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Chemistry/Physics/Materials Sciences
Key: Meeting Journal Funder Dissertation
Public Release: 26-Jan-2010
Optics Express
Stacking the deck: Single photons observed at seemingly faster-than-light speeds
Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute can speed up photons to seemingly faster-than-light speeds through a stack of materials by adding a single, strategically placed layer.

Contact: Ben Stein
bstein@nist.gov
301-975-3097
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Public Release: 18-Jan-2010
Nature Nanotechnology
European collaboration makes breakthrough in developing super-material graphene
A collaborative research project has brought the world a step closer to producing a new material on which future nanotechnology could be based. Researchers across Europe, including the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL), have demonstrated how an incredible material, graphene, could hold the key to the future of high-speed electronics, such as micro-chips and touchscreen technology.

Contact: David Lewis
david@proofcommunication.com
084-568-01865
National Physical Laboratory

Public Release: 8-Jan-2010
Fermilab's NOvA Collaboration
Neutrino data to flow in 2010; NOvA scientists tune design
Physicists may see data by late summer from a prototype for a $278 million NOvA neutrino experiment that can yield clues to the universe's mysteries. Construction is underway on a 220-ton "integration prototype" detector and a larger 14,000-ton detector, a project of Fermilab and University of Minnesota. About 40 scientists will fine-tune design Jan. 8-10 at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, their first meeting since the US Department of Energy's October approval of "full construction start."
US Department of Energy

Contact: Kim Cobb
cobbk@mail.smu.edu
214-768-7654
Southern Methodist University

Public Release: 6-Jan-2010
Iowa State physicists beginning to see data from the Large Hadron Collider
Iowa State University physicists are starting to see real data from the Large Hadron Collider, the planet's biggest science experiment. But, said Chunhui Chen, an Iowa State assistant professor of physics and astronomy, it will still take years of study before the collider produces new, Nobel-winning physics.
US Department of Energy

Contact: Soeren Prell
prell@iastate.edu
515-294-3747
Iowa State University

Public Release: 6-Jan-2010
Nature
Scientists reveal Milky Way's magnetic attraction
An international research project involving the University of Adelaide has revealed that the magnetic field in the center of the Milky Way is at least 10 times stronger than the rest of the galaxy.

Contact: Dr. Roland Crocker
Roland.Crocker@mpi-hd.mpg.de
49-622-151-6208
University of Adelaide

Public Release: 15-Dec-2009
Queen Mary scientists shed light on a mysterious particle
Physicists at Queen Mary, University of London, have begun looking deep into the Earth to study some of nature's weirdest particles -- neutrinos.

Contact: Simon Levey
s.levey@qmul.ac.uk
44-020-782-25404
Queen Mary, University of London

Public Release: 14-Dec-2009
Theorists propose a new way to shine -- and a new kind of star
Physicists propose there may be a new stage for some dying stars. Dubbed electroweak stars, they are fueled by the conversion of quarks to leptons, which prevents or staves off collapse into a black hole.

Contact: Kevin Mayhood
kevin.mayhood@case.edu
216-368-4442
Case Western Reserve University

Public Release: 9-Dec-2009
Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- December 2009
Titanium dioxide can be converted into a material that absorbs sunlight and greatly increase the efficiency of solar energy cells. Coated particle fuel fabricated at ORNL, in cooperation with INL, General Atomics, and the Babcock & Wilcox Company, has set a world record for advanced high temperature gas-cooled reactor fuel. Electronic devices of the future may benefit from a fundamental discovery that allows researchers to customize the electronic properties of complex materials.

Contact: Ron Walli
wallira@ornl.gov
865-576-0226
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Public Release: 7-Dec-2009
Physical Review D
Hunt for Higgs boson: Mass of top quark narrows search
New high-energy particle research by a team working with data from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory heightens uncertainty about the exact nature of a key theoretical component of modern physics -- the massive fundamental particle, the Higgs boson. Particle collision data resulting in two leptons helped improve measurements of the mass of the heavy subatomic top quark, which bears on the Higgs, says physicist Robert Kehoe at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who led the team.
US Department of Energy

Contact: Kim Cobb
cobbk@mail.smu.edu
214-768-7654
Southern Methodist University

Public Release: 7-Dec-2009
Nature
Cosmic rays hunted down
Nearly 100 years after the discovery of cosmic rays, a new type of gamma ray telescope is finally allowing physicists to make images of sites of cosmic ray acceleration.

Contact: Diana Lutz
dlutz@wustl.edu
314-935-5272
Washington University in St. Louis

Public Release: 29-Nov-2009
Nature Physics
Spinons -- confined like quarks
The concept of confinement is one of the central ideas in modern physics. The most famous example is that of quarks which bind together to form protons and neutrons. Now Prof. Bella Lake from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin together with an international team of scientists report for the first time an experimental realization and a proof of confinement phenomenon observed in a condensed matter system.
US Department of Energy

Contact: Professor Bella Lake
bella.lake@helmholtz-berlin.de
49-308-062-2058
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

Public Release: 24-Nov-2009
Science
Chemists get custom-designed microscopic particles to self-assemble in liquid crystal
Chemists and physicists have succeeded in getting custom-shaped particles to interact and assemble in a controlled way in a liquid crystal. The research is reported in the journal Science.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Stuart Wolpert
swolpert@support.ucla.edu
310-206-0511
University of California - Los Angeles

Public Release: 2-Nov-2009
Physical Review Letters
Flipping a photonic shock wave
Physicists at Zhejiang University in China and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new metamaterial structure that successfully demonstrates reverse Cerenkov radiation.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 2-Nov-2009
51st Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics
Upping the power triggers an ordered helical plasma
If you keep twisting a straight elastic string, at some moment it starts kinking in a wild way.

Contact: Saralyn Stewart
stewart@physics.utexas.edu
512-694-2320
American Physical Society

Public Release: 2-Nov-2009
51st Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics
Researchers use trident laser to accelerate protons to record energies
An international team of physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory has succeeded in using intense laser light to accelerate protons to energies never before achieved. Using this technique, scientists can now accelerate particles to extremely high velocities that would otherwise only be possible using large accelerator facilities. Physicists around the world are examining laser particle acceleration and laser produced radiation for potential future uses in cancer treatment.

Contact: Saralyn Stewart
stewart@physics.utexas.edu
512-694-2320
American Physical Society

Public Release: 27-Oct-2009
Nature Nanotechnology
University of Cincinnati researchers create all-electric spintronics
Scientists have always attempted to develop spin transistors by incorporating local ferromagnets into device architectures. A far better and practical way to manipulate the orientation of an electron's spin would be by using purely electrical means. A team of researchers led by the University of Cincinnati's Philippe Debray and Marc Cahay is the first to find an innovative and novel way to control an electron's spin orientation using purely electrical means.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Wendy Beckman
wendy.beckman@uc.edu
513-556-1826
University of Cincinnati

Public Release: 20-Oct-2009
JOM
New material could boost data storage, save energy
North Carolina State University engineers have created a new material that would allow a fingernail-size computer chip to store the equivalent of 20 high-definition DVDs or 250 million pages of text, far exceeding the storage capacities of today's computer memory systems.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Matt Shipman
matt_shipman@ncsu.edu
919-515-6386
North Carolina State University

Public Release: 12-Oct-2009
Physical Review Letters
Growing geodesic carbon nanodomes
Studying the formation of nanoscopic carbon geodesic domes offers insight into the growth of graphene sheets, and may lead to compact, efficient circuitry.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 5-Oct-2009
Physical Review Journals
Building a better qubit
The qubits that carry quantum information are typically fragile, but a new method of combing six photons leads to robust qubits that are immune to many of the affects that threaten to scramble quantum data.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 5-Oct-2009
Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams
Physicists seek to keep next-gen colliders in 1 piece
Controlling huge electromagnetic forces that have the potential to destroy the next generation of particle accelerators is the subject of a new paper by a University of Manchester physicist.

Contact: Alex Waddington
alex.waddington@manchester.ac.uk
01-612-758-387
University of Manchester

Public Release: 2-Oct-2009
Science Express
Heart of a galaxy emits gamma rays
The H.E.S.S. telescope system detects high-energy rays from the starburst region of a galactic system outside the Milky Way.

Contact: Dr. Gertrud Hönes
info@mpi-hd.mpg.de
49-622-151-6572
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Public Release: 29-Sep-2009
Spallation Neutron Source first of its kind to reach megawatt power
The US Department of Energy's Spallation Neutron Source, already the world's most powerful facility for pulsed neutron scattering science, is now the first pulsed spallation neutron source to break the one-megawatt barrier.

Contact: Bill Cabage
cabagewh@ornl.gov
865-574-4399
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Public Release: 21-Sep-2009
Physical Review Letters
A tiny, tunable well of light, and a string theorist's toolbox
This week in Physics: Photonic devices promise advances in applications ranging from computing to high-speed communication; and a new toolkit of equations will help theorists determine whether a potential agreement between particle physics and string theory is fact or fancy.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 17-Sep-2009
Smaller isn't always better: Catalyst simulations could lower fuel cell cost
Imagine a car that runs on hydrogen from solar power and produces water instead of carbon emissions. While vehicles like this won't be on the market anytime soon, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are making incremental but important strides in the fuel cell technology that could make clean cars a reality.
3M, US Department of Energy

Contact: Dane Morgan
ddmorgan@wisc.edu
608-265-5879
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Public Release: 17-Sep-2009
American-made SRF cavity makes the grade
The US Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility marked a step forward in the field of advanced particle accelerator technology with the successful test of the first US-built superconducting radiofrequency niobium cavity to meet the exacting specifications of the proposed International Linear Collider.
US Department of Energy

Contact: Kandice Carter
kcarter@jlab.org
757-269-7263
DOE/Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility