A new light on significantly faster computer memory devices

A team of scientists from Arizona State University's School of Molecular Sciences and Germany have published in Science Advances online today an explanation of how a particular phase-change memory (PCM) material can work one thousand times faster than current flash computer memory, while being significantly more durable with respect to the number of daily read-writes.

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The physics of extracting gas from shale formations

Extracting gas from new sources is vital in order to supplement dwindling conventional supplies. Shale reservoirs host gas trapped in the pores of mudstone, which consists of a mixture of silt mineral particles ranging from 4 to 60 microns in size, and clay elements smaller than 4 microns. Surprisingly, the oil and gas industry still lacks a firm understanding of how the pore space and geological factors affect gas storage and its ability to flow in the shale.

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How microscopic machines can fail in the blink of an eye

How long can tiny gears and other microscopic moving parts last before they wear out? What are the warning signs that these components are about to fail, which can happen in just a few tenths of a second? Striving to provide clear answers to these questions, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a method for more quickly tracking microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) as they work and, just as importantly, as they stop working.

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Table-top experiment flips current understanding of solutal convection

When Yu "Alex" Liang started graduate school at The University of Texas at Austin, he was tasked with running a straight-forward experiment to collect data on a well-understood phenomenon in fluid mechanics: how density differences influence fluid flow in a porous medium.

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Using hydrogen ions to manipulate magnetism on the molecular scale

A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has determined how to use hydrogen ions, "pumped" from water in the air at room temperature, to electrically control magnetism within a very thin sample of a magnetic material. This approach for manipulating magnetic properties could speed up advances in computing, sensors, and other technologies.

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High-contrast imaging for cancer therapy with protons

Medical physicist Dr. Aswin Hoffmann and his team from the Institute of Radiooncology—OncoRay at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have combined magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a proton beam, thus demonstrating for the first time that in principle, this commonly used imaging method can work with particle beam cancer treatments. This opens up new opportunities for targeted, healthy tissue-sparing cancer therapy. The researchers have published their results in the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology.

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Probing quantum physics on a macroscopic scale

Why does quantum mechanics work so well for microscopic objects, yet macroscopic objects are described by classical physics? This question has bothered physicists since the development of quantum theory more than 100 years ago. Researchers at Delft University of Technology and the University of Vienna have now devised a macroscopic system that exhibits entanglement between mechanical phonons and optical photons. They tested the entanglement using a Bell test, one of the most convincing and important tests to show a system behaves non-classically.

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'Sudoku' X-ray uncovers movements within opaque materials

When strolling along the beach, our footprints tell us that the sand under the surface must have moved but not precisely where or how. Similar movements occur in many other natural and man-made substances, such as snow, construction materials, pharmaceutical powders, and even cereals.

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High-speed camera shows incoming particles cause damage by briefly melting surfaces as they strike

When tiny particles strike a metal surface at high speed—for example, as coatings being sprayed or as micrometeorites pummeling a space station—the moment of impact happens so fast that the details of process haven't been clearly understood, until now.

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The future of fighting cancer: Zapping tumors in less than a second

New accelerator-based technology being developed by the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University aims to reduce the side effects of cancer radiation therapy by shrinking its duration from minutes to under a second. Built into future compact medical devices, technology developed for high-energy physics could also help make radiation therapy more accessible around the world.

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Moscovium and Nihonium: FIONA measures the mass number of two superheavy elements

A team led by nuclear physicists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has reported the first direct measurements of the mass numbers for the nuclei of two superheavy elements: moscovium, which is element 115, and nihonium, element 113.

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From turkeys to turn-keys

Last week, millions of Americans unwrapped a shrink-wrapped turkey for Thanksgiving. If so, they owe thanks to electron beams, which made the shrink-wrapping possible. But the electron beam can do a lot more: It can sterilize medical equipment, treat wastewater and print metal parts. Industrial accelerators that generate these electron beams are rapidly expanding. The Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) is on a mission to build a high-power, compact, superconducting electron beam accelerator that will serve all of these purposes.

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Scientists obtain a hexagonal modification of silicon

A team of scientists from Lobachevsky University (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia) has obtained a material with a new structure for applications in next-generation optoelectronics and photonics. This material is one of the hexagonal modifications of silicon, which have better radiative properties compared to conventional cubic silicon, which is traditionally used in microelectronics.

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Neutron production at ORNL's SNS reaches design power level

The Spallation Neutron Source at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has broken a new record by ending its first neutron production cycle in fiscal year 2019 at its design power level of 1.4 megawatts.

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Research helps in understanding the dynamics of dune formation

Crescent-shaped dunes called barchans are structures that appear in a wide variety of environments, including beaches and deserts, riverbeds and the seafloor, inside water pipes and oil pipelines, and on the surface of Mars and other sandy planets with an atmosphere.

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New scientific concept for a Star Wars-like tractor beam

Physicists from ITMO University have developed a model of an optical tractor beam to capture particles based on new artificial materials. Such a beam is capable of moving particles or cells towards the radiation source. The study showed that hyperbolic metasurfaces are promising for experiments on creating the tractor beam, as well as for its practical applications. The results are published in ACS Photonics.

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New technique proposed to make objects invisible

In recent years, invisibility has become an area of increasing research interest due to advances in materials engineering. This research work by the UEx, which has been published in Scientific Reports, explored the electromagnetic properties of specific materials that can make certain objects invisible when they are introduced into its interior. Normally, artificial materials known as metamaterials, or materials with high dielectric or magnetic constants, are used

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Complex systems help explain how democracy is destabilised

Complex systems theory is usually used to study things like the immune system, global climate, ecosystems, transportation or communications systems.

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White cat hair on black pants: Study measures stability of precision masses to benefit trade

When are two nominally identical kilogram masses no longer identical? When each goes to a different place and adsorbs varying amounts of moisture and contaminants.

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Clarifying effects of negative mass

A FLEET study led by University of Queensland's David Colas clarifies recent studies of negative mass, investigating the strange phenomenon of self-interference.

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Paving the way: An accelerator on a microchip

Electrical engineers in the accelerator physics group at TU Darmstadt have developed a design for a laser-driven electron accelerator so small it could be produced on a silicon chip. It would be inexpensive and with multiple applications. The design, which has been published in Physical Review Letters, is now being realised as part of an international collaboration.

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Radical approach for brighter LEDs

Scientists have discovered that semiconducting molecules with unpaired electrons, termed 'radicals' can be used to fabricate very efficient organic-light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), exploiting their quantum mechanical 'spin' property to overcome efficiency limitations for traditional, non-radical materials.

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Researchers defy 19th Century law of Physics in 21st century boost for energy efficiency

Research led by a University of Sussex scientist has turned a 156-year-old law of physics on its head in a development which could lead to more efficient recharging of batteries in cars and mobile phones.

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Physicists develop concept of new fast non-volatile memory

Using micromagnetic simulation, scientists have found the magnetic parameters and operating modes for the experimental implementation of a fast racetrack memory module that runs on spin current, carrying information via skyrmionium, which can store more data and read it out faster. The results are published in Scientific Reports.

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Studying water flow for more efficient aquaponic systems

An aquaponic system is an example of an integrated farming method in which the waste byproduct from one production process, like raising fish and other seafood, serves as a nutrient for another part of the system—like growing plants, for instance.

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Electrons inside of some ceramic crystals appear to dissipate in a familiar way

A team of researchers from Canada, France and Poland has found that electrons inside of some ceramic crystals appear to dissipate in a surprising, yet familiar way—possibly a clue to the reason for the odd behavior of "strange metals." In their paper published in the journal Nature Physics, the researchers describe their experiments to better understand why strange metals behave the way they do.

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Your riding position can give you an advantage in a road cycling sprint, research shows

Many professional road cycling events are hundreds of kilometres long, but the final placings are often decided by what happens in the last few seconds of any race stage.

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The subtle science of wok tossing

Wok tossing is essential for making a good fried rice—or so claim a group of researchers presenting new work at the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics 71st Annual Meeting, which will take place Nov. 18-20 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

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'Magnetic topological insulator' makes its own magnetic field

A team of U.S. and Korean physicists has found the first evidence of a two-dimensional material that can become a magnetic topological insulator even when it is not placed in a magnetic field.

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Law of soot light absorption: Current climate models underestimate warming by black carbon aerosol

Soot belches out of diesel engines, rises from wood- and dung-burning cookstoves and shoots out of oil refinery stacks. According to recent research, air pollution, including soot, is linked to heart disease, some cancers and, in the United States, as many as 150,000 cases of diabetes every year.

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Making X-ray microscopy 10 times faster

Microscopes make the invisible visible. And compared to conventional light microscopes, transmission x-ray microscopes (TXM) can see into samples with much higher resolution, revealing extraordinary details. Researchers across a wide range of scientific fields use TXM to see the structural and chemical makeup of their samples—everything from biological cells to energy storage materials.

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Universal laws in impact dynamics of dust agglomerates under microgravity conditions

A collaboration between Nagoya University and TU Braunschweig finds evidence that when projectiles hit soft clumps of dust or hard clumps of loose glass beads, the scaling laws for energy dissipation and energy transfer are the same in each case. This helps to understand how granular clumps stick together, and how planets are formed.

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Swarmlike collective behavior in bicycling

Whether it's the acrobatics of a flock of starlings or the synchronized swimming of a school of fish, nature is full of examples of large-scale collective behavior. Humans also exhibit this behavior, most notably in pelotons, the mass of riders in bicycle races.

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Researchers propose solutions for urine sample splash dilemma

Urinating into a cup may be a medical necessity for monitoring the health of the kidney and other issues, but it's often uncomfortable, embarrassing and messy—especially for women. But what if there were a way to comfortably provide a sample without the splashback?

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Scientists explain how wombats drop cubed poop

Wombats, the chubby and beloved, short-legged marsupials native to Australia, are central to a biological mystery in the animal kingdom: How do they produce cube-shaped poop? Patricia Yang, a postdoctoral fellow in mechanical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, set out to investigate.

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Helping Marvel superheroes to breathe

Marvel comics superheroes Ant-Man and the Wasp—nom de guerre stars of the eponymous 2018 film—possess the ability to temporarily shrink down to the size of insects, while retaining the mass and strength of their normal human bodies. But a new study suggests that, when bug-sized, Ant-Man and the Wasp would face serious challenges, including oxygen deprivation.

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Explaining a fastball's unexpected twist

An unexpected twist from a four-seam or a two-seam fastball can make the difference in a baseball team winning or losing the World Series. However, "some explanations regarding the different pitches are flat-out wrong," said Barton Smith, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Utah State University who considers himself a big fan of the game.

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Scientists produce 3-D chemical maps of single bacteria

Scientists at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory—have used ultrabright x-rays to image single bacteria with higher spatial resolution than ever before. Their work, published in Scientific Reports, demonstrates an X-ray imaging technique, called X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XRF), as an effective approach to produce 3-D images of small biological samples.

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Infinite-dimensional symmetry opens up possibility of a new physics—and new particles

The symmetries that govern the world of elementary particles at the most elementary level could be radically different from what has so far been thought. This surprising conclusion emerges from new work published by theoreticians from Warsaw and Potsdam. The scheme they posit unifies all the forces of nature in a way that is consistent with existing observations and anticipates the existence of new particles with unusual properties that may even be present in our close environs.

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Take a weight off: 'Grand K' kilo being retired

Humankind is about to sever one of the links between its present and its past.

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Neutron pinhole magnifies discoveries at ORNL

Advanced materials are vital ingredients in products that we rely on like batteries, jet engine blades, 3-D-printed components in cars. Scientists and engineers use information about the structure and motion of atoms in these materials to design components that make these products more reliable, efficient and safe to use.

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Scientists provide first-ever views of elusive energy explosion

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have captured a difficult-to-view singular event involving "magnetic reconnection"—the process by which sparse particles and energy around Earth collide producing a quick but mighty explosion—in the Earth's magnetotail, the magnetic environment that trails behind the planet.

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Fullerene compounds made simulation-ready

What in the smart nanomaterials world is widely available, highly symmetrical and inexpensive? Hollow carbon structures, shaped like a football, called fullerenes. Their applications range from artificial photosynthesis and nonlinear optics to the production of photoactive films and nanostructures. To make them even more flexible, fullerenes can be combined with added nanostructures. In a new study published in EPJ D, Kirill B. Agapev from ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia, and colleagues have developed a method that can be used for future simulations of fullerene complexes and thus help understand their characteristics.

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The kilogram is being redefined – a physicist explains

How much is a kilogram? 1,000 grams. 2.20462 pounds. Or 0.0685 slugs based on the old Imperial gravitational system. But where does this amount actually come from and how can everyone be sure they are using the same measurement?

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Cold neutrons used in hot pursuit of better thermoelectrics

Thermoelectric devices are highly versatile, with the ability to convert heat into electricity, and electricity into heat. They are small, lightweight, and extremely durable because they have no moving parts, which is why they have been used to power NASA spacecraft on long-term missions, including the Voyager space probes launched in 1977.

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The weak force—life couldn't exist without it

David Armstrong studies a phenomenon that is ubiquitous in nature, yet only a few non-scientists know what it is.

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Bursting bubbles launch bacteria from water to air

Wherever there's water, there's bound to be bubbles floating at the surface. From standing puddles, lakes, and streams, to swimming pools, hot tubs, public fountains, and toilets, bubbles are ubiquitous, indoors and out.

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First phase of Brazil's particle accelerator construction completed

Brazil President Michel Temer inaugurated the opening construction phase of a particle accelerator the size of the Maracana football stadium that will be used to make advances in medicine, nutrition, archeology, electronics, energy and the environment.

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Stretchable thermoelectric coils for energy harvesting in miniature flexible wearable devices

Miniaturized semiconductor devices with energy harvesting features have paved the way to wearable technologies and sensors. Although thermoelectric systems have attractive features in this context, the ability to maintain large temperature differences across device terminals remains increasingly difficult to achieve with accelerated trends in device miniaturization. As a result, a group of scientists in applied sciences and engineering has developed and demonstrated a proposal on an architectural solution to the problem in which engineered thin-film active materials are integrated into flexible three-dimensional (3-D) forms.

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When electric fields make spins swirl

We are reaching the limits of silicon capabilities in terms of data storage density and speed of memory devices. One of the potential next-generation data storage elements is the magnetic skyrmion. A team at the Center for Correlated Electron Systems, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea), in collaboration with the University of Science and Technology of China, have reported the discovery of small and ferroelectrically tunable skyrmions. Published in Nature Materials, this work introduces new compelling advantages that bring skyrmion research a step closer to application.

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Big jobs: Safety, planning key to increasing production performance at Spallation Neutron Source

For many species, winter serves as a time to rest and recuperate to return stronger in the year ahead. In many respects, so is it also for certain large-scale science facilities.

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Doubly-excited electrons reach new energy states

Positrons are short-lived subatomic particle with the same mass as electrons and a positive charge. They are used in medicine, e.g. in positron emission tomography (PET), a diagnostic imaging method for metabolic disorders. Positrons also exist as negatively charged ions, called positronium ions (Ps-), which are essentially a three-particle system consisting of two electrons bound to a positron.

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New finding of particle physics may help to explain the absence of antimatter

With the help of computer simulations, particle physics researchers may be able to explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the Universe. The simulations offer a new way of examining conditions after the Big Bang, and could provide answers to some fundamental questions in particle physics.

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Researchers ID promising key to performance of next-gen electronics

Taking electrons out for a spin through the nanoscopic streets of a digital device – without spinning out of control – has challenged researchers for years.

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Dark matter 'hurricane' offers chance to detect axions

A team of researchers from Universidad de Zaragoza, King's College London and the Institute of Astronomy in the U.K. has found that a "dark matter hurricane" passing through our solar system offers a better than usual chance of detecting axions. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review D, the group describes their findings and why they believe their observations could offer help in understanding dark matter.

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This is heavy: The kilogram is getting an update

The kilogram is getting an update.

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Quantum leap for mass as science redefines the kilogramme

Sealed in a vault beneath a duke's former pleasure palace among the sycamore-streaked forests west of Paris sits an object the size of an apple that determines the weight of the world.

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Innovative approach to controlling magnetism opens route to ultra-low-power microchips

A new approach to controlling magnetism in a microchip could open the doors to memory, computing, and sensing devices that consume drastically less power than existing versions. The approach could also overcome some of the inherent physical limitations that have been slowing progress in this area until now.

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Physicists build fractal shape out of electrons

In physics, it is well-known that electrons behave very differently in three dimensions, two dimensions or one dimension. These behaviours give rise to different possibilities for technological applications and electronic systems. But what happens if electrons live in 1.58 dimensions – and what does it actually mean? Theoretical and experimental physicists at Utrecht University investigated these questions in a new study that will be published in Nature Physics on 12 November.

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Atomic parity violation research reaches new milestone

A reflection always reproduces objects as a complete mirror image, rather than just its individual parts or individual parts in a completely different orientation. It's all or nothing, the mirror can't reflect just a little. This illustrates a fundamental symmetry principle in nature. For decades, physics assumed that the laws of nature in our world and in the mirror world would be identical, that parity would be preserved. Then in 1956, in the realm of elementary particles, or more precisely in the realm of the weak interaction, researchers discovered a violation of this principle. Parity violation has been a subject of scientific research ever since.

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Unified theory explains two characteristic features of frustrated magnets

For the first time, physicists present a unified theory explaining two characteristic features of frustrated magnets and why they're often seen together.

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Innovative experimental scheme can create mirror molecules

Exploring the mystery of molecular handedness in nature, scientists have proposed a new experimental scheme to create custom-made mirror molecules for analysis. The technique can make ordinary molecules spin so fast that they lose their normal symmetry and shape and form mirrored versions of each other. The research team from DESY, Universität Hamburg and University College London led by Jochen Küpper describes the innovative method in the journal Physical Review Letters. The further exploration of handedness, or chirality (from the ancient Greek word for hand, "cheir"), does not only enhance insight in the workings of nature, but could also pave the way for new materials and methods.

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Stephen Hawking's final book suggests time travel may one day be possible – here's what to make of it

"If one made a research grant application to work on time travel it would be dismissed immediately," writes the physicist Stephen Hawking in his posthumous book Brief Answers to the Big Questions. He was right. But he was also right that asking whether time travel is possible is a "very serious question" that can still be approached scientifically.

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Sending spin waves into an insulating 2-D magnet

Quantum Hall ferromagnets are among the purest magnets in the world—and one of the most difficult to study. These 2-D magnets can only be made in temperatures less than a degree above absolute zero and in high magnetic fields, about the scale of an MRI.

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Four base units of measure in the metric system about to be changed

Officials with the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) have announced that at a meeting to be held next week, four of the base units used in the metric system will be redefined. The four units under review are the ampere, kilogram, mole and kelvin.

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Spacetime—a creation of well-known actors?

Most physicists believe that the structure of spacetime is formed in an unknown way at the Planck scale, i.e., at a scale close to one trillionth of a trillionth of a metre. However, careful considerations undermine this prediction. There are quite a few arguments in favour of the emergence of spacetime as a result of processes taking place at the level of quarks and their conglomerates.

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Letter shows a fearful Einstein long before Nazis' rise

More than a decade before the Nazis seized power in Germany, Albert Einstein was on the run and already fearful for his country's future, according to a newly revealed handwritten letter.

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Factors affecting turbulence scaling

Fluids exhibiting scaling behaviour can be found in diverse physical phenomena occurring both in the laboratory and in real-world conditions. For instance, they occur at the critical point when a liquid becomes a vapour, at the phase transition of superfluids, and at the phase separation of binary liquids whose components exhibit two different types of behaviour.

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Unlocking the secrets of metal-insulator transitions

By using an X-ray technique available at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), scientists found that the metal-insulator transition in the correlated material magnetite is a two-step process. The researchers from the University of California Davis published their paper in the journal Physical Review Letters. NSLS-II, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility located at Brookhaven National Laboratory, has unique features that allow the technique to be applied with stability and control over long periods of time.

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Producing four top quarks at once to explore the unknown

For several decades, particle physicists have been trying to better understand nature at the smallest distances by colliding particles at the highest energies. While the Standard Model of particle physics has successfully explained most of the results produced by experiments, many phenomena remain baffling. Thus, new particles, forces or more general concepts must exist and – if the history of particle physics is any indication – they could well be revealed at the high-energy frontier.

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Revealing the inner working of magnetic materials

Björn Alling, researcher in theoretical physics at Linköping University, has, together with his colleagues, completed the task given to him by the Swedish Research Council in the autumn of 2014: Find out what happens inside magnetic materials at high temperatures.

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Levitating particles could lift nuclear detective work

Laser-based 'optical tweezers' could levitate uranium and plutonium particles, thus allowing the measurement of nuclear recoil during radioactive decay. This technique, proposed by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, provides a new method for conducting the radioactive particle analysis essential to nuclear forensics.

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How beatboxers produce sound: Using real-time MRI to understand

Beatboxing is a musical art form in which performers use their vocal tract to create percussive sounds. Sometimes individual beatboxers perform as a part of an ensemble, using their vocal tracts to provide beats for other musicians; other times, beatboxers perform alone, where they might sing and beatbox simultaneously or simply make sounds without singing.

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Codebreaker Turing's theory explains how shark scales are patterned

A system proposed by world war two codebreaker Alan Turing more than 60 years ago can explain the patterning of tooth-like scales possessed by sharks, according to new research.

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Researchers create most complete high-resolution atomic movie of photosynthesis to date

Despite its role in shaping life as we know it, many aspects of photosynthesis remain a mystery. An international collaboration between scientists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and several other institutions is working to change that. The researchers used SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser to capture the most complete and highest resolution picture to date of Photosystem II, a key protein complex in plants, algae and cyanobacteria responsible for splitting water and producing the oxygen we breathe. The results were published in Nature today.

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How stretchy fluids react to wavy surfaces

Viscoelastic fluids are everywhere, whether racing through your veins or through 1,300 kilometers of pipe in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Unlike Newtonian fluids, such as oil or water, viscoelastic fluids stretch like a sticky strand of saliva. Chains of molecules inside the fluids grant them this superpower, and scientists are still working to understand how it affects their behavior. Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have brought us one step closer by demonstrating how viscoelastic fluids flow over wavy surfaces, and their results are unexpected.

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Dancing atoms in perovskite materials provide insight into how solar cells work

A closer look at materials that make up conventional solar cells reveals a nearly rigid arrangement of atoms with little movement. But in hybrid perovskites, a promising class of solar cell materials, the arrangements are more flexible and atoms dance wildly around, an effect that impacts the performance of the solar cells but has been difficult to measure.

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Scientists to track the reaction of crystals to the electric field

An international scientific team, which included scientists from China, Israel, England and Russia, has developed a new method for measuring the response of crystals on the electric field. The study, performed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), were published in the Journal of Applied Crystallography and appeared on the cover of the October issue. This method will help to implement new and improve existing functional materials.

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Physicists design new antenna for next-generation super-sensitive magnetometers

Scientists from ITMO University and Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have proposed a new microwave antenna that creates a uniform magnetic field in large volume. It is capable of uniform, coherent addressing of the electronic spins of an ensemble of nanodiamond structure defects. This can be used to create super-sensitive magnetic field detectors for magnetoencephalography in the study and diagnosis of epilepsy and other diseases. The results are published in JETP Letters.

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How function may abruptly emerge or disappear in physical and biological systems

In physical, biological and technological systems, the time that a system's components take to influence each other can affect the transition to synchronization, an important finding that improves understanding of how these systems function, according to a study led by Georgia State University.

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Using neutrinos detected by IceCube to measure mass of the Earth

A trio of researchers from CSIC-Universitat de València and Universitat de Barcelona has used data from the IceCube detector in Antarctica to measure Earth's mass. In their paper published in the journal Nature Physics, Andrea Donini, Sergio Palomares-Ruiz and Jordi Salvado describe using data describing neutrinos passing through the Earth to learn more about the interior of the planet. Véronique Van Elewyck with Paris Diderot University has written a News and Views piece on the work done by the team in the same journal issue.

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In materials hit with light, individual atoms and vibrations take disorderly paths

Hitting a material with laser light sends vibrations rippling through its latticework of atoms, and at the same time can nudge the lattice into a new configuration with potentially useful properties – turning an insulator into a metal, for instance.

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Mystery particle spotted? Discovery would require physics so weird that nobody has even thought of it

There was a huge amount of excitement when the Higgs boson was first spotted back in 2012 – a discovery that bagged the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013. The particle completed the so-called standard model, our current best theory of understanding nature at the level of particles.

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Deconstructing crowd noise at college basketball games

With thousands of fans clapping, chanting, shouting and jeering, college basketball games can be almost deafeningly loud. Some arenas have decibel meters, which, accurately or not, provide some indication of the noise volume generated by the spectators and the sound systems. However, crowd noise is rarely the focus of scientific inquiry.

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Griffith precision measurement takes it to the limit

Griffith University researchers have demonstrated a procedure for making precise measurements of speed, acceleration, material properties and even gravity waves possible, approaching the ultimate sensitivity allowed by laws of quantum physics.

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Laser blasting antimatter into existence

Antimatter is an exotic material that vaporizes when it contacts regular matter. If you hit an antimatter baseball with a bat made of regular matter, it would explode in a burst of light. It is rare to find antimatter on Earth, but it is believed to exist in the furthest reaches of the universe. Amazingly, antimatter can be created out of thin air—scientists can create blasts of matter and antimatter simultaneously using light that is extremely energetic.

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New antimatter gravity experiments begin at CERN

We learn it at high school: Release two objects of different masses in the absence of friction forces and they fall down at the same rate in Earth's gravity. What we haven't learned, because it hasn't been directly measured in experiments, is whether antimatter falls down at the same rate as ordinary matter or if it might behave differently. Two new experiments at CERN, ALPHA-g and GBAR, have now started their journey towards answering this question.

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Machine learning improves accuracy of particle identification at LHC

Scientists from the Higher School of Economics have developed a method that allows physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to separate between various types of elementary particles with a high degree of accuracy. The results were published in the Journal of Physics.

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First two-dimensional material that performs as both topological insulator and superconductor

A transistor based on the 2-D material tungsten ditelluride (WTe2) sandwiched between boron nitride can switch between two different electronic states—one that conducts current only along its edges, making it a topological insulator, and one that conducts current with no resistance, making it a superconductor—researchers at MIT and colleagues from four other institutions have demonstrated.

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