Physics posts
- May 21, 2013
- 02:23 PM
- 26 views
Berkeley Lab Builds ‘Artificial Forest’ to Harvest Solar Energy
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
Devices for artificial photosynthesis are often called “artificial leaves”. This leaves, however, are of no use unless you can create an “artificial forest” from them. Now, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have reported the first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis.... Read more »
Liu, C., Tang, J., Chen, H., Liu, B., & Yang, P. (2013) A Fully Integrated Nanosystem of Semiconductor Nanowires for Direct Solar Water Splitting. Nano Letters, 2147483647. DOI: 10.1021/nl401615t
- May 18, 2013
- 07:06 AM
- 38 views
Ground-breaking science and spectacular cosmic images from the PAPER instrument in the Karoo
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
-Scientific studies done with the “PAPER” array, one of the world-class scientific instruments in South Africa’s Karoo Radio Astronomy Reserve, is producing ground-breaking science and spectacular cosmic images, resulting in several important articles in top astronomy journals.
-The first scientific paper based on observations performed with South Africa’s new KAT-7 radio telescope, has been accepted for publication by the prestigious journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society.
“This is a significant milestone for South Africa’s SKA project, proving that our engineers are able to deliver a cutting-edge scientific instrument, and that our scientists are able to use it for frontier science,” says Derek Hanekom, South Africa’s Minister of Science and Technology. “It bodes well for the delivery of our 64-dish MeerKAT telescope, currently under construction in the Karoo, and for our ability to play a key role in building and commissioning thousands of SKA antennas over the next ten years.”... Read more »
SKA SA Project Office. (2013) Ground-breaking science and spectacular cosmic images from the PAPER instrument in the Karoo. SKA Africa . info:/
- May 17, 2013
- 04:55 PM
- 36 views
Strategies for Breaking Even on Home Energy Consumption Suggested
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
When you are buying a car you always look at official miles per gallon figures to find out how much fuel it will use. At the same time, most people have only a vague idea about how much energy their houses consume, even though home energy expenditures often account for a larger share of the household budget.... Read more »
N.A. McNabb. (2013) Strategies to Achieve Net-Zero Energy Homes: A Framework for Future Guidelines Workshop Summary Report. NIST Special Publication. DOI: 10.6028/NIST.SP.1140
- May 17, 2013
- 06:48 AM
- 76 views
CMS harbors new physics beyond the Standard Model
by Marco Frasca in The Gauge Connection
In these days is ongoing LHCP 2013 (First Large Hadron Collider Physics Conference) and CMS data seem to point significantly toward new physics. Their measurements on the production modes for WW and ZZ are agreeing with my recent computations (see here) and overall are deviating slightly from Standard Model expectations giving Note that Standard Model is alive and […]... Read more »
Marco Frasca. (2013) Revisiting the Higgs sector of the Standard Model. arXiv. arXiv: 1303.3158v1
Marco Frasca. (2010) Mass generation and supersymmetry. arXiv. arXiv: 1007.5275v2
T. G. Steele, & Zhi-Wei Wang. (2013) Is Radiative Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Consistent with a 125 GeV Higgs Mass?. Physical Review Letters, 151601. arXiv: 1209.5416v3
Krzysztof A. Meissner, & Hermann Nicolai. (2006) Conformal Symmetry and the Standard Model. Phys.Lett.B648:312-317,2007. arXiv: hep-th/0612165v4
- May 16, 2013
- 02:27 PM
- 33 views
Researchers Develop New Way to Produce Hydrogen From Water and Sunlight
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
Using a combination of microanalytic techniques that at the same time image photoelectric current and chemical reaction rates across a surface on a micrometer scale, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have shed new light on what may become a cost-effective way to generate hydrogen gas directly from water and sunlight.... Read more »
Esposito, D., Levin, I., Moffat, T., & Talin, A. (2013) H2 evolution at Si-based metal–insulator–semiconductor photoelectrodes enhanced by inversion channel charge collection and H spillover. Nature Materials. DOI: 10.1038/nmat3626
- May 15, 2013
- 11:31 PM
- 40 views
Evolution explains the fundamental constants of physics
by Artem Kaznatcheev in Evolutionary Games Group
While speaking at TEDxMcGill 2009, Jan Florjanczyk — friend, quantum information researcher, and former schoolmate of mine — provided one of the clearest characterization of theoretical physics that I’ve had the please of hearing: Theoretical physics is about tweaking the knobs and dials and assumptions of the laws that govern the universe and then interpolating […]... Read more »
Gardner, A., & Conlon, J. (2013) Cosmological natural selection and the purpose of the universe. Complexity. DOI: 10.1002/cplx.21446
- May 15, 2013
- 04:07 PM
- 40 views
Discovering a new planet (TAU-CfA articles)
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
1.TAU team takes part in discovering new planet
A team of astronomers at TAU and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have announced the first-ever discovery of an extrasolar planet via induced relativistic beaming of light from the host star.
2.New Method of Finding Planets Scores its First Discovery
- CfA... Read more »
TAU News office. (2013) TAU team takes part in discovering new planet. Tel Aviv University. info:/
- May 15, 2013
- 12:45 PM
- 37 views
The Modern Prometheus: Scientists Uncover the Secret of ‘Magnetic Fire’
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
A group of physicists from the New York University have uncovered how energy is released and dispersed in magnetic materials in a process similar to the spread of forest fires. This finding not only has the potential to deepen our understanding of self-sustained chemical reactions, but also could open new exciting possibilities for energy storage.... Read more »
Subedi, P., Vélez, S., Macià, F., Li, S., Sarachik, M., Tejada, J., Mukherjee, S., Christou, G., & Kent, A. (2013) Onset of a Propagating Self-Sustained Spin Reversal Front in a Magnetic System. Physical Review Letters, 110(20). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.207203
- May 14, 2013
- 03:16 PM
- 34 views
Graphene Redefines Electric Current, Literally
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
A new joint innovation by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Cambridge could pave the way for redefining the ampere in terms of fundamental constants of physics. The world’s first graphene single-electron pump (SEP) provides the speed of electron flow needed to create a new standard for electrical current based on electron charge.... Read more »
Connolly, M., Chiu, K., Giblin, S., Kataoka, M., Fletcher, J., Chua, C., Griffiths, J., Jones, G., Fal'ko, V., Smith, C.... (2013) Gigahertz quantized charge pumping in graphene quantum dots. Nature Nanotechnology. DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2013.73
- May 14, 2013
- 10:06 AM
- 37 views
First ever discovery of an alien planet with the help of Einstein's Theory of Relativity
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main Point:
Scientists have found, for the first time, an alien planet, dubbed as "Einstein's planet", with the help of the Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
Published in:
The Astrophysical Journal
Study Further:
"Einstein's planet" is officially called as Kepler-76b and is the first planet found by this method. It is the latest of the 800 planets located beyond our Solar System.
This planet is 25% larger than Jupiter and is two times of its weight; thereby scientists put it in the class known as "hot Jupiters". It revolves around its star in 1.5 days. This planet has a temperature of about 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit. This star is located about 2,000 light years away from us in the constellation Cygnus.
Researchers used the “beaming” effect predicted by Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. This special effect can be found when the star brightens up or down as the planet causes it to move towards or away from Earth.
"This is the first time that this aspect of Einstein's theory of relativity has been used to discover a planet," research team member Tsevi Mazeh of Tel Aviv University in Israel said in a statement.
Moreover, the revolving planet cause the star to stretch slightly into a football shape causing it to brighten up on its wider face showing more surface area. Additionally, the planet also reflected the small amount of starlight.
"We are looking for very subtle effects," said team member David Latham of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "We needed high quality measurements of stellar brightnesses, accurate to a few parts per million."
According to the scientists, this new Einstein-based method has advantage of not requiring high-precision measurements of the star’s velocity and is best for huge planets but not for Earth-sized planets.
Source:
Center for Astrophysics via Space via Fox News
Reference:
Simchon Faigler, Lev Tal-Or, Tsevi Mazeh, Dave W. Latham, & Lars A. Buchhave (2013). BEER analysis of Kepler and CoRoT light curves: I. Discovery of
Kepler-76b: A hot Jupiter with evidence for superrotation The Astrophysical Journal arXiv: 1304.6841v3... Read more »
Simchon Faigler, Lev Tal-Or, Tsevi Mazeh, Dave W. Latham, & Lars A. Buchhave. (2013) BEER analysis of Kepler and CoRoT light curves: I. Discovery of Kepler-76b: A hot Jupiter with evidence for superrotation. The Astrophysical Journal. arXiv: 1304.6841v3
- May 13, 2013
- 02:06 PM
- 43 views
Earth's central part is rotating differently than the rest of the planet
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main Point:
Scientists have found that the inner-core of the Earth rotates at a different and variable rate than the mantle - the central part of the Earth or another planet that is present between the core and the crust.
Published in:
Nature Geoscience
Study Further:
Scientists observed earthquake doublets - pairs of nearly identical earthquakes that can occur a couple of weeks to 30 or 40 years apart - over the last 5 decades to find the speed of the inner-core of the Earth.
“We perform an inverse analysis of 7 doublets observed at the College station, Alaska, as well as 17 previously reported doublets, and reconstruct a history of differential inner-core rotation between 1961 and 2007,” Researchers wrote.
Researchers found that the center of Earth is not in synchronization with the rest of the Earth and is rotating at different and changing rates.
"This is the first experimental evidence that the inner core has rotated at a variety of different speeds," Associate Professor Hrvoje Tkalcic from the ANU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, said in a statement.
"We found that, compared with the mantle, the inner core was rotating more quickly in the 1970s and 1990s, but slowed down in the 80s. The most dramatic acceleration has possibly occurred in the last few years, although further tests are needed to confirm that observation.
"Interestingly, Edmund Halley, namesake of Halley's Comet, speculated that the inner shells of the Earth rotate with a different speed back in 1692."
Source:
Australian National University
Reference:
Tkalčić, H., Young, M., Bodin, T., Ngo, S., & Sambridge, M. (2013). The shuffling rotation of the Earth’s inner core revealed by earthquake doublets Nature Geoscience DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1813... Read more »
Tkalčić, H., Young, M., Bodin, T., Ngo, S., & Sambridge, M. (2013) The shuffling rotation of the Earth’s inner core revealed by earthquake doublets. Nature Geoscience. DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1813
- May 13, 2013
- 11:11 AM
- 66 views
How to Convince People WiFi Is Making Them Sick
by Elizabeth Preston in Inkfish
All it takes is an antenna on a headband. If you've got a breathless video report on the dangers of wireless internet connections, that will help your case. It doesn't take much, though, to turn an ominous hint into a real headache.
Some people consider themselves sensitive to electromagnetic fields. They report symptoms such as burning skin, tingling, nausea, dizziness, or chest pain, and they blame their malaise on nearby power lines, cell phones, or WiFi networks. A recent Slate article described such people moving to a remote West Virginia town where radio-frequency signals are banned. (The town is within the U.S. National Radio Quiet Zone, an area that's enforced to keep signals from interfering with radio telescopes there—telescopes that work because they receive the radio-frequency signals constantly hitting our planet from space.)
There's no known scientific reason why a wireless signal might cause physical harm. And studies have found that even people who claim to be sensitive to electromagnetic fields can't actually sense them. Their symptoms are more likely due to nocebo, the evil twin of the placebo effect. The power of our expectation can cause real physical illness. In clinical drug trials, for example, subjects who take sugar pills report side effects ranging from an upset stomach to sexual dysfunction.
Psychologists Michael Witthöft and G. James Rubin of King's College London explored whether frightening TV reports can encourage a nocebo effect. They recruited a group of subjects and showed half of them a clip from a BBC documentary about the potential dangers of wireless internet. (The BBC later acknowledged that the 2007 program was "misleading.") The remaining subjects watched a video about the security of data transmissions over mobile phones.
After watching the videos, subjects put on headband-mounted antennas. They were told that the researchers were testing a "new kind of WiFi," and that once the signal started they should carefully monitor any symptoms in their bodies. Then the researchers left the room. For 15 minutes, the subjects watched a WiFi symbol flash on a laptop screen.
In reality, there was no WiFi switched on during the experiment, and the headband antenna was a sham. Yet 82 of the 147 subjects—more than half—reported symptoms. Two even asked for the experiment to be stopped early because the effects were too severe to stand.
Witthöft says he expected to see a greater effect in people who had watched the frightening documentary. This wasn't the case overall. Instead, the movie mainly increased symptoms in subjects who described themselves beforehand as more anxious.
"It suggests that sensational media reports especially in combination with personality factors (in this case anxiety) increase the likelihood for symptom reports," Witthöft says.
Plenty of symptoms were reported without the sensationalist TV show, though. The antenna on the head, the researchers' allusion to a "new kind of WiFi," and the instructions to monitor their bodies closely were enough to trigger symptoms in many people who watched the other video.
Witthöft points out that his study would have been stronger if there were a third group of subjects who didn't wear the "WiFi" headband at all, but were simply told to pay attention to their bodies for 15 minutes. This kind of attentiveness might trigger symptoms on its own.
Still, Witthöft says, "I think the high percentage of symptom reports nicely shows how powerful nocebo effects are."
Though the researchers set out to show how irresponsible reports in the media can trigger a nocebo effect, they ended up showing how easy it is to make a person feel sick with just a a prop and a few choice words. Even a National Radio Quiet Zone can't protect against that.
Witthöft, M., & Rubin, G. (2013). Are media warnings about the adverse health effects of modern life self-fulfilling? An experimental study on idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF) Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 74 (3), 206-212 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2012.12.002
Image: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid (via Flickr)
... Read more »
Witthöft, M., & Rubin, G. (2013) Are media warnings about the adverse health effects of modern life self-fulfilling? An experimental study on idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF). Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 74(3), 206-212. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2012.12.002
- May 13, 2013
- 09:45 AM
- 34 views
A Quantum Version of Google
by Carian Thus in United Academics
A team of computer scientists in Spain applied a quantum PageRank algorithm to a network with 7 webpages. They found that the quantum PageRank sometimes ordered the webpages differently in terms of importance, but averaging the quantum PageRank score over time recovered the classical ordering.... Read more »
Paparo, G., & Martin-Delgado, M. (2012) Google in a Quantum Network. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/srep00444
- May 12, 2013
- 08:35 AM
- 40 views
Electromicrobiology - One of the rapidly rising scientific fields
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Introduction:
Electromicrobiology is one of the rising subjects in the field of science. It combines the technology with biology.
In this subject, initially scientists found the transmission of electrical signals between the microbes. On a further note, in this subject, we study about the complex interaction between the microorganisms and technological devices while considering the novel electrical properties of the microorganisms i.e. accepting or donating the electrons from electrodes without any extra addition of electrons.
Some of the examples:
Shewanella oneidensis interacts with electrodes through flavins that work as soluble electron shuttles.
Geobacter sulfurreducens interacts directly with electrodes through c-type cytochromes present on the outer surface.
G. sulfurreducens has pili, known as microbial nanowires that have conducting ability same as metals. With the help of these pili, G. sulfurreducens can transport electrons over a long-range.
Emerging field:
This field is still in the emerging sciences as the mechanism behind the microbe-electrode electron exchange has been studied only in some of the microbes. It is quite possible that some of the microbes, which have not been studied by scientists, could perform better than the presently studied microorganisms.
Ken Nealson of ScienceNews, wrote “I think in 20 years, this may well be a major field.”
Reference:
Lovley, D. (2012). Electromicrobiology Annual Review of Microbiology, 66 (1), 391-409 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-micro-092611-150104... Read more »
Lovley, D. (2012) Electromicrobiology. Annual Review of Microbiology, 66(1), 391-409. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-micro-092611-150104
- May 11, 2013
- 01:34 PM
- 67 views
Birth of a Black Hole
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
A new kind of cosmic flash may reveal something never seen before: the birth of a black hole.... Read more »
Marcus Woo. (2013) Birth of a Black Hole. Caltech news . info:/
- May 10, 2013
- 09:32 AM
- 50 views
Scientists Use Cyborg Plants to Harvest Solar Energy
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
Our star, the Sun, provides most of the energy on this planet. (Essentially, all the energy except for nuclear, comes directly or indirectly from it.) Our current methods of converting solar radiation into electricity (photovoltaics) are not very efficient in comparison with plants. Researchers at the University of Georgia looked to nature for inspiration, and they are now developing a new technology that makes it possible to use plants to generate electricity.... Read more »
Calkins, J., Umasankar, Y., O'Neill, H., & Ramasamy, R. (2013) High photo-electrochemical activity of thylakoid–carbon nanotube composites for photosynthetic energy conversion. Energy . DOI: 10.1039/C3EE40634B
- May 10, 2013
- 08:40 AM
- 58 views
Exotic atoms hold clues to unsolved physics puzzle at the dawn of the universe
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
An international team of physicists has found the first direct evidence of pear shaped nuclei in exotic atoms.
The findings could advance the search for a new fundamental force in nature that could explain why the Big Bang created more matter than antimatter—a pivotal imbalance in the history of everything.... Read more »
Nicole Casal Moore. (2013) Exotic atoms hold clues to unsolved physics puzzle at the dawn of the universe. The Michigan State University. info:/
- May 9, 2013
- 06:10 AM
- 52 views
Herschel finds hot gas on the menu for milky way’s black hole
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
ESA’s Herschel space observatory has made detailed observations of surprisingly hot molecular gas that may be orbiting or falling towards the supermassive black hole lurking at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy.... Read more »
ESA. (2013) Herschel finds hot gas on the menu for milky way's black hole. ESA Herschel. info:/
- May 8, 2013
- 05:24 PM
- 38 views
Dual Color Semiconductor Device Opens Way to Cheaper Lighting
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
A group of scientists from the Arizona State University have developed a semiconductor device that is capable of emitting two distinct colors simultaneously. An ability to emit light in a wide spectrum range from a single monolithic structure could potentially become a basis for a cheaper and more efficient lighting technology.... Read more »
Fan, F., Liu, Z., Yin, L., Nichols, P., Ning, H., Turkdogan, S., & Ning, C. (2013) Simultaneous two-color lasing in a single CdSSe heterostructure nanosheet. Semiconductor Science and Technology, 28(6), 65005. DOI: 10.1088/0268-1242/28/6/065005
- May 8, 2013
- 01:38 PM
- 42 views
Fluorescent Dye Increases Solar Cells’ Efficiency
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
Scientists at Yale think that for some solar cells the future may be fluorescent. While many may believe that the purpose of a solar cell is to absorb light, not to emit it (fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation), it turns out that the addition of a fluorescent organic dye to the cell layer improves the ability of a promising type of solar cell to absorb light and convert it into electrical power.... Read more »
Huang, J., Goh, T., Li, X., Sfeir, M., Bielinski, E., Tomasulo, S., Lee, M., Hazari, N., & Taylor, A. (2013) Polymer bulk heterojunction solar cells employing Förster resonance energy transfer. Nature Photonics. DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.82
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