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Since the Large Hadron Collider went back in business, all sort of rumors have been circling the scientific circles (and not only). However, until these rumors are proven wrong or right, the first official paper on proton collisions from the Large Hadron Collider has been published in this week’s edition of Springer’s European Physical Journal […]
Blue whales are not only the biggest living creatures in the world right now, but the biggest ever to have ‘walked’ the face of the earth; they’re also the loudest for that matter. After recovering from near extinction in the beginning of the 20th century, blue whales are finally getting a part of the respect […]
Well, rumors and science never go well together, especially when it goes to something as important as the work going on at LHC, who just got back in business a short while ago. My first reaction was to believe it was just a rumor. However, after hearing and reading many articles on this I still […]
The researchers and engineers operating the Large Hadron Collider have smashed together for the first time protons, in what is considered a huge step forward by pretty much everybody working at the huge physics experiment. The particles were accelerated on Monday, through the LHC’s 27 km and then ‘drove’ into each other, in an attempt […]
Physicists from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) have demonstrated what they claim to be the first universal programmable quantum information processor that will be able to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics (the set of principles that describe the atomic and subatomic matter). They managed to accomplish this using two quantum bits […]
The first experiments with this laser (Linac Coherent Light Source) have been given the green light at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The illuminating of objects and processing speed will take place at an unprecedented scale, promising groundbreaking research in physics, chemistry, biology and numerous other fields. “No one has ever had […]
You're not going to power too many devices with electricity from trees. But it is a very interesting phenomenon.
Virginia Commonwealth University managed to discover what they have called a ‘magnetic superatom‘, a stable cluster of atoms that can ‘impersonate’ various elements from the periodic table, that could be put to use in numerous fields, especially for biomedical purposes and to create molecular devices for the next generation of computer memory.A team from the […]
The guys over at WHOI are doing more and more interesting things every day; just a few days ago I wrote about Noah’s ark debate and guess what: they’re in the highlights today also. This time it’s with an underwater robot developed by Stephen Licht, named Finnegan (after a James Joyce comic, Finnegan’s wake) because […]
You may or may not have heard about blue stragglers; they are blue stars that are hotter and bluer than other stars with the same luminosity. Until now, it seemed that these stars defied most if not all of the standard stellar theories, but scientists now believe they have finally solved this stellar mistery. The […]
A while ago we were a bit worried about the future of Hubble, but it seems the people at NASA managed to once again do an amazing job, so the most well known telescope is back in business, and up to big things actually. Just a few days after it was brought back online, Hubble […]
If you ever wanted to stroll “spidy” your way around the big city, your dream is one step closer to becoming reality, as physicists have found the formula for what they call a “spider suit“. To do this, they applied what they learned from the dazzling gecko and it’s ability to climb walls as well […]
As a proud student in geophysics, I can tell you that opal is hydrated silicon dioxide mineral with many astounding properties, but it’s also water hydrated. Since water hydrated minerals have been found on Mars we are led to the logic conclusion that when these minerals was formed, there was water on Mars. Opals have […]
The efficiency of the solar cells is the first thing needed to be improved in order to improve the quality of the solar panels, and it is the aim of more and more scientists as time passes. Still, very few manage to obtain a breakthrough, and that’s exactly what researchers at University of New South […]
Chinese researchers confirmed the theory that they are building an “impossible” space drive, and at this stage they are building a demonstration version; if things go according to their plans, this could revolutionize space exploration and the economy of satellites, giving China a significant military and economical advantage over other countries. This year, “Emdrive” (short […]
Photo by Firentzesca Recently, attempts to make “cloaking technology” possible have reached a great level, with major break throws. Among mentionable achievements, more notable are the work of Oleg Gadomsky, a Russian professor that managed to redirect light around objects and that of the people from the University of Maryland, who reported the successful cloaking […]
Michio Kaku, a highly regarded physicist and one of the world’s leading authorities on string theory (essentially an attempt to discover a “theory of everything” combining all of the known physical forces) has virtually redefined what is impossible and what is not. He has studied and tried to predict the future of science and physics […]
For almost a century, scientists have been trying to figure out what’s good and what’s bad about Einstein’s vision of the universe. Blending the traditional view of physics with the bizarre almost impossible to understand world of quantum physics is no easy task – for anybody. It’s due to our current understanding of these phenomena […]
Think about the hottest thing that comes to your mind; probably, 90% of people would answer the Sun. But what if you found out that some scientists in Oxfordshire have heated matter to 10 million Celsius, hotter than the surface of the Sun, marking a major landmark in research, you’d probably change your mind. […]
I really hope everybody knows who Einstein is, and many people know why he is famous and how he left is mark in the scientific world. Still, aside from his brilliant results in physics (mostly), he is also very well known for his aphorisms, metaphors and overall interesting way of expressing himself. I’ve always […]
Photo by jago In a study conducted by researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University that claimed a different perspective, it was published that it takes between 3,000 gallons and 6,000 gallons of water to power a 60-watt incandescent bulb for about 12 hours per day in a year. As it turns out, size […]
In what is a great leap for science, scientists from UCLA and the University of Washington have succeeded in creating “designer enzymes,” a major milestone in computational chemistry and protein engineering. The two groups were led by UCLA’s chemistry professor Kendall Houk and Washington’s biochemist David Baker. Designer enzymes will have applications for defense against […]
A laser is an electronic-optical device that produces coherent light radiation. It’s very useful in various fields, such as medicine (bloodless surgery, laser healing, survical treatment, kidney stone treatment, eye treatment, dentistry), industry (cutting, welding, material heat treatment, marking parts) research (Spectroscopy, laser ablation, Laser annealing, laser scattering) and many many others. Now picture the […]
Charging your cell phone may be as simple as a walk in the park – literally. Scientists have created a mechanism that harvests the mechanical energy from the knees while you are walking. To prove this fascinating concept, they used six volunteers which wore the device while walking on a treadmill and were able […]
Charging the cell phones is a drag; and the battery drops out just when you need it most. Having a battery that would last 10 times as long wouldn’t solve every problem of that type but it definetly would be very helpful. Also, an energy-efficient chip would be very helpful in other cases, and this […]
Antimatter is a fascinating story; basically nobody knows for sure what it could do and scientists have been trying to understand it for years. The artificial production of atoms of antimatter (specifically antihydrogen) first became a reality in the early 1990s. For example an atom of antihydrogen is composed of a negatively-charged antiproton being orbited […]
Researchers are searching everyday for options which could bring an ending to the energy issue or at least delay it for an undefinite time and bacteria researching has developed a lot so it would only seem sensible to bring those two together. The point would be well to obtain a bacteria which generates electricity. Researchers […]
We have another piece of evidence which goes to show that we fail to understand numerous things about our universe. Astronomers have discovered white dwarf stars with pure carbon atmospheres. It is something that probably nobody would have believed. The exact way these stars evolved is still pretty much a mystery for astrophysicists. They believe […]
Nanotech could be applied in just about everything. With time scientists find out ways to apply it to various fields; building small, efficient electronics could be very useful in further use of nanotechnology. A University of Arkansas physicist and her colleagues have examined the response of the nanostructures polarization to electric fields which is known […]
Every day you hear about locations where the laws of physics appear not to apply or where anomalies take place every day; a big part of them are just hoaxes or are caused by misinterpretation of data but there are some which we have not been able to explain. According to an austrian physicist the […]
Those bursts are from magnetars. You may have some idea about what a white dwarf is, or a black hole or even a pulsar, but what are magnetars? Magnetars are neutron stars with an extremely powerful magnetic field; their decay powers the emission of copious amounts of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma-rays. They pack […]
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon. Their strength and flexibility makes them useful in controlling other nanoscale structures, which suggests they will have an important role in nanotechnology engineering. They are also used in concrete where they increase the tensile strength, and halt crack propagation in elevators, bridges, circuits, magnets, transistors, and they […]