news 2020

Researchers have shown why intense, pure red colours in nature are mainly produced by pigments, instead of the structural colour that produces bright blue and green hues.

Researchers have used a combination of AI and quantum mechanics to reveal how hydrogen gradually turns into a metal in giant planets. The existence of metallic hydrogen was theorised a century ago, but what we haven't known is how this process occurs Bingqing Cheng Dense metallic hydrogen - a phase of hydrogen which behaves like an electrical conductor - makes up the interior of giant planets, but it is difficult to study and poorly understood.

Astrophysicists investigating gravitational-wave data from the far reaches of the Universe believe they may have found an explanation for a curious signal detected from the collision of two black holes. The signal, named GW190412, was picked up by the LIGO / Virgo detectors, which are set up to observe gravitational waves - the ripples in space and time caused by huge astronomical objects - and use them to make new discoveries about our Universe.

The world is one step closer to having a totally secure internet and an answer to the growing threat of cyber-attacks, thanks to a team of international scientists who have created a unique prototype which could transform how we communicate online. The invention led by the University of Bristol, revealed today in the journal Science Advances , has the potential to serve millions of users, is understood to be the largest-ever quantum network of its kind, and could be used to secure people's online communication, particularly in these internet-led times accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The LIGO and Virgo Collaboration, which includes scientists from the Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy at the University of Birmingham, have reported the discovery of a signal from what may be the most massive black hole merger yet observed in gravitational waves. The signal, labelled GW190521, was detected on May 21, 2019, with the LIGO and Virgo detectors.

Sussex study enables predicting computational power of early quantum computers University of Sussex quantum physicists have developed an algorithm which helps early quantum computers to perform calculations most efficiently The team used their model to calculate the expected computational power of early quantum computers Their research highlights a fundamental advantage of the 'trapped ion' approach over other methods Quantum physicists at the U

Researchers at Oxford University, in collaboration with DeepMind, University of Basel and Lancaster University, have created a machine learning algorithm that interfaces with a quantum device and 'tunes' it faster than human experts, without any human input. They are dubbing it 'Minecraft explorer for quantum devices'.

Using an alcohol mixture, researchers modified how ink droplets dry, enabling cheap industrial-scale printing of electronic devices at unprecedented scales. The natural form of ink droplets is spherical - however, because of their composition, our ink droplets behave like pancakes Tawfique Hasan Have you ever spilled your coffee on your desk? You may then have observed one of the most puzzling phenomena of fluid mechanics - the coffee ring effect.

New results have been announced by particle physicists at CERN, including a team led by Oxford scientists, that will move them closer to understanding the basic forces that shape our universe. The ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have today announced their observation of a phenomenon that has never been seen before, where the Higgs boson decays into two elementary particles, called muons.

Our brains have an upper limit on how much they can process at once due to a constant but limited energy supply, according to a new UCL study using a brain imaging method that measures cellular metabolism. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience , found that paying attention can change how the brain allocates its limited energy; as the brain uses more energy in processing what we attend to, less energy is supplied to processing outside our attention focus.

A breakthrough in fertility science by researchers from Bristol and Mexico has shattered the universally accepted view of how sperm 'swim'. "However, our discovery shows sperm have developed a swimming technique to compensate for their lop-sidedness and in doing so have ingeniously solved a mathematical puzzle at a microscopic scale: by creating symmetry out of asymmetry," said Dr Gadelha.

Honorary Research Associate Sir Roland Jackson (UCL Science & Technology Studies) calls for more public recognition of Irish scientist John Tyndall, who worked alongside Louis Pasteur, made discoveries in physics and was an early thinker in the field of climate science. It is surprising that the Irish scientist John Tyndall, born 200 years ago on August 2 1820, is not better known.

The Universe is nearly 10 percent more uniform than predicted, according to new results from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) co-led by UCL astronomers. The findings, submitted as part of a series of five papers to Astronomy & Astrophysics , suggest that dark matter - which makes up one quarter of the Universe - is more evenly spread than previously thought.

The CERN NA62 collaboration, which is part-funded by the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and involves scientists from the University of Bristol, presented at the ICHEP 2020 conference in Prague the first significant experimental evidence for the ultra-rare decay of the charged kaon into a charged pion and two neutrinos, (i.e.

A way of shrinking the devices used in quantum sensing systems has been developed by researchers at the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing , which is led by the University of Birmingham. Sensing devices have a huge number of industrial uses, from carrying out ground surveys to monitoring volcanoes.

Scientists at CERN, including experts from the University of Birmingham, have reported on their first significant evidence for a process predicted by theory. The findings pave the way for searches for evidence of new physics in particle processes that could explain dark matter and other mysteries of the universe.

Scientists at CERN, including experts from the University of Birmingham, have reported on their first significant evidence for a process predicted by theory. The findings pave the way for searches for evidence of new physics in particle processes that could explain dark matter and other mysteries of the universe.

Scientists have found that a physical property called 'quantum negativity' can be used to take more precise measurements of everything from molecular distances to gravitational waves. We've shown that filtering quantum particles can condense the information of a million particles into one David Arvidsson-Shukur The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, Harvard and MIT, have shown that quantum particles can carry an unlimited amount of information about things they have interacted with.

A CT scan technique that splits a full X-ray beam into thin beamlets can deliver the same quality of image at a much reduced radiation dose, according to a new UCL study. The technique, demonstrated on a small sample in a micro CT scanner, could potentially be adapted for medical scanners and used to reduce the amount of radiation millions of people are exposed to each year.

The first images from Solar Orbiter, a Sun-observing mission by ESA and NASA carrying instruments proposed, designed and built at UCL, reveal omnipresent miniature solar flares near the surface of our closest star. One unique aspect of the Solar Orbiter mission is that no other spacecraft has been able to take images of the Sun's surface from a closer distance.