The top twenty physics students in the United States are beginning ten days of rigorous academic training, interactive learning, and friendship building as they prepare to test themselves on the world stage.
The Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association (ACA) will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana. Crystallography is the science devoted to exploring the arrangement of atoms in regular crystalline solids and in complicated molecules. The ACA is the largest professional society for crystallography in the United States, and this is its main meeting.
For people with hearing problems, a cochlear implant can transform their world. The tiny computer chip is surgically implanted into the skull to simulate the work done by the busy hairs in the inner ear to process sounds—and the implants perform very well rendering spoken language. Melody perception, however, remains a challenge.
How do babies decode all the spoken sounds they hear to learn words and their meanings? An “alien” language may provide a clue, according to new research to be presented at the 161st annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Seattle, Wash.
Noisy classrooms aren’t just bad for harried teachers’ nerves—they can significantly affect the ability of students to listen and learn. Researchers at the Boys Town National Research Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, have built a unique simulated classroom to help measure the scope of those effects—and how they can be avoided.
It is not uncommon for us to draw knee-jerk conclusions about people based on how they speak. Those snap judgments aren’t always inaccurate—even when based on less than a single word, according to a new study to be presented at this month’s Acoustical Society of America meeting in Seattle.
‘Feeling’ sounds, muffling explosions and car exhaust, and ‘hearing’ damage to spacecraft are just some of the approximately 50 lay-language versions of papers being presented at the 161st Acoustical Society of America’s (ASA) meeting in Seattle, Wash., May 23-27. These summaries are posted online in the ASA’s Worldwide Pressroom; many contain evocative sounds, images, and animations.
The American Physical Society has released a new assessment — Direct Air Capture of CO2 with Chemicals — to better inform the scientific community on the technical aspects of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The latest news and discoveries from the science of sound will be featured at the 161st meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) held May 23-27, 2011, at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel in Seattle, Wash. During the meeting, the world's foremost experts in acoustics will present research spanning a diverse array of disciplines, including medicine, music, psychology, engineering, speech communication, noise control, and marine biology.
Ultraviolet light can safely sterilize food, water and medical equipment by disrupting the DNA and other reproductive molecules in harmful bacteria. Traditionally, mercury lamps have supplied this UV light, however mercury release from power generation and lamp disposal have generated discussion of harmful environmental impact. A potentially energy efficient and non-toxic alternative is the light-emitting diode, or LED, which can be made to emit at almost any desired wavelength.
Gamma rays are the most energetic type of light wave and can penetrate through lead and other thick containers. A powerful new source of gamma rays will allow officials to search for hidden reactor fuel/nuclear bomb material.
Invisibility appears to be the next possible advance in the use of Terahertz radiation in medicine, security, and communications. A research team from Northwestern and Oklahoma State universities claims to be first to cloak a three-dimensional object from view in a broad range of Terahertz frequency light, which lies between infrared and microwaves.
Watching things disappear “is an amazing experience,” admits Joachim Fischer of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. But making items vanish is not the reason he creates invisibility cloaks. Rather, the magic-like tricks are attractive demonstrations of the fantastic capabilities that new optical theories and nanotechnology construction methods now enable.
Sonic booms, the science of making music, the impact of noise on people and animals, and bursts of sound-induced light are just some of the intriguing topics that will be presented at the 161st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA).
Using minute graphite particles 1000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, mechanical engineers at Arizona State University hope to boost the efficiency—and profitability—of solar power plants.
Spider venom toxins are useful tools for exploring how ion channels operate in the body. These channels control the flow of ions across cell membranes, and are key components in a wide variety of biological processes and human diseases.
Ten years ago, scientists seeking to understand how a certain type of feature on a cell called an L-type calcium channel worked created a knockout mouse missing both copies of the CACNA1D gene.
Pacemaker cells in the sinoatrial node control heart rate, but what controls the ticking of these pacemaker cells? New research by Angelo Torrente and his colleagues of the M.E. Mangoni group’s, reveals, for the first time, a critical functional interaction between Cav1.3 calcium ion (Ca2+) channels and ryanodine-receptor (RyR) mediated Ca2+ signaling.
Researchers have created the first mouse models of human MYH9 genetic disorders, which cause several problems -- including enlarged platelets and sometimes fatal kidney disease.
Scientists in Israel and California have developed an instrument for rapidly analyzing molecular interactions that take place viruses and the cells they infect. By helping to identify interactions between proteins made by viruses like HIV and hepatitis and proteins made by the human cells these viruses infect, the device may help scientists develop new ways of disrupting these interactions and find new drugs for treating those infections.
Viruses can penetrate every part of the body, making them potentially good tools for gene therapy or drug delivery. But with our immune system primed to seek and destroy these foreign invaders, delivering therapies with viruses is currently inefficient and can pose a significant danger to patients.
Researchers at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are making major strides toward understanding the life cycle of flaviviruses, which include some of the most virulent human pathogens: yellow fever virus, Dengue virus, and the West Nile Virus, among others.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 8, 2011) -- In work that is pushing the "diffraction barrier" associated with microscopic imaging of living cells, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM demonstrated the power of a new super-resolution microscopy technique called Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM), which can simultaneously image multiple molecules in living immune cells.
Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Texas at Dallas are reporting today at the 55th Annual Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD how they are using a novel 3D cell imaging method for studying the complex spatial-temporal dynamics of protein transport, providing a solution to this fundamental problem in cell biology.
All our daily activities, from driving to work to solving a crossword puzzle, depend on signals carried along the body's vast network of neurons. Propagation of these signals is, in turn, dependent on myriad small molecules within nerve cells -- receptors, ion channels, and transmitters -- turning on and off in complex cascades. Until recently, the study of these molecules in real time has not been possible, but researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Munich have attached light-sensing modules to neuronal molecules, resulting in molecules that can be turned on and off with simple flashes of light.
From grinding heavy metal to soothing ocean waves, the sounds we hear are all perceptible thanks to the vibrations felt by tiny molecular motors in the hair cells of the inner ear. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have now identified the mechanism by which a single amino acid change can disrupt the normal functioning of one of the critical components of that physiology -- a molecular motor protein called myo1c, which resides in the cochlea of the inner ear.
New findings from researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto may shed light on the mechanisms that regulate the organization of receptors on the cell surface, a critical aspect of cell signaling not well understood at this time.
A team of physicists has taken a big step toward the development of useful graphene spintronic devices. The physicists, from the City University of Hong Kong and the University of Science and Technology of China, present their findings in the American Institute of Physics journal Applied Physics Letters.
A development described in the journal Applied Physics Letters may soon revolutionize handheld electronics, flat-panel displays, touch panels, electronic ink, and solar cells. Physicists in Iran have created a spintronic device based on "armchair" graphene nanoribbons that could one day replace more expensive indium tin oxide.
The Biophysical Society's 55th Annual Meeting takes place from March 5-9, 2011 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, MD. There, more than 6,500 scientists will gather to discuss the latest advances in understanding and breakthroughs in technology at every level of biophysics -- from atoms and molecules to cells, organisms, and environments.
A straightforward new way to calculate, compile, and graphically present solar radiation measurements in a format that is accessible to decision makers and the general public has been developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and is described in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.
High energy costs are one drawback of making clean water from waste effluents. According to an article in the journal Biomicrofluidics, a new system that combines two different technologies proposes to break down contaminants using the cheapest possible energy source, sunlight.
A new twist on spectroscopy, described in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments, allows for an unprecedented level of such filtering, one that could transform everything from the search for extraterrestrial intelligence to super-sensitive spy gear to scan hotel rooms for hidden microphones or cameras.
Researchers in Australia have developed a new method to analyze the effect of fatigue on the central nervous system. In this month's issue of The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, they describe how sustained wakefulness slows speech and diminishes variations in pitch and tone -- findings relevant to public safety officials, military leaders, and employers concerned with fatigue among their workers.
One of the rarest metals on Earth may be an excellent option for enabling future flash memory chips to continue increasing in speed and density, according to a group of researchers in Taiwan, who describe incorporating nanocrystals of iridium into critical components of flash memory in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
Manufacturing semiconductors for electronics involves etching small features onto wafers using lasers, a process that is limited by the wavelength of the light itself. The development of a new, intense 13.5-nm light source will resolve this issue by reducing the feature size by an order of magnitude or so, according to Purdue researchers writing in the Journal of Applied Physics.
Moving a step closer toward quantum computing, a research team in the Netherlands recently fabricated a photodetector based on a single nanowire, in which the active element is a single quantum dot with a volume of a mere 7,000 cubic nanometers. The device is described in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
While the causes of epileptic seizures continue to confound brain researchers, scientists have been exploring how changes in the coordinated activity of brain networks, monitored through electrodes, might help predict impending seizures. A report in the journal CHAOS offers new insight into this possibility.
The Task Force on American Innovation commends the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform for recommending that the nation make predictable and sustained federal investments in research and education a high priority, even as it takes needed action to reduce federal budget deficits.
Researchers in Australia and Canada have developed the first direct approach for identifying packets of air or water, called "coherent sets," that are transported in the atmosphere and ocean and have far-reaching effects on weather and climate. The new methodology, described in the journal CHAOS, has tested significantly better than existing technologies.
Researchers in Arizona have created a material that may be able to sense and heal damage, such as cracking in a fiber reinforced composite. As described in the Journal of Applied Physics, the aim of developing "autonomous adaptive structures" is to mimic the ability of biological systems such as bone to sense the presence of damage, halt its progression, and regenerate itself.
A new laser-beam steering system that aims and focuses bursts of light onto single atoms for use in quantum computers has been demonstrated by researchers in North Carolina and Wisconsin. Described in the journal Applied Physics Letters, the new system is somewhat like the laser-light-show projectors used at rock concerts and planetariums. But it’s much smaller, faster, atom-scale accurate and aimed at the future of computing, not entertainment.
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) announced today the hiring of Darrell W. Gunter as chief commercial officer (CCO). Gunter will join AIP to become part of a core leadership team that will help to reposition and transform AIP’s publishing program to thrive into the 21st century. He will be responsible for delivering AIP Publishing’s global marketing and sales strategy.
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is one of the best tools for gaining insight into the structure and dynamics of molecules and how they behave in a variety of chemical environments. Now researchers in New York have described in The Journal of Chemical Physics an alternative way to get this information, by using light to observe nuclei indirectly via the orbiting electrons.
Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have developed a new technique for probing the temperature rise in the vicinity of nanoparticles using fluorescent quantum dots as temperature sensors. The results, published in the Journal of Applied Physics, may have implications for the medical use of nanoparticles.
Researchers in Germany have successfully fabricated a rudimentary quantum computing hybrid system using electronic excitations in nano-diamonds as qubits and optical nanostructures, so-called photonic crystals with tailored optical properties. This architecture may allow integration of multi-qubit systems on a single micrometer-sized chip for future quantum computers.
A broad review of current research on nuclear power economics has been published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy. The report concludes that nuclear power will continue to be a viable power source but that the current fuel cycle is not sustainable.
Researchers in Rhode Island, Colorado, and Massachusetts have analyzed the stain patterns left behind by coffee droplets on a surface and are presenting their "coffee ring" models today at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in Long Beach, CA -- work that promises to help devise new microphysics tools.
To researchers at the California Institute of Technology, the undulations of the simple invertebrate jellyfish hold secrets that may make possible a new generation of tiny pumps for medical applications and soft robotics -- work described today at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting in Long Beach, CA.
New research from the University of South Florida suggests that one of the evolutionary secrets of the shark hides in one of its tiniest traits -- flexible scales on their bodies that allow them to change directions while moving at full speed. This work presented today at the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) annual meeting in Long Beach, CA.
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