brain responds to disgusting images could predict whether you are liberal or conservative.
	Reducing population is no environmental 'quick fix', modelling research shows New multi-scenario modelling of world human population has concluded that even stringent fertility restrictions or a catastrophic mass mortality would not bring about large enough change this century to solve issues of global sustainability.
	DARPA circuit achieves speeds of 1 trillion cycles per second, earns Guinness world record Officials from Guinness World Records today recognized DARPA's Terahertz Electronics program for creating the fastest solid-state amplifier integrated circuit ever measured. The ten-stage common-source amplifier operates at a speed of one terahertz (1012 GHz), or one trillion cycles per second—150 billion cycles faster than the existing world record of 850 gigahertz set in 2012.
	Five science 'facts' we learnt at school that are plain wrong Let's start with a quiz…

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