news 2015

Lasers could heat materials to temperatures hotter than the centre of the Sun in only 20 quadrillionths of a second, according to new research. Theoretical physicists from Imperial College London have devised an extremely rapid heating mechanism that they believe could heat certain materials to ten million degrees in much less than a million millionth of a second.

It covers more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface, but the exact origins of our planet's water are still something of a mystery. Scientists have long been uncertain whether water was present at the formation of the planet or if it arrived later, perhaps carried by comets and meteorites.

Scientists from the University of Liverpool and Queen's University Belfast, as part of an international team, have made the first porous liquids which could create new industrial applications. The new liquid dissolves unusually large amounts of gas, such as methane, the main component of natural gas, which is absorbed into the 'holes' in the liquid.

Research by the University of Warwick includes first image of ring system orbiting a white dwarf The sight of an asteroid being ripped apart by a dead star and forming a glowing debris ring has been captured in an image for the first time. Comprised of dust particles and debris, the rings are formed by the star's gravity tearing apart asteroids that came too close.

Scientists have discovered a way to authenticate or identify any object by generating an unbreakable ID based on atoms. The technology, which is being patented at Lancaster University and commercialised through the spin-out company Quantum Base, uses next-generation nanomaterials to enable the unique identification of any product with guaranteed security.

Scientists led by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and Aberystwyth University have revealed 'sweet points' for dental fillings, where cement used to fill cracks regain elasticity before hardening indefinitely. This could have implications for creating more durable and longer-lasting fillings in the future.

Oxford University researchers have developed a new method that makes it possible to study whether the deterioration of nuclear fusion reactor materials in the face of extreme radiation may cause catastrophic thermal failure. Nuclear fusion is an attractive option for creating sustainable energy, in principle using the same reactions found at the centre of stars to generate large quantities of power without carbon emissions.

Major international collaboration has seen its first neutrinos - so-called 'ghost particles' - in the experiment's newly built detector. This is an important step towards the much larger Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Mark Thomson An international team of scientists at the MicroBooNE physics experiment in the US, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, detected their first neutrino candidates, which are also known as 'ghost particles'.

New research led by physicists at the University of Warwick has used tools designed to study social networks to gain significant new insights into the Northern Lights, and space weather - particularly the interaction of events in the sun's atmosphere with Earth's ionosphere. The research team used data from over 100 individual magnetometers located at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere.

The University of Liverpool is part of an international research team that have demonstrated a new semiconductor material made from abundant elements which can be "tuned” for use in solar cells instead of rare elements. Semiconductors are vital to the electronics industry and are used in everything from smart phones to solar panels but they rely on rare elements such as tellurium, gallium and indium and there is increasing concern over their cost and availability.

The timescale and costs of cleaning up one of the UK's most hazardous buildings, Magnox Swarf Storage Silo at Sellafield, could be significantly reduced, thanks to a study involving researchers from the University of Bristol. The research, which focussed on the chemical behaviours of intermediate level waste (ILW) at the site, unearthed previously unknown information about the long-term corrosion behaviours of magnesium and uranium.

The mechanism behind a process known as singlet fission, which could drive the development of highly efficient solar cells, has been directly observed by researchers for the first time. Harnessing the process of singlet fission into new solar cell technologies could allow tremendous increases in energy conversion efficiencies in solar cells Alex Chin An international team of scientists have observed how a mysterious quantum phenomenon in organic molecules takes place in real time, which could aid in the development of highly efficient solar cells.

A pioneering 3D imaging method has been applied to heart cells for the first time, allowing researchers to trace waves that can cause arrhythmia. Rising levels of calcium in heart muscle cells cause contraction of the muscle, helping to regulate the beating of the heart. The rise in calcium levels is usually uniform, but sometimes there is a spontaneous release of calcium from isolated regions of the cells, creating a wave of calcium.

A team of researchers including physicists at the University of Bath have magnetised gold in a process that could lead to a new generation of electronics and make computers faster, smaller and more powerful. The scientists investigated what happens in a device where a very thin layer of a superconductor, a material that carries electrical current without generating any heat, is sandwiched between a layer of a magnetic material and a layer of gold.

A scanning electron microscope image of the device. The GST phase-change material, highlighted in yellow, sits on top of the silicon nitride waveguide, highlighted in red. The world's first entirely light-based memory chip to store data permanently has been developed by material scientists at Oxford University and University of Münster in collaboration with scientists at Karlsruhe and Exeter.

Mathematicians investigating one of science's great questions - How to unite the physics of the very big with that of the very small - have discovered that when the understanding of complex networks such as the brain or the internet is applied to geometry the results match up with quantum behaviour.

Each extra hour per day spent watching TV, using the internet or playing computer games during Year 10 is associated with poorer grades at GCSE at age 16, according to research from the University of Cambridge. Parents who are concerned about their child's GCSE grade might consider limiting his or her screen time Kirsten Corder In a study published today in the open access International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity , researchers also found that pupils doing an extra hour of daily homework and reading performed significantly better than their peers.

New cost-effective material which mimics natural 'extracellular matrix' has allowed scientists to capture previously unseen behaviour in individual plant cells, including new shapes and interactions. New methods highlight potential developments for plant tissue engineering.

Why have we never been able to manufacture fibres as strong and tough as the silks spun by silkworms and spiders? A research team from the University of Oxford and the College of William and Mary, Virginia has taken an important step to understanding why we still trail behind nature. Artificial silks have improved greatly in recent years.

Dozens of new two-dimensional materials similar to graphene are now available, thanks to research from University of Manchester scientists. These 2D crystals are capable of delivering designer materials with revolutionary new properties. The problem has been that the vast majority of these atomically thin 2D crystals are unstable in air, so react and decompose before their properties can be determined and their potential applications investigated.