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Physics news 1234

Study Suggests the Existence of Ferroelectric Ice in the Universe

November 27, 2006 | User rating: 4.5 / 5 after 84 vote(s) | No comments yet

Various forms of ice have been found in many locations within the frigid reaches of our galaxy, from interstellar clouds to comets, moons, and planets. But a particularly intriguing and rare type, “ferroelectric” ...


A New Approach to Superconducting Memory

November 06, 2006 | User rating: 4.3 / 5 after 60 vote(s) | User comments: 1

Despite the potential of superconductor-based electronics to significantly impact the electronics industry – for example, a superconducting computer chip is a thousand times faster than the one within the laptop ...


Light-emitting transistor uses light to transfer an electrical signal

November 01, 2006 | User rating: 4.5 / 5 after 106 vote(s) | No comments yet

In one of the early discoveries of the current "silicon electrophotonics era," scientists from Hitachi, Ltd. in Tokyo have built a light-emitting transistor (LET) that transfers, detects and controls an electrical ...


Scientists present method for entangling macroscopic objects

October 24, 2006 | User rating: 4.8 / 5 after 96 vote(s) | No comments yet

Building upon recent studies on optomechanical entanglement with lasers and mirrors, a group of scientists has developed a theoretical model using entanglement swapping in order to entangle two micromechanical ...


Particle decay may point to New Physics

October 11, 2006 | User rating: 4.7 / 5 after 142 vote(s) | No comments yet

A tiny flaw has caught the attention of physicists: the Standard Model (SM) predicts that the B meson mixing phase should be measured at nearly the same result using two different classes of decay modes. However, ...


Single-particle interference observed for macroscopic objects

September 28, 2006 | User rating: 4.7 / 5 after 126 vote(s) | No comments yet

With a variation on the famous double-slit experiment of quantum mechanics, scientists Yves Couder and Emmanuel Fort from the University of Paris 7 are rewriting the textbooks. Their accomplishment, however, ...


A Printer that Delivers 1,000 Pages a Minute?

September 21, 2006 | User rating: 3.9 / 5 after 154 vote(s) | No comments yet

Two researchers from The College of Judea and Samaria in Israel have designed an ink-jet printer head that could lead to printers capable of chugging out 1,000 pages per minute – or even more.


A 'prisoner's dilemma' for real-life situations

September 20, 2006 | User rating: 4.1 / 5 after 48 vote(s) | No comments yet

What's best for the individual and what's best for society are often not the same thing--this predicament is the premise for the famous "prisoner's dilemma" game. However, healthy societies depend on individuals ...


New theory (and old equations) may explain causes of ship-sinking freak waves

September 13, 2006 | User rating: 4.5 / 5 after 155 vote(s) | No comments yet

On a stormy April day in 1995, the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 was sailing in the North Atlantic when the ocean liner dipped into a "hole in the sea." Out of the darkness, a towering 95-foot wave threatened to crash ...


Dark Energy and Dark Matter – The Results of Flawed Physics?

September 11, 2006 | User rating: 4.6 / 5 after 233 vote(s) | No comments yet

There are few scientific concepts as intriguing and mysterious as dark energy and dark matter, said to make up as much as 95 percent of all the energy and matter in the universe. And even though scientists ...


Sterile neutrinos and the search for warm dark matter

September 01, 2006 | User rating: 4.3 / 5 after 54 vote(s) | No comments yet

Matteo Viel, a research fellow at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, England, believes that particle physics and cosmology could be more compatible as scientists work toward understanding the origins ...


Snakes’ heat vision enables accurate attacks on prey

August 31, 2006 | User rating: 4.5 / 5 after 50 vote(s) | No comments yet

Call it a sixth sense, or evolution’s gift to these cold-blooded reptiles: some snakes have infrared vision. Also called “heat vision,” the infrared rays, which have longer wavelengths than those of visible ...


Flies provide aerodynamic model for tiny flying vehicles

August 28, 2006 | User rating: 4 / 5 after 57 vote(s) | No comments yet

When it comes to flying, the fly reigns supreme. This two-winged insect’s sophisticated flying behavior enables it to make sharp turns, aim at targets and hover – traits which make the insect an ideal prototype ...


Scientists turn dents into smart bumps

August 23, 2006 | User rating: 4.4 / 5 after 50 vote(s) | No comments yet

Due to a phenomenon called the shape memory effect (SME), certain "memory metals" can be distorted and then brought back to their original shape by a simple temperature change. While a one-way memory effect ...


Scientists explain causes of abrupt rain storms

August 15, 2006 | User rating: 4.2 / 5 after 54 vote(s) | No comments yet

No two rain storms are alike. Dark clouds may form slowly throughout the day before a drop of rain falls, and sunny days can suddenly transform into thunderstorms. Different societies throughout history have ...


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