news 2011

An international research group led by scientists from the University of Bristol, UK, and the Universities of Osaka and Hokkaido, Japan, has demonstrated a fundamental building block for quantum computing that could soon be employed in a range of quantum technologies. Professor Jeremy O'Brien, Director of the University of Bristol's Centre for Quantum Photonics , and his Japanese colleagues have demonstrated a quantum logic gate acting on four particles of light - photons.

Edinburgh astronomers are unpicking the debris of a massive intergalactic collision. Scientists hope the study will enable fresh understanding of our Universe. Researchers are using very powerful telescopes, including the Hubble, to study the aftermath of the collision, which took place over the past 350 million years.

The majority of 'elliptical' galaxies are not spherical but disc-shaped, resembling spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way with the gas and dust removed, new observations suggest. The results come from Atlas3D, a survey of all 260 early-type ('elliptical' and 'lenticular') galaxies in a well-defined volume of the nearby universe.

by Simon Levey 17 June 2011 Research from the UK and Japan indicates that subatomic particles called neutrinos may have a previously unseen form of identity-shifting property. Announced this week, these results could one day help scientists explain why the universe contains matter, but very little antimatter.

A step closer to solving one of the biggest mysteries in fundamental physics? Experts may be on the cusp of an important breakthrough in the study of neutrinos following the exciting results released today (15 June 2011) of an international T2K neutrino experiment in Japan involving the University of Sheffield.

Where did all the matter in the universe come from? This is one of the biggest mysteries in fundamental physics and exciting results released from the international T2K neutrino experiment in Japan could be an important step towards resolving this puzzle. The T2K neutrino experiment has been conducted by a multinational team and the University of Liverpool's Professor Christos Touramanis from the Department of Physics has project managed the UK team.

Tiny fibres used to strengthen items such as bike frames and hockey sticks could pose risks to workers who make them. Certain types of carbon nanotubes - cylindrical molecules about one-thousandth of the width of a human hair - could cause cancer in the lining of the lung, University research shows.

Science | Space Cath Harris | 09 Jun 11 Scientists have identified a new type of supernova or exploding star which is ten times brighter than any other type of stellar explosion. Astrophysicist Dr Mark Sullivan of Oxford University's Department of Physics is among researchers reporting the discovery in this week's Nature.

Physicists at the Universities of Liverpool and Swansea have succeeded in trapping atoms of antimatter for more than 16 minutes, long enough to begin to study their properties in detail. Antimatter was trapped using an experiment called ALPHA, part of a broad programme at CERN's (link to: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/) antiproton decelerator investigating the mysteries of one of nature's most elusive substances.

PA 175/11 A space flight by millions of microscopic worms could help us overcome the numerous threats posed to human health by space travel. The Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) have also given experts an insight into how to block muscle degradation in the sick and elderly. The worms — from The University of Nottingham — were flown into space onboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Scientists have made the most accurate measurement yet of the shape of the humble electron, finding that it is almost a perfect sphere. The experiment, which spanned more than a decade, suggests that the electron differs from being perfectly round by less than 0.000000000000000000000000001 cm.

by Colin Smith A researcher from Imperial College London, his family, and a BBC film crew travelled to Italy last month to commemorate a project that prevented the Leaning Tower of Pisa from collapsing. Emeritus Professor John Burland and his family visited Pisa with a film crew from BBC One's The One Show to see the city's most famous landmark.

By Simon Levey Scientists studying Saturn have detected a glowing patch of ultraviolet light that marks the presence of an electrical circuit connecting the planet with its moon Enceladus, they report today . Long theorized, but not previously seen, the newly discovered bright patch indicates that electrically charged particles travel between Saturn and Enceladus, interacting with the planet's magnetic field lines.

Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft have revealed that Enceladus, one of Saturn's diminutive moons, is linked to Saturn by powerful electrical currents - beams of electrons that flow back and forth between the planet and moon. The finding is part of a paper published in Nature today. CAPS, one of the instruments on board Cassini which made the electron beam discovery, includes a electron sensor called CAPS-ELS - led by UCL (University College London).

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79) was one of the world's greatest physicists, and 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of two of his most important achievements, both accomplished while he was Professor of Natural Philosophy at King's from 1860 to 1865. 1861 saw not only the publication of his first paper on electromagnetic theory, but also the first photograph produced according to Maxwell's three-colour method, taken by photographic pioneer Thomas Sutton of King's.

University of Manchester scientists have found a way to make wonder material graphene magnetic, opening up a new range of opportunities for the world's thinnest material in the area of spintronics. A team led by Professor Andre Geim, a recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize for graphene, can now show that electric current – a flow of electrons – can magnetise graphene.

A powerful new telescope is allowing an international team led by University of Manchester scientists to have their "best-ever look” at pulsars – rapidly rotating neutron stars created when massive stars die. In the first scientific results from the new European telescope LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) to appear in a journal – Astronomy & Astrophysics – the scientists present the most sensitive, low-frequency observations of pulsars ever made.

Bombardments of 'micro-meteorites' on Earth and Mars four billion years ago may have caused the planets' climates to cool dramatically, hampering their ability to support life, according to research published today in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. Scientists from Imperial College London studied the effects of the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB), a period of time in the early Solar System when meteorite showers lasting around 100 million years barraged Earth and Mars.

Scientists from Oxford University have mapped a state of matter called 'quantum spin liquid', whose existence was proposed in the 1970s but which has only been observed recently. Until now there has been very limited information describing the physical characteristics of a quantum spin liquid state, but researchers from Oxford University's Department of Physics working with the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have demonstrated the effect of temperature and magnetic field on this state of matter.

University of Birmingham asteroseimologists are part of a team of scientists who have studied approximately 600 red giant stars and have been able to distinguish between those that burn hydrogen and those that are burning helium in their cores, according to research published today (30 March 11). Red giants are stars that are nearing the end of their life.