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Flat, Disk Galaxies Grow Out of Irregular Appearances and Take on a Smooth Look

It happens to all kinds of flat, disk galaxies – whether they’re big, little, isolated or crowded in a cluster. They all grow out of their irregular, clumped appearance and their older stars take on the same smooth look, predictably fading from a bright center to a dim edge.

12 Sep 2013

Dilute Magnetic Semiconductor Synthesized on a Single Crystal May be Used to Develop Spintronics

Researchers at North Carolina State University have created a new compound that can be integrated into silicon chips and is a dilute magnetic semiconductor – meaning that it could be used to make “spintronic” devices, which rely on magnetic force to operate, rather than electrical currents.

11 Sep 2013

Quantum Properties Are Lost Even in Completely Isolated Quantum Systems

How does a classical temperature form in the quantum world? An experiment at the Vienna University of Technology has directly observed the emergence and the spreading of a temperature in a quantum system. Remarkably, the quantum properties are lost, even though the quantum system is completely isolated and not connected to the outside world. The experimental results are being published in this week’s issue of “Nature Physics”.

10 Sep 2013

New Study Theorizes Look and Behavior of Astatine

Astatine is among the world’s rarest elements – with a maximum half-life of just eight hours, found in tiny amounts in natural radioactive decay chains, but also produced by bombarding bismuth with energetic atomic particles. The late Dale Corson, Cornell’s eighth president, was one of the discoverers of astatine, synthesizing it for the first time with Kenneth McKenzie and Emilio Segre in 1940.

10 Sep 2013

Finding Cosmic Neutrino Events Using Improved Computer Engineering

Building a neutrino telescope — a unique instrument that detects extremely small, high energy particles — out of 5,000 optical sensors embedded in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, a tremendous engineering feat, was just the first challenge.

7 Sep 2013

Quasar 'Dancing' Behind a Gas Cloud in Milky Way Galaxy

Bonn astronomers discover how the image of a distant quasar splits into multiple images by the effects of a cloud of ionized gas in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Such events were predicted as early as in the 1970s, but the first evidence for one now has come from observations performed with the telescope array VLBA and analysed in the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.

7 Sep 2013

FQXi Awards Grant for Research on Structure of Quantum Information with Neutron Interferometry

The Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) awards grants to “catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology”. The grant awarded to Emerson and his collaborators was one of 37 applications selected for funding this year from a total of 211 initial applications that were submitted by institutions, universities, colleges, laboratories, think tanks and businesses from around the world.

6 Sep 2013

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array Discovers 10 New Supermassive Black Holes

NASA's black-hole-hunter spacecraft, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has "bagged" its first 10 supermassive black holes. The mission, which has a mast the length of a school bus, is the first telescope capable of focusing the highest-energy X-ray light into detailed pictures.

6 Sep 2013

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Awards Fellowship to UC Graduate Student

Much like the particles he studies, University of Cincinnati graduate student Fady Bishara is an object in motion. He moved to the U.S. from Egypt at 17 years old, studied engineering in Cleveland and moved to Cincinnati a few years after graduation for a job. While here he decided to move from engineering to study theoretical physics.

6 Sep 2013

New Analysis Finds No Evidence of Any Planetary Effect on Solar Activity

In 2012, Astronomy & Astrophysics published a statistical study of the isotopic records of solar activity, in which Abreu et al. claimed that there is evidence of planetary influence on solar activity. A&A is publishing a new analysis of these isotopic data by Cameron and Schüssler. It corrects technical errors in the statistical tests performed by Abreu et al. They find no evidence of any planetary effect on solar activity.

6 Sep 2013