news 2018

Magnetic reconnection - the explosive reconfiguration of two magnetic fields - occurs differently around Saturn than around Earth, according to new findings from the international Cassini mission involving UCL researchers. On Earth, the collisions which create aurora are only seen on the boundary between Earth's magnetic field and the magnetic field in interplanetary space.

A key property of the Higgs boson, which had been predicted but never observed, has been confirmed today with unprecedented precision. The new result, from a team including Imperial College London scientists, is the first direct observation of a crucial property of the Higgs boson and its role in giving particles mass.

A key property of the Higgs boson, which had been predicted but never observed, has been confirmed today with unprecedented precision. The new result, from a team including Imperial College London scientists, is the first direct observation of a crucial property of the Higgs boson and its role in giving particles mass.

University of Glasgow physicists are celebrating the latest groundbreaking observation from the ATLAS collaboration at CERN in Geneva: the observation of Higgs bosons produced together with a top quark pair. The observation of this extremely rare process was announced today (Monday 4 June 2018) at the Large Hadron Collider Physics 2018 conference in Bologna, Italy.

Heat can be converted to electricity more efficiently using nanowires as thin as atoms, according to new University of Warwick research Atomically thin nanowires conduct less heat and more electricity at the same time, yielding unprecedented conversion efficiency in comparison to the same bulk material Research opens up future routes into renewable energy from heat-to-electricity conversion Waste heat can be converted to electricity more efficie

Researchers have created a technology that could lead to new devices for faster, more reliable ultra-broad bandwidth transfers, and demonstrated how electrical fields boost the non-linear optical effects of graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon. Graphene never ceases to surprise us when it comes to optics and photonics.

Experiments that measure the lifetime of neutrons reveal a perplexing and unresolved discrepancy. While this lifetime has been measured to a precision within 1 percent using different techniques, apparent conflicts in the measurements offer the exciting possibility of learning about as-yet undiscovered physics.

An international team of researchers have identified 'fingerprints' of multiple metals in one of the least dense exoplanets ever found. The detection of a trace element such as lithium in a planetary atmosphere is a major breakthrough. Nikku Madhusudhan The team, from the University of Cambridge and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain used the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) to observe WASP-127b, a giant gaseous planet with partly clear skies and strong signatures of metals in its atmosphere.

Scientists have shown how an optical chip can simulate the motion of atoms within molecules at the quantum level, which could lead to better ways of creating chemicals for use as pharmaceuticals. An optical chip uses light to process information, instead of electricity, and can operate as a quantum computing circuit when using single particles of light, known as photons.

Turmeric, shrimp shells, beeswax and cocoa butter are being used to improve the effectiveness of drugs and reduce side effects when treating a range of diseases including cancer and diabetes. Research is being carried out at the University of Nottingham Malaysia to discover how these 'natural products' can improve the ways drugs are delivered and their efficiency, whilst also minimising any side effects.

Specially organised 'dementia friendly' swimming sessions can be beneficial to people with dementia and their carers, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Nottingham and the Institute of Mental Health. The team set out to find out what impact swimming sessions have on the lives of people with dementia and how they affect the experience of their carers.

Stars in a galaxy 13.28 billion light years away formed only 250 million years after the Big Bang, finds a team of international astronomers led by groups at UCL and Osaka Sangyo University in Japan. The discovery shows that stars in the galaxy - called MACS1149-JD1 - formed at an unexpectedly early stage in the age of the Universe and the new observations break the team's own record for detecting the most distant known source of oxygen.

A Multiverse - where our Universe is only one of many - might not be as inhospitable to life as previously thought, according to new research. Questions about whether other universes might exist as part of a larger Multiverse, and if they could harbour life, are burning issues in modern cosmology. Now new research led by Durham University, UK, and Australia's University of Sydney, Western Sydney University and the University of Western Australia, has shown that life could potentially be common throughout the Multiverse, if it exists.

Studying the fleeting actions of electrons in organic materials will now be much easier, thanks to a new method for generating fast X-rays. The technique means advanced measurements of fast reactions will now be possible in physics labs around the world, without having to wait to use expensive and scarce equipment.

The data collected during historic first detection of a binary neutron star collision is helping astrophysicists further unravel the mystery of gamma-ray bursts in space. Gamma-ray bursts are extremely energetic cosmological events in which massive amounts of gamma-ray light, hundreds of times brighter than a supernova, are released.

A NASA mission has discovered an important process explaining the fate of energy contained in the turbulent magnetic fields surrounding the Earth. The phenomenon, discovered by NASA's four-spacecraft Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, is small but provides crucial insight into turbulent plasmas.

Technique uses photons, fundamental components of light, to measure nanoscopic materials thinner than 100,000th the width of a human hair - with 30,000 fired per second and 500bn throughout Research will mean measurements 100x more precise than existing two-photon techniques - with the potential to aid research into cell membranes and DNA Two-photon technique more stable than existing one-photon technology New technique could also be substantial

The precision of measuring nanoscopic structures could be substantially improved, thanks to research involving the University of Warwick and QuantIC researchers at the University of Glasgow and Heriot Watt University into optical sensing. QuantIC is the UK Quantum Technology Hub in Quantum Enhanced Imaging and part of the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme.

Repeating patterns of bone minerals go deeper and smaller than previously thought, Imperial and York researchers have found. Bone is mostly made of the flexible protein collagen, and the hard mineral apatite. The two elements are arranged in nested repeating patterns from the smaller to the larger scale, eventually influencing the overall structure of bone.

Scientists have created a way to model interactions between light and twisted molecules, as they transition from left to right-handed versions, or vice versa. Last updated on Tuesday 18 December 2018 For the first time scientists have created a way to model the interaction between light and twisted molecules, as these molecules transition from leftto right-handed versions, or vice versa.