science wire

Laser radar illuminates the way to deep space
This car was not snapped with a camera but scanned by a 3D imaging lidar, the laser equivalent of radar.

Fastest wind from stellar mass black hole discovered
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The fastest wind ever discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole has been observed by a team of astronomers that includes a University of Michigan doctoral student. Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, an orbiting telescope, they clocked the record-breaking super wind at about 20 million mph, or about 3 percent of the speed of light.

Researchers Build First Physical "Metatronic" Circuit
The technological world of the 21 st century owes a tremendous amount to advances in electrical engineering, specifically, the ability to finely control the flow of electrical charges using increasingly small and complicated circuits.

A new twist on nanowires
Technology developed at MIT can control the composition and structure of these tiny wires as they grow. Nanowires - microscopic fibers that can be "grown" in the lab - are a hot research topic today, with a variety of potential applications including light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and sensors.

Leggett at KTH: Revising How We Understand the Arrow of Time
Reception and service at central level for international students after arrival at KTH.

Learn about thermoelectronics -- and more -- via ’Material Marvels’
In this latest segment of "Material Marvels," Yale scientist Ainissa Ramirez describes how simple devices like cell phones can be powered by heat using thermoelectric materials, which convert heat to electricity.

SpaceTweetup to highlight ATV mission
SpaceTweetup to highlight ATV mission ESA and the French space agency, CNES, are inviting 60 Twitter followers to a joint European SpaceTweetup in Toulouse, France, for the docking of ATV Edoardo Amaldi to the International Space Station next month.

Rocket launched into northern lights to reveal GPS effects
As the brilliant colors of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, delights skygazers, Cornell researchers are discovering how their physics affects satellite signals here on Earth.

Nano discs pose potential health risk
A revolutionary material that is used in computer technology could pose health risks to those involved in its manufacture.

Energy-recycling computer technology from University of Michigan goes global through semiconductor firm AMD
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - An energy-recycling computer circuit born at the University of Michigan will enable a new generation of power efficient laptop PCs and servers.

Gamma-ray bursts' highest power side unveiled by Fermi Telescope
Vancouver, Pa. - Detectable for only a few seconds but possessing enormous energy, gamma-ray bursts are difficult to capture because their energy does not penetrate the Earth's atmosphere.

Swarm constellation heads north
Swarm constellation heads north The three satellites that make up ESA's Swarm magnetic field mission were presented to the media today.

Two U-M early-career scientists win 2012 Sloan research fellowships
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Two University of Michigan professors are among 126 researchers from across the United States and Canada selected as 2012 Alfred P. Sloan research fellows.

Fifth ATV named after Georges Lemaître
Fifth ATV named after Georges Lemaître PR 3 2012 - ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) are an essential contribution by Europe to running the International Space Station.

Mother of pearl tells a tale of ocean temperature, depth
Mother of pearl or nacre, such as this from a New Zealand Paua shell, is one of nature's wonder materials. Made by a host of mollusks, the material has proven to be an accurate barometer of environmental conditions as signatures of both water temperature and water depth reside in the material, according to new research by UW-Madison professor of physics and chemistry Pupa Gilbert.

Howard Zimmerman, pioneer in organic chemistry, dies at 85
Howard Zimmerman, a professor of chemistry from 1960 until his retirement in 2010, died on Saturday, Feb.

Chemists reveal why sea urchins are no easy prey
Nature invented a hi-tech composite material millions of years ago Scientists from the Electron and Scanning Probe Microscopy Unit in the University of Bristol's School of Chemistry were part of an international network of institutes specialising in materials characterisation who have helped solve a decades-long debate on the nature of the sea urchin spine.

Plasmas Torn Apart
January saw the biggest solar storm since 2005, generating some of the most dazzling northern lights in recent memory. The source of that storm—and others like it—was the sun's magnetic field, described by invisible field lines that protrude from and loop back into the burning ball of gas.

Lava Formations in Western U.S. Linked to Rip in Giant Slab of Earth
A new model by Scripps researchers details a rupture inside the Farallon slab that caused a magma flow now known as Columbia River flood basalt in the Western U.S. Like a stream of air shooting out of an airplane's broken window to relieve cabin pressure, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego say lava formations in eastern Oregon are the result of an outpouring of magma forced out of a breach in a massive slab of Earth.

Cleaning up Earth's orbit: A Swiss satellite to tackle space debris
The proliferation of debris orbiting the Earth – primarily jettisoned rocket and satellite components – is an increasingly pressing problem for spacecraft, and it can generate huge costs.

Warped space lens provides zoomed-in image of faraway galaxy
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A natural zoom lens in space has enabled astronomers to build new high-resolution images of one of the brightest distant galaxies magnified through a phenomenon called “gravitational lensing.” “I was always fascinated by beautiful images of space, but what makes an image like this so much more exciting is that you can actually see physics in action,” said Keren Sharon, a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan.

New Jersey Lt. Gov. Guadagno visits PPPL
New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno visited the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) on Monday, Feb.

Central and eastern Europe make history with small satellites
Central and eastern Europe make history with small satellites The first satellites entirely designed and built by Hungary, Poland, Romania are now orbiting Earth after today's successful maiden flight of ESA's small Vega launcher.

LHC to run at 4 TeV per beam in 2012
LHC to run at 4 TeV per beam in 2012 Geneva, 13 February 2012. CERN 1 today announced that the LHC will run with a beam energy of 4 TeV this year, 0.5 TeV higher than in 2010 and 2011.

ESA’s new Vega launcher scores success on maiden flight
ESA's new Vega launcher scores success on maiden flight PR 3 2012 - Vega, ESA's new launch vehicle, is ready to operate alongside the Ariane 5 and Soyuz launchers after a successful qualification flight this morning from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Men are not from Mars, women are not from Venus
UTM English professor Mari Ruti takes on the self-help industry in her book The Case for Falling in Love Professor Mari Ruti of the Department of English and Drama at the University of Toronto Mississauga has written about love for both academic and mainstream audiences.

University of Glasgow reaches for the stars with launch of Space Glasgow Research Cluster
The University of Glasgow unveiled an ambitious space technology research programme today (Monday 13 February) at an event attended by the Minister of State for Universities and Science, the Rt Hon David Willetts MP.

The art of shutting down a nuclear plant
Gaëtan Girardin, researcher in nuclear engineering, gives us the key to understanding nuclear reactor safety.

Final ’go’ for Vega launch
Final 'go' for Vega launch Vega is all set for launch on Monday. The new launcher passed its final hurdle on Saturday at Europe's Spaceport, the Launch Readiness Review, and is ready for liftoff.

Plymouth University's Professor Iain Stewart made president of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society
He took over the role at the annual general meeting of the society on Thursday 9 February, from The Earl of Lindsay who had been in post since 2005.

Watch online: Vega qualification flight
Watch online: Vega qualification flight Join us for the first qualification flight of the Vega launch vehicle on Monday 13 February, with a launch window open from 11:00 to 13:00 CET (10:00 to 12:00 GMT).

‘Smart’ microcapsules in a single step
A new, single-step method of fabricating microcapsules, which have potential commercial applications in industries including medicine, agriculture and diagnostics, has been developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge. The findings are published Friday (10 February) .

A mineral way to catalysis?
Recent European legislation has proposed increasingly strict legislative limits on the concentration of NOx that can be emitted by vehicles; therefore the search for new and more efficient catalysts that can capture these molecules and transform them into innocuous gases such as nitrogen and water vapour, is urgently relevant." —Dr Marco Sacchi Catalytic materials, which lower the energy barriers for chemical reactions, are

Could Venus be shifting gear?
ESA's Venus Express spacecraft has discovered that our cloud-covered neighbour spins a little slower than previously measured. Peering through the dense atmosphere in the infrared, the orbiter found surface features were not quite where they should be. Using the VIRTIS instrument at infrared wavelengths to penetrate the thick cloud cover, scientists studied surface features and discovered that some were displaced by up to 20 km from where they should be given the accepted rotation rate as measured by NASA's Magellan orbiter in the early 1990s.

Rockot to launch two Sentinel satellites
Rockot to launch two Sentinel satellites on Rockot vehicles from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia for Europe's GMES programme.

Hydrogen from Acidic Water
A technique for creating a new molecule that structurally and chemically replicates the active part of the widely used industrial catalyst molybdenite has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

Electrical Engineers Build "No-Waste" Laser
A team of University of California, San Diego researchers has built the smallest room-temperature nanolaser to date, as well as an even more startling device: a highly efficient, "thresholdless" laser that funnels all its photons into lasing, without any waste. The two new lasers require very low power to operate, an important breakthrough since lasers usually require greater and greater "pump power" to begin lasing as they shrink to nano sizes.

Breakthrough in designing cheaper, more efficient catalysts for fuel cells
University of California, Berkeley, chemists are reimagining catalysts in ways that could have a profound impact on the chemical industry as well as on the growing market for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Engineering images bring life to submerged city

Amateur stargazer helps university astronomers unlock the secrets of dwarf galaxy cannibalism
PA 39/12 An unusual collaboration between an amateur astronomer and professional astrophysicists has shed new light on the first stage of the process by which small galaxies grow into large ones. Astronomers believe that galaxies grow hierarchically by repeatedly merging with their peers, but the earliest stage of this process, in which one of the smallest ‘dwarf' galaxies is cannibalized by another dwarf system, has proved very hard to study in detail, until now.

Astronomy team that includes UCLA finance professor discovers nearby dwarf galaxy
A team led by UCLA research astronomer Michael Rich has used a unique telescope to discover a previously unknown companion to the nearby galaxy NGC 4449, which is some 12.5 million light years from Earth. The newly discovered dwarf galaxy had escaped even the prying eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Picture This #15, Queens’ College sundial
" What is it? This beautiful sundial is one of the world's most remarkable, particularly well known for its intricate design and detail.

Europe’s ATV space ferry set for launch to Space Station
Europe's ATV space ferry set for launch to Space Station Fuel, water, oxygen, air and most of the dry cargo have been loaded into ESA's third Automated Transfer Vehicle, Edoardo Amaldi , as the 9 March liftoff approaches.

Here comes the sun…
Scientists have developed a new kind of solar cell which could capture significantly more of the energy from the sun than current cells. Organic and hybrid solar cells have an advantage over current silicon-based technology because they can be produced in large quantities at low cost by roll-to-roll printing.

Astronauts seen and heard: satcoms for the Space Station
Astronauts seen and heard: satcoms for the Space Station Seeing ESA astronaut André Kuipers on the International Space Station is a regular occurrence these days.

Google Earth Ocean Terrain Receives Major Update
Internet information giant Google updated ocean data in its Google Earth application this week, reflecting new bathymetry data assembled by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, NOAA researchers and many other ocean mapping groups from around the world. The newest version of Google Earth includes more accurate imagery in several key areas of ocean using data collected by research cruises over the past three years.

Engineers’ nanoshell whispering galleries improve thin solar panels
Engineers at Stanford have created photovoltaic nanoshells that harness a peculiar physical phenomenon to better trap light..

First materials developed for new high-speed-electronic optical fibers
For the first time, a group of chemists, physicists and engineers has developed crystalline materials that allow an optical fiber to have integrated, high-speed electronic functions. The potential applications of such optical fibers include improved tele and other hybrid optical and electronic technologies, improved laser technology, and more-accurate remote-sensing devices.

Augmented reality promises astronauts instant medical knowhow
Augmented reality promises astronauts instant medical knowhow A new augmented reality unit developed by ESA can provide just-in-time medical expertise to astronauts.

Professor Ben Eggleton wins Walter Boas Medal
Professor Ben Eggleton, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), in the School of Physics , has won the 2011 Walter Boas Medal from the Australian Institute of Physics.

Mars Express reveals wind-blown deposits on Mars
Mars Express reveals wind-blown deposits on Mars New images from ESA's Mars Express show the Syrtis Major region on Mars. Once thought to be a sea of water, the region is now known to be a volcanic province dating back billions of years. Syrtis Major can be spotted from Earth even with relatively small telescopes - the near-circular dark area on the planet stretches over 1300 x 1500 km.

All set and ready to glow
A breakthrough technique for manufacturing LEDs on silicon is to be exploited in the UK, putting mass-produced, energy-efficient lighting within reach. —Colin Humphreys A new technique that paves the way for manufacturing affordable LED light bulbs is to be exploited in the UK, in a deal that researchers say could have a dramatic impact on carbon emissions.

Science writer ’wastes’ time in university library
Science writer 'wastes' time in university library In a book that comes out tomorrow (Saturday 4 February) on National Libraries Day, a local author tells of his frequent research visits to the University of Sussex Library.

Harnessing nature’s solar cells
Photovoltaic panels made from plant material could become a cheap, easy alternative to traditional solar cells.

Eight more Galileo navsats agreed
Eight more Galileo navsats agreed ESA today signed a contract to build a further eight Galileo satellites, alongside other agreements to modify Europe's Ariane 5 launcher to carry four navigation satellites at a time.

Researchers awarded funds to develop promising technologies
Five Princeton faculty teams are the new recipients of support from a University fund designed to help propel promising discoveries out of the laboratory into products and technologies that can benefit society. The funding will support the following projects: a cheaper and more efficient solar cell for converting sunlight to electricity; a novel water-treatment technology; a microscope that uses sound waves to focus the lens; a graphene-based boost for battery-like devices; and a new class of antiviral drugs.

Self-Assembling Nanorods
A relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods – rod-shaped semiconductor nanocrystals – to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic s

Want to understand the fluid dynamics of the oceans and atmosphere? UCLA’s got the video
Oceans and clouds, even the atmosphere itself, are in constant motion and can undergo dramatic fluctuations, like hurricanes, that lead to severe consequences.

"How to Grow a Planet" on the BBC
Geologist Iain Stewart will demonstrate how plants are the “silent power” that has shaped the Earth, in a new three-part series for BBC2 starting this week. How to Grow a Planet will offer a totally new perspective on the world's history, and will document the crucial role that plants have played in its evolution.

How Do You Fight Fire in Space? Experiments Provide Some Answers
Improving fire-fighting techniques in space and getting a better understanding of fuel combustion here on Earth are the focus of a series of experiments on the International Space Station, led by a professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. A first round of experiments ran from March 2009 to December 2011.

Watch the replay: Earth from Space - special edition
Watch the replay: Earth from Space - special edition Discover more about our planet with the Earth from Space video programme.

U of M Physics Circus brings large-scale stunts and physics lessons to the public Feb. 9
Media Note: Members of the media may attend a daytime school group show at the Minneapolis Convention Center to get photos or video, but please Rhonda Zurn at rzurn [a] umn (p) edu to make arrangements. MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (01/31/2012) —If you've never seen a physicist drop 20 feet through thin air while a friend shoots a ball at him from a cannon, or grown men and women shooting streams of toilet paper over an audience with a leaf blower, the University of Minnesota Physics Force has a show for you.

Watch online: Earth from Space - special edition
Watch online: Earth from Space - special edition Discover more about our planet with the Earth from Space video programme.

A Man of Magnetism
At the KTH Symposium, the director of the U.S. National Science Foundation explains how scientific co-operation with Sweden benefits American research. Reception and service at central level for international students after arrival at KTH. For Master's students For Exchange students Physicist Stefano Bonetti prepares to move from KTH to Stanford on a two-year post-doctoral fellowship studying the smallest and fastest magnetic phenomena known to science.

Under the Microscope #4 – Liquid crystals
Tim Wilkinson is combining liquid crystals with nanotechnology to try and create 3D displays which would look like real life.

Better Insulation for Durable Transformers
At the KTH Symposium, the director of the U.S. National Science Foundation explains how scientific co-operation with Sweden benefits American research.

From Cancer Research to Energy Storage, Berkeley Lab Scientist Takes on Big Challenges
On a typical day, Rizia Bardhan walks through the doors of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Molecular Foundry and immerses herself in the tricky business of tweaking optical spectroscopy equipment to study phase transitions in metal hydrides. It's fair to say that what she does is difficult to grasp.

Degree project factory
For those studying engineering, a degree project usually forms the final component of the degree, often carried out in collaboration with industry.However, at the Ideon company Modelon, there are an

ANU people given the order on Australia Day
A world-renowned quantum physicist and a researcher working to improve space travel are among the members of the ANU community recognised with 2012 Australia Day honours.

Supermaterial goes superpermeable
Wonder material graphene has revealed another of its extraordinary properties - University of Manchester researchers have found that it is superpermeable with respect to water. Graphene is one of the wonders of the science world, with the potential to create foldaway mobile phones, wallpaper-thin lighting panels and the next generation of aircraft.

Volunteers sought for simulated Mars mission and study of ’menu fatigue’
Astronauts on a mission to Mars will need much more than freeze-dried ice cream to sustain them, and researchers at Cornell are working to determine the best way to keep them well nourished during their three-year journeys and four-month stays on the Red Planet.

Berkeley Lab to Develop Novel Materials for Hydrogen Storage
The biggest challenge with hydrogen-powered fuel cells lies in the storage of hydrogen: how to store enough of it, in a safe and cost-effective manner, to power a vehicle for 300 miles?  Lawrence Ber

Degree matter mimics stars
Extreme conditions of temperature and pressure found in stars have been recreated on Earth using the world's brightest X-ray source.

Opening of UK site producing the heart of Galileo
Opening of UK site producing the heart of Galileo The first Galileo satellites are already in orbit, with more on the way.

Suomi remembered for problem-solving ability, drive
Verner Suomi's career — even his life — may not have been as long and illustrious had he not been an inveterate problem solver.

Satellite renamed to honor UW-Madison space pioneer
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have renamed their newest Earth-observing satellite after Verner Suomi, a longtime UW-Madison professor who often is called the father of satellite meteorology.

Robot competition in zero-gravity
Robot competition in zero-gravity School teams from Europe and America have been commanding robots competing in the Spheres ZeroRobotics tournament in space.

Solar storm heading toward Earth
A large solar flare yesterday triggered a coronal mass ejection travelling at 1400 km/s that will reach Earth today.

Under the Electron Microscope - A 3-D Image of an Individual Protein
When Gang Ren whirls the controls of his cryo-electron microscope, he compares it to fine-tuning the gearshift and brakes of a racing bicycle. But this machine at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is a bit more complex. It costs nearly $1.5 million, operates at the frigid temperature of liquid nitrogen, and it is allowing scientists to see what no one has seen before.

Weaving electronics into the fabric of our physical world
The integration of electronics with materials opens up a world of possibilities, the surface of which is just being scratched. Professor Arokia Nathan has joined the University to take up a new Chair in Engineering, where he will be exploring the application of research that allows us to glimpse a world rivalling our wildest dreams of the future.

Scientists produce world’s first magnetic soap
A University of Bristol team has dissolved iron in liquid surfactant to create a soap that can be controlled by magnets. The discovery could be used to create cleaning products that can be removed after application and used in the recovery of oil spills at sea Scientists from the University of Bristol have developed a soap, composed of iron rich salts dissolved in water, that responds to a magnetic field when placed in solution.

The two faces of Titan’s dunes
The two faces of Titan's dunes A new analysis of radar data from the international Cassini spacecraft has revealed regional variations amongst Titan's sand dunes. The result yields new clues to the giant moon's climatic and geological history. Dune fields are common on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, second only to the seemingly uniform plains that cover most of the surface.

Researchers provide new insight into how metals fail
The eventual failure of metals, such as the aluminum in ships and airplanes, can often be blamed on breaks, or voids, in the material's atomic lattice. They're at first invisible, only microns in size, but once enough of them link up, the metal eventually splits apart. Cornell engineers, trying to better understand this process, have discovered that nanoscale voids behave differently than the larger ones that are hundreds of thousands of atoms in scale, studied through traditional physics.

Satellites detect abundance of fresh water in the Arctic
ESA satellites show that a large dome of fresh water has been building up in the Arctic Ocean over the last 15 years. A change in wind direction could cause the water to spill into the north Atlantic, cooling Europe. The results are remarkable: since 2002, the sea surface in the studied area has risen by about 15 cm, and the volume of fresh water has increased by some 8000 cubic km - around 10% of all the fresh water in the Arctic Ocean.

T-rays technology could help develop Star Trek-style hand-held medical scanners
A*STAR and Imperial College London news release For immediate release Friday 10 January 2012 Scientists have developed a new way to create electromagnetic Terahertz (THz) waves or T-rays - the technology behind full-body security scanners. The researchers behind the study, published recently Photonics, say their new stronger and more efficient continuous wave T-rays could be used to make better medical scanning gadgets and may one day lead to innovations similar to the 'tricorder' scanner used in Star Trek.

Quantum codes make cloud computing safe
Quantum supercomputers could safely store and manipulate sensitive data, with help from University research.

UCLA professors Andrea Ghez, Terence Tao honored by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Two internationally renowned UCLA professors — Andrea Ghez, a professor of physics and astronomy, and Terence Tao, a professor of mathematics — have been awarded the Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The prize, which recognizes extraordinary achievements in mathematics, astronomy and other fields, is among the most prestigious honors in science.

Violin and subatomic particle duet set to be performed at leading UK particle physics lab
One of the world’s leading physics laboratories is set to stage a unique musical duet between a violinist and radioactive subatomic particles later this month.

Interdisciplinary science building opens doors to researchers
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - When Penn State's Millennium Science Complex opened its doors to researchers this fall, it inaugurated a new era of scientific discovery at the intersection of materials science, engineering, nanoscience and the life sciences at Penn State.

A New View of an Icon
The Eagle Nebula as never seen before. In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope's 'Pillars of Creation' image of the Eagle Nebula became one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. Now, two of ESA's orbiting observatories have shed new light on this enigmatic star-forming region. The Eagle Nebula is 6500 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens.

Planck’s HFI completes its survey of early Universe
Planck's HFI completes its survey of early Universe The High Frequency Instrument on ESA's Planck mission has completed its survey of the remnant light from the Big Bang. The sensor ran out of coolant on Saturday as expected, ending its ability to detect this faint energy. "Planck has been a wonderful mission; spacecraft and instruments have been performing outstandingly well, creating a treasure trove of scientific data for us to work with," said Jan Tauber, ESA's Planck Project Scientist.

Researcher wins top astronomy medal
Professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn, from the University of Sydney's School of Physics , has been awarded the prestigious 2012 Jackson-Gwilt Medal by the UK's Royal Astronomical Society.

Jim Arnold, Founding Chemist at UC San Diego Dies at 88
James R. Arnold, founding chairman of UC San Diego's chemistry department and first director of the California Space Institute whose contributions to science spanned the study of cosmic rays to the future of manned space flight, died Friday, January 6. He was 88. "Jim Arnold truly was a visionary scientist who found creative ways of looking at a broad range of problems, terrestrial and extraterrestrial," said Mark Thiemens, Dean of the Division of Physical Sciences.

One step closer to controlling nuclear fusion
Using a heating system, physicists have succeeded for the first time in preventing the development of instabilities in an efficient alternative way relevant to a future nuclear fusion reactor.

DOE Awards Record Supercomputing Time to UC San Diego, SDSC Researchers
One Quarter Billion Hours Plus Allocated for 2012 Scientists from the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and other areas of the University of California, San Diego, conducting research in physics, computer science, earth science, and engineering, together were awarded an all-time high of more than a quarter billion hours in supercomputing processor time by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the agency's 2012 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program.

Astronomers Release Unprecedented Data Set on Celestial Objects that Brighten and Dim
Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Arizona have released the largest data set ever collected that documents the brightening and dimming of stars and other celestial objects—two hundred million in total.

Supercomputers help Yale astrophysicists interpret secrets of the universe
A series of papers released this week by the international scientific collaboration known as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey depended heavily on supercomputing performed by Yale astrophysicists.

Choreographing dance of electrons offers promise in pursuit of quantum computers
by John Sullivan In the basement of Hoyt Laboratory at Princeton University, Alexei Tyryshkin clicked a computer mouse and sent a burst of microwaves washing across a silicon crystal suspended in a frozen cylinder of stainless steel. The waves pulsed like distant music across the crystal and deep within its heart, billions of electrons started spinning to their beat.

Stargazing LIVE returns to Jodrell Bank
The hugely-popular Stargazing LIVE returns to The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory next week.

Calculating What’s in the Universe from the Biggest Color 3-D Map
Scientific : Shirley Ho, cwho [a] lbl (p) gov Since 2000, the three Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS I, II, III) have surveyed well over a quarter of the night sky and produced the biggest color map of the universe in three dimensions ever.

Planets with Double Suns are Common
Austin, TX - Astronomers using NASA's Kepler mission have discovered two new circumbinary planet systems - planets that orbit two stars, like Tatooine in the movie Star Wars. Their find, which brings the number of known circumbinary planets to three, shows that planets with two suns must be common, with many millions existing in our Galaxy.

Milky Way stars that wander but are not lost
Panel discussion 'Responding to Child Sexual Abuse' set for Jan. 24 Penn State President Erickson signs employment contract New York Alumni Town Hall meeting to be streamed Website consolidates sexual assault resource information Affirmative Action vice provost presents sexual harassment workshop New evidence that will help to answer long-standing questions about the history of stars in the disk of our galaxy is being released this week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society by a team that includes a Penn State astronomer.

Hubble spies old stars that shed their skins to look younger
Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a University of Washington-led team has peered deep into the neighboring Andromeda galaxy to find what look like young blue stars in a neighborhood that should be populated by old stars. Blue is considered a telltale signal for hot, young stars but, in a “surprising and intriguing” twist, it turns out that some old stars can also be blue, said Philip Rosenfield, a UW doctoral student in astronomy who discussed the findings Jan.

Berkeley Lab Seeks to Help U.S. Assert Scientific Leadership in Critical Materials
A few short decades ago, few could have imagined that the world would be seriously concerned over something called dysprosium. Also known as number 66 on the periodic table, dysprosium was once just another element for chemistry students to memorize but is now one of the most sought-after and critically needed materials on the planet.

Doomsday Clock moves one minute closer to midnight
Faced with inadequate progress on nuclear weapons reduction and proliferation, and continuing inaction on climate change, the University of Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Jan.

Yale’s new microscope brings atoms’ identities into focus
Yale's acquisition of a powerful new transmission electron microscope (TEM) is expected to transform researchers' ability to examine and manipulate atom-scale materials and devices on campus.

Stephen Hawking 70th Birthday Symposium
A capacity 550-strong audience gave a standing ovation at the end of a moving, amusing and wide-ranging autobiographical speech by Stephen Hawking on the occasion of his 70th birthday on Sunday.

Scientists map frontiers of dark matter
University astronomers have helped to map dark matter on the largest scale ever observed. Their findings reveal the Universe as an intricate web of dark matter and galaxies spanning more than one billion light years.

Graphene reveals its magnetic personality
Can organic matter behave like a fridge magnet? Scientists from The University of Manchester have now shown that it can. In a report published , they used graphene, the world's thinnest and strongest material, and made it magnetic. Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a chicken wire structure.

Seeing Quantum Mechanics with the naked eye
New research lays groundwork for new generation of ultrasensitive gyroscopes to measure gravity, magnetic field, and create quantum circuits Just to see and prod quantum mechanics working in front of your eyes is amazing." —Dr Gab Christmann A Cambridge team have built a semiconductor chip that converts electrons into a quantum state that emits light but is large enough to see by eye.

The Next Big Step Toward Atom-Specific Dynamical Chemistry
For Ali Belkacem of Berkeley Lab's Chemical Sciences Division, "What is chemistry?" is not a rhetorical question. "Chemistry is inherently dynamical," he answers.

Now you see it, now you didn’t: Cloaking a moment in time
In movie magic, people and objects can appear or disappear or move from place to place in an instant. Just stop the camera, move things around and start it again. Now, Cornell researchers have demonstrated a similar "temporal cloak" - albeit on a very small scale - in the transport of information by a beam of light.

Young minds experiment with a future career in science

Magnetically-levitated flies offer clues to future of life in space
PA 03/12 Using powerful magnets to levitate fruit flies can provide vital clues to how biological organisms are affected by weightless conditions in space, researchers at The University of Nottingham say. The team of scientists has shown that simulating weightlessness in fruit flies here on earth with the use of magnets causes the flies to walk more quickly — the same effect observed during similar experiments on the International Space Station.

Series sheds light on Universe’s darkest secrets

New ICASSP papers
4 papers accepted for publication at IEEE ICASSP 2012. Recent LTS4 works about distributed detection with GT, distributed quantized consensus averaging, joint reconstruction of correlated compressed signals and dictionary learning on graphs have been accepted at IEEE ICASSP 2012. More info.

‘Extreme Sleepover #8’ – unlocking the universe from the Atacama desert
In the eighth of a series of reports contributed by Cambridge researchers, we hear about John Richer's night-time research activities at the ALMA observatory in Chile's Atacama desert.

Stanford physicist’s moderate approach to climate change gaining supporters
Stanford physicist's prescriptions include more natural gas and nuclear power, doubts about renewable energy goals, and a new way to gain political support.

Season’s greetings from the other extreme
Season's greetings from the other extreme It is summer in Antarctica and the new crew for the Concordia research station will soon arrive.

New technique makes it easier to etch semiconductors
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Creating semiconductor structures for high-end optoelectronic devices just got easier, thanks to University of Illinois researchers. The team developed a method to chemically etch patterned arrays in the semiconductor gallium arsenide, used in solar cells, lasers, light emitting diodes (LEDs), field effect transistors (FETs), capacitors and sensors.

Flipping an egg carton of light traps giant atoms
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - In an egg carton of laser light, University of Michigan physicists can trap giant Rydberg atoms with up to 90 percent efficiency, an achievement that could advance quantum computing and terahertz imaging, among other applications.

Engineers boost electrical efficiency in organic semiconductors
By packing molecules closer together, chemical engineers at Stanford have dramatically improved the electrical conductivity of organic semiconductors. The advance could herald flexible electronics, more efficient solar panels, and perhaps even better television screens. Organic semiconductors could usher in an era of foldable smartphones, better high-definition television screens and solar clothing that turns sunlight into electricity for recharging your iPad.

ESA astronaut André Kuipers on his way to the International Space Station
PR 37 2011 - After their launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 13:16 GMT (14:16 CET) today, ESA astronaut André Kuipers and crewmates Oleg Kononenko and Don Pettit are circling Earth every

A Single Cell Endoscope
An endoscope that can provide high-resolution optical images of the interior of a single living cell, or precisely deliver genes, proteins, therapeutic drugs or other cargo without injuring or damaging the cell, has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

Glacial tap is open but the water will run dry
Retreating glaciers threaten water supplies Glaciers are retreating at an unexpectedly fast rate according to research done in Peru's Cordillera Blanca by McGill doctoral student Michel Baraer.

Geology research in Lund receives SEK 40 million
Within the space of a week, Lund University’s geology researchers have raked in SEK 40 million. Professor Birger Schmitz has received SEK 25 million for his ground breaking research on the meteorite flux to earth that has been taking place for billions of years.

André’s rocket rolled out
The Christmas season has brought the gift of a Soyuz launcher for the PromISSe mission. ESA's André Kuipers and his crewmates are running their final simulations and preparing to board the rocket on Wednesday to head towards the International Space Station.

Scientists ’trigger’ high energy physics at CERN in India-UK collaboration
The University of Birmingham is working with partners at Jammu University on particle physics experiments, including those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research – CERN.

Star images helping to save Vatican books
Star images helping to save Vatican books Antique books in the Vatican Library are being digitised to preserve them for future generations using a technique developed through ESA to store satellite images of the sky.

Understanding the Mechanical Biology of Life’s Bonds
Julio Fernandez talks about creating a new field, mechanical biology, to further study protein dynamics.

Robert Osserman, noted Stanford mathematician, dies at 84
In addition to his important research, Bob Osserman brought math to a broad audience through public conversations with comedian Steve Martin, among others.

European particle physics plots course for the future
European particle physics plots course for the future Geneva, 15 December 2011. CERN 1 Council today announced an Open Symposium to be held on 10-13 September 2012 at Cracow, Poland for the purpose of updating the European Strategy for Particle Physics.

Young star rebels against its parent cloud
Young star rebels against its parent cloud Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 has captured this image of a giant cloud of hydrogen gas illuminated by a bright young star.

Powerful potential
SEAS holiday lecture engages young learners with the wonders of energy By Mureji Fatunde '12 Research assistant Daniel Rosenberg, a key member of Harvard's science lecture demonstration te

Vibration rocks for entangled diamonds
Diamonds are celebrated for their enduring beauty and hardness but they can also be a physicist's best friend. In Nature Photonics and Science an international team of scientists report that a strange quantum state called ‘ entanglement ' has been achieved in two 3mm-wide diamond crystals, spaced 15cm apart, at room temperature.

Scanning the Arctic skies
Researchers from the University of Toronto's Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics are taking the search for other worlds to a new frontier: the Canadian Arctic.

Dwarf star triggered supernova
The star that exploded to create the nearest supernova of its type to be discovered since 1986 has been revealed by an international team including Oxford University scientists. New observations reported in two papers in this week's Nature show that a very dense, very small white dwarf star made of carbon and oxygen, orbiting another star, triggered the explosion.

Caltech Chemists Propose Explanation for Superconductivity at High Temperatures
It has been 25 years since scientists discovered the first high-temperature superconductors—copper oxides, or cuprates, that conduct electricity without a shred of resistance at temperatures much higher than other superconducting metals. Yet no one has managed to explain why these cuprates are able to superconduct at all.

The beginning of the end for comet Lovejoy
The SOHO spaceborne solar observatory today captured comet Lovejoy in its field of view for the first time, indicating that the icy body is on its final destructive plunge towards the Sun. Announced on 2 December, the newly discovered comet Lovejoy is on a near-collision course with the Sun and is expected to plunge to its fiery fate late on 15 December.

More Clues in the Hunt for the Higgs
Physicists have announced that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has produced yet more tantalizing hints for the existence of the Higgs boson.

’Fingerprinting’ method tracks mercury emissions from coal-fired power plant
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - For the first time, the chemical "fingerprints" of the element mercury have been used by University of Michigan researchers to directly link environmental pollution to a specific coal-burning power plant. The primary source of mercury pollution in the atmosphere is coal combustion.

Disaster looms for gas cloud falling into Milky Way’s central black hole
A simulated view of the gas cloud (red orbit) now approaching the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Closest Type Ia Supernova in Decades Solves a Cosmic Mystery
Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia's) are the extraordinarily bright and remarkably similar "standard candles" astronomers use to measure cosmic growth, a technique that in 1998 led to the discovery of dark energy - and 13 years later to a Nobel Prize, "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe." The light from thousands of SN Ia's has been studied, but until now their physics - how they detonate and what the star systems that produce them actually look like before they explode - has been educated guesswork.

Galileo in tune: first navigation signal transmitted to Earth
Galileo in tune: first navigation signal transmitted to Earth Europe's Galileo system has passed its latest milestone, transmitting its very first test navigation signal back to Earth.

Sharpening the lines
New advance could lead to even smaller features in the constant quest for more compact, faster microchips. The microchip revolution has seen a steady shrinking of features on silicon chips, packing in more transistors and wires to boost chips' speed and data capacity. But in recent years, the technologies behind these chips have begun to bump up against fundamental limits, such as the wavelengths of light used for critical steps in chip manufacturing.

Higgs hunt narrows
Today scientists at the Large Hadron Collider announced tantalising news about the biggest piece missing from the physics jigsaw. The Higgs boson is a hypothetical particle used to explain why many of the fundamental particles in the Standard Model of particle physics have mass. Proving if it exists is tricky because the model doesn't predict its exact mass.

Call for Media: Follow the launch of ESA astronaut André Kuipers

Planet Earth in your pocket ... and on your tablet
ESA has updated its application for iPhone and iPad. With the launch of the ESA App V2, users can see ESA's latest satellite imagery from Envisat in near-real time, complementing the latest news and discoveries in space exploration and Earth observation.

ATLAS and CMS experiments present Higgs search status
ATLAS and CMS experiments present Higgs search status 13 December 2011. In a seminar held at CERN 1 today, the ATLAS 2 and CMS 3 experiments presented the status of their searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson. Their results are based on the analysis of considerably more data than those presented at the summer conferences, sufficient to make significant progress in the search for the Higgs boson, but not enough to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the elusive Higgs.

Hints of the Higgs Boson Seen as Trap Set for the Elusive Particle Tightens
A spray of particles scatters after two protons collide in the LHC.

New Path to Flex and Stretch Electronics
Imprinting electronic circuitry on backplanes that are both flexible and stretchable promises to revolutionize a number of industries and make "smart devices" nearly ubiquitous.

World science community abuzz as latest Higgs boson results announced
The international team of researchers that has been smashing high-energy protons together inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to re-create the conditions at the time of the Big Bang announced new evidence today pointing to an observation of the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive elementary particle that is predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics.

Trillion-frame-per-second video
By using optical equipment in a totally unexpected way, MIT researchers have created an imaging system that makes light look slow.

ANU experts join Academy Council

U.S. Energy Secretary Visits KTH
At the KTH Symposium, the director of the U.S. National Science Foundation explains how scientific co-operation with Sweden benefits American research.

Diamonds and Dust for Better Cement
It's no surprise that humans the world over use more water, by volume, than any other material. But in second place, at over 17 billion tons consumed each year, comes concrete made with Portland cement. Portland cement provides the essential binder for strong, versatile concrete; its basic materials are found in many places around the globe; and, at about $100 a ton, it's relatively cheap.

Haul of 50 oscillating stars with orbiting planets found by Kepler Spacecraft
Oscillations have been discovered in 50 stars with their own orbiting candidate planets (exo- or extrasolar planets) by an international team of scientists using data from the NASA Kepler Mission, according to an announcement made by one of the lead scientists, Professor Bill Chaplin from the UK's University of Birmingham, at a NASA conference in California (Friday 9th December, 2011).

André is ’go for launch’ and has arrived at Baikonur
ESA astronaut André Kuipers is now officially ready for liftoff on 21 December: he and his crewmates have passed their final exams and left for the launch site yesterday.

Rosemary Knight: Geophysicist, senate chair, hitchhiking advocate
Rosemary Knight, who joined the Stanford faculty in 2000 after teaching for a decade at the University of British Columbia, loved math, physics and chemistry in high school and was elated when she "discovered" geology, a field that combined all three.

Road to world's largest telescope
Today saw the ESO give the go-ahead for work to begin on a series of roads on a mountain in Northern Chile.

Scientists develop pioneering telescope
University scientists are helping design and launch a satellite that will map more of the Universe than ever before. The satellite, known as Euclid, will follow on from the Hubble telescope, launched by in 1990. The Hubble broke new ground in space observation and led to many discoveries in our knowledge and understanding of physics.

Researchers enhance graphene to enable multicolor photodetection
Graphene, a one-atom–thick layer of carbon lattice with a honeycomb structure, is seen as an attractive semiconductor material for use in future electronics and optoelectronics because of its speed, transparency, flexibility and strength.

Engineers making solar power more efficient
Innovations by a team of Yale University researchers could lead to improvements in basic solar power technology that result in lower-cost, higher-efficiency photovoltaic systems.

100 years of discovery: Celebrating South Pole research
To mark the centennial of Roald Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole, the IceCube Research Center is hosting an evening of exploration and learning on Tuesday, Dec. 13 from 6:30-8:30 at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. A hose caries hot water to the top of an Antarctic drill tower as part of the IceCube project.

Gaia spreads its wings
Gaia spreads its wings : the spacecraft's sunshield has been deployed for the first time. Gaia's sunshield is an essential component of the mission.

Device promises nutrition diagnosis in minutes
Bioengineer Buddy Ratner believes his lab's latest device could be a powerful tool, capable of addressing health and child development issues by delivering a blood test in minutes to some of the most remote parts of the globe. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also sees potential in the device, adding an additional $611,000 last month to prior funding for this work.

Five Penn Researchers Named American Physical Society Fellows
PHILADELPHIA - The American Physical Society has elected five University of Pennsylvania faculty members to its 2011 APS Fellowship class.

First Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN laureate announced
First Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN laureate announced Geneva 6 December 2011.

Campus Leaders Describe Plans to “Flash Forward from 50” in Research and Discovery
As the campus looks beyond last year's 50th anniversary celebrations, university leaders are developing a new long-term vision for the decades ahead. The central idea behind that vision is a familiar one: "We will build on faculty collaboration across disciplines to produce transformative research with societal impact." The Founders' Symposium, held on Nov.

Researchers star in Academy awards

Partnership for Progress in Electronics Strengthened by New Lab-Industry Investment
As manufacturers pack more and more circuitry into the tiny microchips on which electronic technologies depend, ultraviolet light's narrow wavelengths are essential for creating the densely patterned chips of the future.

Pair of black holes ‘weigh in’ at 10 billion suns, the most massive yet
AUSTIN, Texas — A team of astronomers including Karl Gebhardt and graduate student Jeremy Murphy of The University of Texas at Austin have discovered the most massive black holes to date - two

Peculiar cosmic explosion on Christmas Day 2010 remains a mystery
Town Hall Forum video posted Board executive committee reaffirms, ratifies earlier decisions Students host fundraiser to benefit abused children Penn State, PA Coalition Against Rape join to

Record massive black holes discovered lurking in monster galaxies
University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered the largest black holes to date - two monsters with masses equivalent to 10 billion suns that are threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.

ESA’s space weather box Proba-2 tracks stormy Sun
ESA's space weather box Proba-2 tracks stormy Sun Researchers gathered for European Space Weather Week have been presented with the latest results from ESA's own space weather station: the Proba-2 microsatellite.

Mountains and buried ice on Mars
Mountains and buried ice on Mars New images from Mars Express show the Phlegra Montes mountain range, in a region where radar probing indicates large volumes of water ice are hiding below. This could be a source of water for future astronauts. Phlegra Montes is a range of gently curving mountains and ridges on Mars.

Eminent Notts scientist receives blue plaque honour
A blue plaque commemorating the life and work of one of Nottinghamshire's most eminent scientists is to be unveiled at the Beeston home he built.

A novel way to concentrate sun’s heat
MIT researchers find a way to generate power without the usual mirror arrays. — Most technologies for harnessing the sun’s energy capture the light itself, which is turned into electricity using photovoltaic materials.

Materials which expand and contract like muscles could be used as gas sensors
Materials which expand and contract like muscles could be used as gas sensors. Experts at the University of Sheffield have created an `artificial muscle´ reaction in materials that respond to chemical vapours, something that could pave the way for a new type of gas sensor.