Physics

Squishy Hydrogels May Be the Ticket for Studying Biological Effects of Nanoparticles
05/15/2013 - 13:58

A class of water-loving, jelly-like materials with uses ranges ranging from the mundane, such as superabsorbent diaper liners, to the sophisticated, such as soft contact lenses, could be tapped for a new line of serious work: testing the biological effects of nanoparticles now being eyed for a large variety of uses.

 

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Black Hole Powered Jets Plow Into Galaxy
05/15/2013 - 13:08

This multi-wavelength view shows 4C+29.30, a galaxy located some 850 million light years from Earth. The radio emission comes from two jets of particles that are speeding at millions of miles per hour away from a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. The estimated mass of the black hole is about 100 million times the mass of our Sun. The ends of the jets show larger areas of radio emission located outside the galaxy.

 

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Making frequency-hopping radios practical
05/15/2013 - 10:34

The way in which radio spectrum is currently allocated to different wireless technologies can lead to gross inefficiencies. In some regions, for instance, the frequencies used by cellphones can be desperately congested, while large swaths of the broadcast-television spectrum stand idle.

 

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Innovation in Spectroscopy Could Improve Greenhouse Gas Detection
05/14/2013 - 17:08

Detecting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could soon become far easier with the help of an innovative technique* developed by a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where scientists have overcome an issue preventing the effective use of lasers to rapidly scan samples.

 

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Photonic quantum computers: a brighter future than ever
05/13/2013 - 09:38

Harnessing the unique features of the quantum world promises a dramatic speed-up in information processing as compared to the fastest classical machines. Scientists from the Group of Philip Walther from the Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna succeeded in prototyping a new and highly resource efficient model of a quantum computer – the boson sampling computer. The results will be published in the upcoming issue of the renowned scientific journal "Nature Photonics".

 

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Elucidating energy shifts in optical tweezers
05/08/2013 - 09:57

Physicists are providing an all-in-one guide to help calculate the effect the use of optical tweezers has on the energy levels of atoms under study.

 

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