UC retains control of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The California Aggie Online: Four construction and development corporations to manage lab collectively with UC
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May 31, 2007UC retains control of Lawrence Livermore National LaboratoryThe California Aggie Online: Four construction and development corporations to manage lab collectively with UC Laser fusion - the safe, clean way to produce nuclear energyGuardian Unlimited: A multinational project led by British researchers aims to use a high-power laser to reproduce the physical reaction that occurs at the heart of the sun and every other star in the universe - nuclear fusion. If the project succeeds it has the potential to solve the world energy crisis without destroying the environment. DOE Rolls Out Powerful ESnet For Scientific ResearchersInformation Week: The optical network will serve more than 50,000 DOE laboratory staffers and scientists as well as thousands of academic researchers. Through a Lens, DarklyScienceNow: For the first time, astronomers have confirmed that invisible objects float around the outskirts of our galaxy. Using a form of cosmic triangulation, they have identified what appears to be a double black hole some 16,000 light-years away. The result, presented here today at the 210th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, is an important step in unraveling the nature of dark matter. May 30, 2007New Los Alamos plutonium lab on holdSanta Fe New Mexican: The federal government has put the brakes on a proposed billion-dollar Los Alamos plutonium lab due to concerns over rising cost estimates and congressional skepticism. Earth nears tipping point on climate changeThe Christian Science Monitor: Dangerous climate change has not yet arrived, but the tipping point may not be far off. And it may be reached with a smaller temperature rise than recent studies suggest. China Embraces Nuclear FutureThe Washignton Post: Not far from the old Silk Road, Chinese government scientists have begun boring holes deep into granite in the first steps toward building what could become the world's largest tomb for nuclear waste. Physics Professor Aims to Teach Art Students the BusinessThe Washington Post: Picture it: The abandoned building at 14th and U turned into an art gallery where graduate art students can learn how to sell and market their art. This idea brought to you by Paul So, physics professor at George Mason University. May 29, 2007Team finds 28 planets in faraway solar systemSan Jose Mercury News: A University of California-led research team has discovered 28 new planets deep in the Milky Way, circling stars not unlike our own - leading them to conclude that our solar system may not be so special after all. Can Science Outwit Storms Like Katrina?The New York Times: Stand atop any levee in the New Orleans area, and one question will offer itself, unbidden, to the mind: Is this pile of dirt tall enough to stand up to the next storm?
New Research Brings Invisibility Tech Into ViewWired: Researchers claim to have developed the first mathematical model for creating invisibility simulations on a computer, but possible real-world applications -- say, a gadget that works like Harry Potter's cloak -- so far seem far-fetched. Marching Single File Toward QubitsScienceNow: The electron might have just caught up with the photon as a possible data carrier for the next generation of supercomputers. Scientists have demonstrated the ability to control a current so precisely that they can transmit electrons one at a time. More research is needed, but the achievement could someday be a key part of building a quantum computer on a chip. May 25, 2007One Electron Makes Current FlowScience: A single electron pumped in and out of a quantum dot could be useful as a calibration standard for electronics or as the basic unit of a quantum computer. Japan's New Science Adviser Wants to Shake Up Higher EducationThe Chronicle of Higher Education: Kiyoshi Kurokawa doesn't mince words. As the Japanese government's first handpicked science adviser, he wants to completely overhaul the country's higher-education system. And he believes he has the passion and -- at a sprightly 70 -- the energy to do it. GRACE satellites provide a new way to track changes in the EarthSan Diego Tribune: On a GRACE satellite map, the Earth looks like a warty ball, with red bumps highlighting some areas and deep blue holes in others. Polymeric QuasicrystalsChemical and Engineering News: Adding to a short but growing list of materials that form quasicrystals, researchers in Japan have discovered that organic polymers can assemble into the aperiodic geometries that characterize this unusual class of ordered structures. The study broadens understanding of polymeric systems and may stimulate further research in noncrystalline ordered materials. May 24, 2007Snubbed by U.S., China Finds New Space PartnersThe New York Times: For years, China has chafed at efforts by the United States to exclude it from full membership in the world’s elite space club. So lately China seems to have hit on a solution: create a new club. IAEA chief believes Iran is 3 to 8 years from nuclear weapon, "rhetoric" will not resolve stalemateInternational Herald Tribune: The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said Thursday he agrees with U.S. intelligence estimates that Iran is three to eight years from being able to make nuclear arms and urged the United States and other Security Council members to abandon "rhetoric" in their bid to get Tehran to scale down its nuclear ambitions. The loneliest science lab in the ArcticBBC: Perched on a windswept ridge amid the fjords and mountains of Ellesmere Island stands the world's northernmost atmospheric research station - a rugged outpost of frontline science with the delicate name of Pearl. Condensed-matter physics: A superfluid is bornNature: For most of its existence, a superfluid droplet leads an essentially innocuous, classical life. But intense scrutiny reveals that the birth of such droplets is a turbulent and unpredictable quantum affair. May 23, 2007Lunar plan for liquid telescope
Wired.com: Astronomer Roger Angel at the University of Arizona, is proposing an enormous 100-meter liquid-mirror telescope on the moon that could be hundreds of times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope. "At first, it sort of sounds like a crazy idea," says Paul Hickson of the University of British Columbia, one of two Canadian telescope experts who collaborated with Angel with the proposal. "But when you go through it in some detail, you realize it could actually work."
Universities prepare for CERN data deluge
HPCWire: The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland will generate 15 petabytes of data per year, seven times the complete holdings of all the US libraries put together says Thomas Hacker at Purdue University. "Once this data is distributed to the physicists at the universities, they will require massive amounts of computing power and data storage in order to analyze it," Hacker says. "When the data transfer is live, we will stream data out to physicists as we quickly as we can - real time if possible."
Physicists Predict the Death of Cosmology
Space.com: Two physicists in The Journal of Relativity and Gravitation ask can you discover the fundamental physical laws of the universe when the universe expands close to the speed of light? Future observers would only see an "endless black void," says co-author Lawrence Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, to space.com. Observers would only see a static--or non-expanding--cluster of local galaxies, nothing else. Without a cosmological frame of reference, Krauss explained, future observers will be clueless that their universe is still expanding. "It will be a sort of twisted situation, where thinking returns to what it was at the turn of the 20th century," he said. "The static universe," as the October journal article states, "will have returned with a vengeance."
Antimissile Test Comes Amid Financing Debate
New York Times: The next few days will see the second full test of the controversial US ballistic missile system which has been delayed for months because of glitches in the navigation software. A failure of the test may impact the democrat-controlled Congresses willingness to fund the project.
May 22, 2007Smithsonian Accused of Altering ExhibitThe Washington Post: The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the museum. French Nobel Prize-winner Pierre-Gilles de Gennes dies at 74Earthtimes.org : French winner of the Nobel Prize for physics Pierre- Gilles de Gennes has died at the age of 74, his family said Tuesday in Paris. The scientist and engineer passed away on Friday. He was awarded science's most distinguished prize in 1991 for his work on the behaviour of molecules and molecular chains in liquid crystals. Mars rover finds evidence of waterTimes Online: A broken wheel on one of the Nasa rovers that has been roaming Mars for three and a half years has helped scientists to find strong new evidence that the Red Planet was once wetter and possibly capable of supporting life. US and UK unite for $100m telescopeThe Register: Scientists in the UK and the US have joined forces to build a new $100m, 25 metre infrared telescope in the high Chilean desert. The latest addition to the team, the University of Colorado at Boulder, signed on late last week. May 21, 2007Scientists turn into patent lawyersUSA Today: In a span of seven years, Loretta Weathers moved from a plasma physics laboratory at MIT to a federal courtroom, trading long days of crunching data for the adrenalin rush of high-stakes litigation. Contest Helps Boost Math, Science SkillsThe Washington Post: During the school year, 58 teams of American students coupled with students from China, India and Japan tackled technological solutions to global warming. They chatted online, divided jobs based on skill, consulted with advisers, and in the final grueling weeks, wrote a professional business plan. Deadlock for UN climate meetingBBC: UN-hosted talks on climate change have ended in deadlock. The Nitty Gritty on the Physics of SandNPR: This just in: The faster an object slams into a pile of sand, the quicker it will come to a halt. Physicist Douglas Durian of the University of Pennsylvania talks about new research into the properties of sand. May 18, 2007NOAA's budget is under attackThe News & Observer : The new director of the National Hurricane Center escalated his criticism of superiors in the federal government Wednesday, charging they are squandering millions on counterproductive image-building campaigns while front-line forecasters wrestle with budget shortfalls. Bose-Einstein Condensation of Microcavity Polaritons in a TrapScience: We have created polaritons in a harmonic potential trap analogous to atoms in optical traps. The trap can be loaded by creating polaritons 50 micrometers from its center that are allowed to drift into the trap. When the density of polaritons exceeds a critical threshold, we observe a number of signatures of Bose-Einstein condensation: spectral and spatial narrowing, a peak at zero momentum in the momentum distribution, first-order coherence, and spontaneous linear polarization of the light emission. The polaritons, which are eigenstates of the light-matter system in a microcavity, remain in the strong coupling regime while going through this dynamical phase transition. Optics: Beyond diffractionNature: A material with a cunningly designed optical response overcomes a fundamental limit to image resolution. This 'hyperlens' produces magnified images of objects smaller than the wavelength of the imaging light. Black holes found due to new technologyUC Riverside: Astronomers, including UC Riverside’s Gabriela Canalizo, have used powerful adaptive optics technology at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawai‘i to reveal the precise locations and environments of a pair of supermassive black holes at the center of an ongoing collision between two galaxies 300 million light-years away. May 17, 2007Energy Standards Needed, Report SaysThe New York Times: Energy saving opportunities in American homes are immense with current technology, but new product standard mandates will be needed, according to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute. Spintronics: Silicon twistsNature: For decades, silicon has been the dominant material for conventional, charge-based electronics. A new twist makes silicon ripe to enter the domain of spintronics, where the new currency is electron spin. Small particles' big impact on climateThe Christian Science Monitor: Dust and soot from Asia create air pollution in California, but also temper global warming and may stymie hurricane formation. Scientists are taking a look. Hot "ice" may cover recently discovered planetReuters: An odd planet the size of Neptune, made mostly of hot, solid water, has been discovered orbiting a nearby star and offers evidence that other planets may be covered with oceans, European astronomers reported on Wednesday. May 16, 2007Analysis Finds Large Antarctic Area Has MeltedThe New York Times: While much of the world has warmed in a pattern that scientists have linked with near certainty to human activities, the frigid interior of Antarctica has resisted the trend. Darwin's letters debut on the webBBC: Evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin thought the voyage of the Beagle was a "magnificent scheme" allowing him to spend time "larking round the world". Johns Hopkins research team finds ring of dark matterBaltimore Examiner: Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter formed during a collision between two massive galaxy clusters. Bush Calls for Work for Higher Fuel EfficiencyThe New York Times: President Bush announced on Monday that he had directed his administration to begin the long process of establishing higher fuel efficiency standards for new cars.
A Giant Takes On Physics’ Biggest QuestionsThe New York Times: Physicists hope a giant particle accelerator will recreate conditions that last prevailed when the universe was less than a trillionth of a second old. May 15, 2007Iran has ramped up enriched uranium production says IAEAThe New York Times: Inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency have concluded that Iran appears to have solved most of its technological problems and is now beginning to enrich uranium on a far larger scale than before, according to the agency’s top officials. Mexican Sinkhole May Lead NASA to JupiterThe Washington Post: It may not show up on MapQuest, but NASA scientists are betting that the best route to Jupiter and its ice-crusted moon Europa runs through an underwater cavern in Mexico. Micro-tornadoes made in a tiny iglooMSNBC: Tiny igloos can generate "micro-tornadoes" in the lab, which could allow scientists to better understand the destructive secrets of real-life twisters-and maybe help predict them. Alexander the Not-So-GreatScienceNow: For a few months in history, world domination depended on a bridge built upon sand. To conquer the almost impenetrable island of Tyre in 332 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had his engineers construct a land bridge across a kilometer of open water. Given that his army had only basic tools and was under constant attack, the feat seems almost miraculous. But was it? After analyzing the past 10,000 years of coastal sediment deposits, a team of researchers concludes that Mother Nature--not the renowned Greek military commander--was the primary bridge builder. May 14, 2007US seeks G8 climate text changesBBC: The US is trying to block sections of a draft agreement on climate change prepared for next month's G8 summit, according to documents seen by the BBC. Anti-shredder aims to stick spy files back togetherNature: Computer program should re-assemble notes from the East German Stasi. Webb telescope to look back in timeCNN; The James Webb Space Telescope, intended to peer deep into the cosmos from beyond the moon, is progressing well in development and is on track for a planned June 2013 launch, officials said on Thursday. New Device for Calibrating Lasers for Atomic Physics ResearchAZoNano.com: A tiny device for calibrating or stabilizing precision lasers has been designed and demonstrated at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The prototype device could replace table-top-sized instruments used for laser calibration in atomic physics research, could better stabilize optical telecommunications channels, and perhaps could replace and improve on the precision of instrumentation used to measure length, chemicals or atmospheric gases. May 11, 2007Purdue Will Reinvestigate Its Professor Who Claimed Desktop FusionThe New York Times: Three months after it cleared him of research misconduct, Purdue University has begun a new inquiry into a professor who claims to have generated nuclear fusion in a desktop experiment, the university acknowledged yesterday. |