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Director quits Canadian theory institute
Bosses at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, are looking for a new leader following the sudden departure of executive director Howard Burton. The 42-year-old theoretical physicist, who has led the institute since it was founded in 1999, is leaving today after negotiations over a new contract broke down. Departing six weeks before his contract officially runs out, Burton plans to take a year off from science in the south of France.
Tiny spheres could control light
Light can be guided and manipulated at the nanometre scale by passing it through collections of tiny metal spheres -- according to new calculations by scientists in the US. The effect involves the interaction of light with plasmons on the surfaces of the spheres and the researchers claim that it could be used to create sources of coherent and polarized light.
NMR gets seriously small
Researchers in France have made a breakthrough in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy that allows the technique to be used effectively on nanolitre-sized solid samples for the first time. The new method involves the use of two coils -- one stationary and one rotating at up to 70 kHz -- and allows the highly-sensitive magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR technique to be applied to tiny samples.
Wireless power a reality
The mess of electrical cables that recharge our laptops, mobile phones and PDAs could soon disappear altogether -- at least according to a team of US physicists, who have shown how power can be transmitted without wires using special "resonant" antennas. The researchers used the system to power a 60-W light bulb placed two metres from a wireless transmitter, and say that it could be scaled down for use in portable devices without a loss of efficiency (Science Express doi: 10.1126/science.
Casimir force learns to swim
Physicists in the US have shown that the Casimir force -- a mysterious quantum phenomenon that draws nearby mirrors together -- can exist in a fluid. The researchers found that two gold-plated surfaces submerged in ethanol experienced the attraction when brought within 200 nm of each other, albeit two times weaker than the force that would be found in a vacuum. This could, they say, lead to a new "quantum floatation" effect, which could be used to design better sensors (arxiv.org/abs/0705.
LHC to skip low-energy test runs
The Large Hadron Collider will not be ready in time to perform a low-energy "engineering run", which was originally scheduled to take place this November, according to an official at CERN. This will leave the operators no chance to gain experience with the particle accelerator's steering and detection systems before the high-energy runs begin in spring next year. The delay is due primarily to the failure of a Fermilab-built magnet during high-pressure tests in March.
European X-ray laser gets the go ahead
The building of a powerful new X-ray free-electron laser has been given final approval by the German government now that sufficient funding has been secured. The billion-Euro machine, known as XFEL, will be situated in Hamburg, Germany and will enable researchers to observe chemical and physical processes at the atomic level as they occur in real time. Construction of the facility is set to start in early 2008 with an aim to commence data collection in 2013.
Big particles are secret to crack-free paint
The frustrating cracks that appear on newly painted surfaces could soon be a thing of the past. Physicists in India have calculated how the properties of paint, such as the size of the constituent particles, affect its ability to stay smooth while drying, which could help manufacturers to develop more effective crack-free paints (Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 218302). Paints are usually made by dispersing tiny particles, some of which are pigment, in a solvent such as water.
Physicists SCORE for third world
A curious phenomenon responsible for the "singing" made by hot glass vessels during the glass blowing process could soon provide the world's poorest communities with everyday conveniences such as a cooker, a fridge and a generator -- all combined within one unit and powered by simple biomass fuels such as wood. Scientists have long known that sound waves can be generated by irregularly heating a pressurized gas.
Supersolids: the plot thickens
Neutron scattering results have thrown doubt over the existence of a ghostly state of matter called a supersolid. The research, carried out by scientists in the US and the UK, found that samples of ultracold helium do not exhibit the trademark of a supersolid -- mass occupancy of the ground state. This will dampen physicists' hopes that solids -- like liquids and gases -- can indeed become a quantum "condensate" (Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 205301).
Model puts new spin on hurricane prediction
Physicists in the US have got to grips with a phenomenon that can cause hurricane winds to intensify rapidly. So-called "eyewall replacement" occurs when the cloud wall encircling the eye of a major hurricane breaks down, only to be replaced by a new wall farther out. The physicists claim that this latest insight will help to predict when and to what extent hurricanes will intensify (Science 315 1235).
When graphene meets negative refraction
Graphene and negative refractive-index materials are two of the hottest topics in physics -- but one might not think they have much in common. Now, however, physicists in the UK and US have proposed that graphene could be used to make a tiny lens to focus electrons through negative refraction. Although the lens has not yet been made, it could someday be used to focus electrons with much more precision than existing electron lenses (Science 315 5816 ).
Nanorods make "ideal" anti-reflection coatings
Physicists in the US claim to have created the first thin optical film with a refractive index close to that of air. The film consists of an array of obliquely-deposited nanorods, which can collectively have a refractive index as low as 1.05. The physicists also claim several graded layers of the films can produce an optical coating that "virtually eliminates" reflection at all wavelengths (Nature Photonics to be published).
Microscope "fingerprints" atoms
Physicists in Japan, Spain and the Czech Republic have developed a new type of atomic force microscope (AFM) that can "fingerprint" the chemical identity of individual atoms on a material's surface. This is one step ahead of existing AFMs, which can only detect the position of atoms.
Quantized magnetoresistance observed for the first time
Researchers in the US and France have shown that the electrical resistance of a magnetic wire just a few atoms thick can be changed in a stepwise manner by varying an applied magnetic field. The result is claimed to be the first experimental verification of "ballistic anisotropic magnetoresistance", which was first predicted in 2005. The breakthrough could someday be exploited to boost the capacity of magnetic data-storage devices (Nature Nanotechnology doi:10.1038/nnano.2007.36).
European Research Council launched today
Scientists in Europe are set to benefit from a massive new source of research money following the official launch of the European Research Council (ERC) at a conference in Berlin today. The ERC -- the first pan-European funding agency to cover all fields of science -- will award grants to individual researchers worth a total of Euro 7.5bn over the next seven years.
Limits set on size of dark matter clumps
If dark matter really does reside only in large clumps, these cannot be any bigger than one-tenth the mass of the Earth. This is the claim of physicists from Germany and the UK, who have studied gravitational lensing data from almost 300 distant supernovae.
"Chemical origami" shrinks 2D discs into 3D objects
Physicists in Israel have invented a neat method of making elaborate 3D structures from flat 2D discs. The trick is to pre-treat a gel disc half the size of a beer coaster with a monomer solution "blueprint" that selectively shrinks when heated. The technique, which cleverly demonstrates the link between 2D and 3D geometry, could be used by engineers to create self-assembling prototypes (Science 315 1116). It's quite easy to see how simple 3D objects could be created using the principle.
Islamic "quasicrystals" predate Penrose tiles
Islamic architects and mathematicians were creating quasi-crystalline patterns some 500 years before similar patterns were described in the West, claim two physicists in the US. Peter J Lu of Harvard University and Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University say that sets of special tiles developed around the 13th century allowed artisans to use complex mathematics to create the fantastic geometric patterns that adorn mosques, palaces and other buildings in the Muslim world.
Magnetic fields put the heat on neutron stars
Magnetic heating could be playing a much more prominent role in the evolution of neutron stars than previously expected, claim astrophysicists in Spain and the US. The researchers looked at data describing the surface temperature and magnetic field of about 30 neutron stars and found a mathematical relationship between the two properties that suggests that the stars are being heated by their own magnetic fields.
About this image
Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA. Image has been modified.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is designed to study the internal structure of the Sun, its extensive outer atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind, the stream of highly ionized gas that blows continuously outward through the Solar System. An uninterrupted view of the Sun is achieved by operating SOHO from a permanent vantage point 1.5 million kilometers sunward of the Earth. SOHO was designed to observe the Sun continuously for at least two years.
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