Illustration of a carbon molecule undergoing laser cooling. Credit: Nicoletta Barolini, Columbia University Life (as we know it) is based on carbon. Despite its ubiquity, this important element still holds many secrets, on Earth and in the heavens above. For example, astrophysicists such as Daniel Wolf Savin of Columbia, who study interstellar clouds, want to …
Taking quantum control over the building blocks of life Read More »
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 public domain NASA’s first-ever launch from a commercial site outside the United States launched late Sunday in Australia’s Outback, marking a “historic” moment for the country’s aerospace industry. In the first of three planned launches from the Arnhem Space Center, the rocket, using technology similar to a “mini Hubble” telescope, lifted off – …
NASA blasts away from Australian Outback in ‘historic’ launch Read More »
Sound waves can also direct objects in organisms. Daniel Ahmed, engineer at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, recently used ultrasound to move hollow plastic beads into a living zebrafish embryo. By doing these experiments, Ahmed aims to demonstrate the potential of using sound to direct drugs to a target site in an animal, such as a …
Forget lasers. The hot new tool for physicists is good Read More »
Naked A. simplex and A. simplex covered with a hydrogel sheath containing fluorescent dye. Credit: Shinji Sakai James Bond’s legendary Quartermaster Q provided the special agent with an endless array of tools and gadgets to help him complete his missions. Now, researchers from Japan have shown that they are equally adept at equipping microscopic worms …
Worm Custom Suits That Can Deliver Functional Load Read More »
A teacher accused of kissing and groping a student has admitted to drinking ‘excessively’ alcohol‘ on the night in question. Ashley McConnell, 34, said she frequented several bars and ordered two drinks at once, as well as shots during a night out in Thurso, Caithness, with friends in March 2018. The physics teacher, who taught …
When a star 20 times as massive as our sun dies, it can explode in a supernova and squeeze back down into a dense black hole (with the help of gravity). But that explosion is never perfectly symmetrical, so sometimes the resulting black holes shoot into space. These wandering objects are often referred to as …
‘Rogue black holes’ may not be ‘rogue’ or ‘black holes’ Read More »
Neutrinos have long been one of the most confusing and mysterious of all known subatomic particles — but they only got more confusing after two groups of scientists announced conflicting results. Neutrinos are like ghostly chameleons Neutrinos are often said to be the spirits of the physical world because they interact so little with matter, …
Neutrinos: “Ghostly Chameleons” Get Even More Mysterious Read More »
This microscope image provided by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in June 2022 shows thin strands of Thiomargarita magnifica bacterial cells next to an American dime. The species was discovered among the mangroves of the Guadeloupe Archipelago in the French Caribbean. A team of researchers from the Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), …
World’s largest bacteria found in Caribbean mangrove swamp Read More »
Paenibacillus bacteria shown colonized in a Petri dish. In the test house, the bacterial species was associated with coffee molecules and found where coffee was prepared. The bacteria may have healthy properties. Credit: Prof. dr. Eshel Ben-Jacob, Wikimedia In and on every human being are countless microorganisms – the microbiota that help shape and direct …
Roommates are all about chemistry, molecularly speaking Read More »
A long-standing question in nuclear physics is whether chargeless nuclear systems can exist. Only neutron stars represent nearly pure neutron systems, where neutrons are compressed to very high densities by gravity. The experimental search for isolated multi-neutron systems has been an ongoing quest for decades, with particular reference to the four-neutron system called the tetraneutron. …
Tetraneutron – an exotic state of matter discovered Read More »
