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Asteroid Itokawa has a Highly Varied Structure

Using very precise ground-based observations, Stephen Lowry (University of Kent, UK) and colleagues have measured the speed at which the near-Earth asteroid (25143) Itokawa spins and how that spin rate is changing over time. They have combined these delicate observations with new theoretical work on how asteroids radiate heat.

6 Feb 2014

Vanadium Dioxide Integrated Onto Silicon Chips Paves Way for Multifunctional Spintronic Smart Sensors

Research from a team led by North Carolina State University is opening the door to smarter sensors by integrating the smart material vanadium dioxide onto a silicon chip and using lasers to make the material magnetic.

6 Feb 2014

New Experiment Probes Properties of Mirror Symmetry of Quarks

From matching wings on butterflies to the repeating six-point pattern of snowflakes, symmetries echo through nature, even down to the smallest building blocks of matter.

6 Feb 2014

Researchers Provide Unambiguous Demonstration of Coherent Transport of Phonons

We all learn in high school science about the dual nature of light - that it exists as both waves and quantum particles called photons.

6 Feb 2014

Black Holes May Have Imprinted a Clear Signature in Radio Waves

A new study from Tel Aviv University reveals that black holes, formed from the first stars in our universe, heated the gas throughout space later than previously thought.

6 Feb 2014

Graphene Nanoribbons Act Like Quantum Dots

Using electrons more like photons could provide the foundation for a new type of electronic device that would capitalize on the ability of graphene to carry electrons with almost no resistance even at room temperature – a property known as ballistic transport.

6 Feb 2014

Researchers win NSERC John C Polanyi Award for Characterizing Antihydrogen Atom

A Canadian team including UBC physicist Walter Hardy and TRIUMF researchers have won the NSERC John C Polanyi Award for their work in creating, capturing and characterizing the antihydrogen atom. The team also includes Dr. Fujiwara of University of Calgary (also the spokesperson for the ALPHA-Canada team) and Dr. Michael Hayden of Simon Fraser University, both alumni of UBC Physics & Astronomy.

4 Feb 2014

Heavy Solitons Most Likely Quantum Equivalent of Smoke Rings

The same physics that gives tornadoes their ferocious stability lies at the heart of new University of Washington research, and could lead to a better understanding of nuclear dynamics in studying fission, superconductors and the workings of neutron stars.

4 Feb 2014

Nano-Heat Engine with Just a Single Ion

Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg are working on a heat engine that consists of just a single ion. Such a nano-heat engine could be far more efficient than, for example, a car engine or a coal-fired power plant. A usual heat engine transforms heat into utilizable mechanical energy with the corresponding efficiency of an Otto engine amounting to only about 25 percent, for instance.

4 Feb 2014

Particle Physics Theory Describes Behaviour of Excitons in Two Layers of Graphene

Belgian scientists have used a particle physics theory to describe the behaviour of particle-like entities, referred to as excitons, in two layers of graphene, a one-carbon-atom-thick honeycomb crystal. In a paper published in EPJ B, Michael Sarrazin from the University of Namur, and Fabrice Petit from the Belgian Ceramic Research Centre in Mons, studied the behaviour of excitons in a bilayer of graphene through an analogy with excitons evolving in two abstract parallel worlds, described with equations typically used in high-energy particle physics.

From Springer - Science and Technology Publishers 4 Feb 2014