Highlights of the American Physical Society 2013 March Meeting
Newswise — COLLEGE PARK, MD, February 21, 2013 -- The March Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS), the world’s largest annual physics meeting, will take place March 18 – March 22 at the Baltimore Convention Center. Nearly 9000 papers will be delivered during the course of the meeting.
The March APS meeting is a leading venue for presenting the scientific advances that are the basis for novel and improved high-tech devices, imaging instrumentation, and materials. Major topic areas include bio-engineering, medical devices, energy efficiency, superconductivity, graphene, quantum computing, smart materials, spintronics, microfluidics, and ultracold atoms.
Information about the onsite APS press room and press conferences is included at the end of this release. Journalists are invited to attend free of charge. Contact James Riordon ([email protected], 301-209-3238) for press registration.
MEETING HIGHLIGHTS
NEW ENERGY, CLIMATE DYNAMICS, AND ENVIRONMENT Former United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu headlines the Kavli Foundation Special Session on energy, climate, and the environment that will take place Wednesday, March 20 starting at 2:30PM. Related sessions will focus on innovative climate models, novel experimental materials for solar cells and batteries, and environmental forensics. The sessions include new insights into electric vehicles, forensics of oil spills, and the role atmospheric aerosols play in climate change, and much more.- R0: Kavli Foundation Special Session: Forefront Physics for Real World Problems http://www.aps.org/meetings/march/events/kavli.cfm- N4: Climate as a Complex and Dynamic Systemhttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/SessionIndex2/?SessionEventID=194950- B9: Forum on International Physics invited session on Science of Climatehttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/sessionindex2/?SessionEventID=193634- T16: Aerosols, Ocean Currents, and Climate Chaoshttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/sessionindex2/?SessionEventID=191638
SOFT POLYMERS HELP ARMOR STOP BULLETSTraditional armor is made from hard, heavy materials like steel. Making the armor thicker gives more protection, but may also add unacceptable heft. Mike Roland (Naval Research Lab) will present his group’s counter-intuitive solution to improving armor performance while also reducing weight. The researchers replaced some of the heavy steel in armor with lighter rubbery polymers. When a bullet or other projectile strikes the polymers, the soft materials undergo a phase transition – absorbing large amounts of energy and becoming a thousand-fold harder. The group’s new designs have matched the performance of standard military armor while cutting the weight by almost half. Some designs have been licensed to protect missiles transported on public roads and others are being explored for use in helmets, body armor, and military vehicles.G34.00010 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/184788
MATERIAL SCIENCE ADVANCES ENERGY EFFICIENCY Humanity consumes an enormous amount of energy transporting people and goods. Material science can aid in the quest to make our cars and trucks more energy efficient. Researchers from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology in China added helically shaped carbon nanosprings to rubbery polymers like those found in car tires. The scientists found that the springs significantly reduced energy loss when the polymer deformed and then sprang back to its original shape. Deformation cycles occur when automobile tires travel over bumpy roads and the researchers say incorporating carbon nanosprings into tire materials might significantly improve vehicle fuel efficiency. (C31.00009) Aerodynamic drag is another source of energy loss for moving vehicles. A group of researchers from MIT have developed a new class of smart surfaces that can wrinkle on-demand. Actively controlling these wrinkling patterns can be used to reduce aerodynamic drag, thereby potentially improving energy efficiency. (Z28.00002)C31.00009 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/183563Z28.00002 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/190967
HYDRO-FRACKING: SCIENCE, ENVIRONMENT, AND ECONOMY Advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have enabled unprecedented access to the vast reserves of natural gas buried within U.S. shale formations. While playing a key role in the future of clean energy in the U.S., scientists, policy makers and local communities question the local and global environmental impact of hydro-fracking. A special invited session at the APS March meeting will focus on the impact of hydraulic fracturing with clear presentations on the science of fracking and discussions of the impact of fracking to the economy, to local communities, to the environment, and to the future of U.S. energy. Special attention will be paid to the role of hydro-fracking in drinking water contamination, earthquakes, and the economic future of natural gas in a carbon-taxed world.http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/SessionIndex2/?SessionEventID=191210
CREEPY CRAWLY PHYSICS: REMOTE-CONTROLLED WORMS, FIRE ANTS, AND HOW LEAVES SURVIVE FALLING RAINDROPS Physicists turn to nature for inspiration in three talks that feature worms, bugs, or plants. Researchers from Harvard University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute will present their most recent results following work to manipulate the neural activity of free-moving C. elegans worms using light. The authors have identified a specific set of neurons and their electrical activity patterns that control and coordinate searching, turning toward, and tracking gradients of chemicals that the animals use to locate food. By optically controlling the activity patterns in these neurons, the researchers could make the worm believe that food was nearby and turn toward the virtual signal. The work brings scientists closer to fully understanding how food-searching behavior works for an animal with a simple nervous system. (W44.00003) Fire ants are the subject of a talk by researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who have studied the connection between soil moisture and the depth at which ants construct their tunnels. Wetter soil has better cohesion than dry and is more stable, but it can also be more difficult to excavate. Using real ants in specialized digging containers, the team confirmed that tunnel depth was indeed affected by the wetness of the soil, and that tunnel stability is a “key factor” influencing the digging strategy of fire ants. Since fire ants are an invasive species in the United States, determining the limits of soil granularity and moisture content on nest construction is important in determining the invasive regions fire ants may inhabit. (M29.00011) Working with water in a different form, a team from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., has studied how leaves respond to and survive falling raindrops. Using thin cantilever beams that generate electricity in response to bending, researchers analyzed the dynamics of the interaction between droplet and beam and measured the energy produced by raindrop-impacted leaves. Preliminary tests show that it is possible to harvest electric energy from the droplet/beam interaction. (M39.00008)W44.00003 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/190087M29.00011 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/186202M39.00008 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/186347
CREEPY CRAWLY PHYSICS IN MINIATUREUnderstanding how biological processes work on a molecular or cellular level can provide new tools for scientists interested in recreating these processes. Synthetic cilia and wrinkling biofilms are the subjects of two talks that touch on this theme. Inspired by biological functions such as beating cilia and the flow of cytoplasm within cells, researchers from Brandeis University have developed a system composed of simple biological components (microtubules and clusters of motor proteins), which produces self-organized phenomena resembling these biological functions. Tim Sanchez, who will present the findings, hopes this work will provide unique insight into the mechanisms that drive self-organizing processes in biology. The Brandeis team has also gone beyond biology to engineer new materials with functions not seen in nature, such as flowing liquid crystals and self-propelled emulsion droplets. (R45.00001) Gurol Suel of the University of California at San Diego will discuss studies examining how wrinkles form in biofilms. Overcrowding in an area of a film of bacteria is thought to lead to localized cell death, which causes the film to buckle and form 3-D structures that are beneficial for the colony. By manipulating the mechanical properties (such as the stiffness or cell density) of films, scientists were able to control where wrinkles grew, even making them form letters of the alphabet. Suel says a better understanding of how populations of cells can self-organize into large-scale structures might someday give bioengineers the ability to construct more intricate and larger 3-D structures from living cells. (Z45.00001)R45.00001 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/187941Z45.00001 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/191088
METAMATERIALS CREATE CONDITIONS THAT MIMIC BLACK HOLES Metamaterials are engineered to have unique properties that are not readily found in nature. Hyperbolic metamaterials, in particular, are extremely anisotropic (light passes through as if it’s traveling through a glass in one direction, but meets up with metal-like optical properties in the other). The result is that light paths can be controlled in extremely small dimensions. Researchers observed that the electrodynamics of hyperbolic metamaterials may be compared to the 3 spatial and 1 temporal dimension of classical "spacetime." It was also observed that when these metamaterials experienced thermal fluctuations, their refractive index, or light-bending properties, experience strong fluctuations as well. At a critical temperature, the once partially transparent materials take on much more opalescent or milky opal-like properties in which light propagates differently in virtually all directions. These thermal/optical fluctuations are somewhat similar to the theoretical "quantum foam” of spacetime that may exist at the tiniest of scales. In the spacetime analog of hyperbolic metamaterials, this nanophotonic foam begins to resemble virtual electromagnetic "black holes.” In normal space, black holes would devour light (and everything else) behind an event horizon due to extreme gravity. In hyperbolic metamaterials, light is similarly trapped beyond electrodynamic event horizons. A20.00013 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/182235
SECRETS AND QUANTUM COMMUNICATIONResearchers at MIT and UC Berkeley have developed a new method to confirm the secrecy of quantum encrypted messages. In the quantum world, two photons of light can be correlated with one another through the property of entanglement. The quantum property of entanglement is also monogamous: strong correlations between two photons become very weak correlations between three. According to the new protocol, a very strong correlation between the two parties can only be reached when the message and the emitter are secure. If the threshold correlation is not met, the connection is not secure—an adversary is present or the device itself is insecure (C11.00003).
Quantum encryption systems that can work across hundreds of miles are commercially available from companies like the Japanese Toshiba and the Swiss IDQ. Today, researchers hope to extend the range of quantum communication around the world by bouncing beams of encrypted photons off satellites and back to Earth. But, there’s a fundamental problem between Earth and orbiting satellites: to decode quantum-encrypted messages, it is necessary to know which way points “up”—to set a reference frame. Now, an international team of physicists have developed a new way to encode photons that accommodates rotating reference frames, like satellites flying through space. The method relies on a liquid crystal device they call a “q-plate” that can read the encoded photons even if the reference frames between the sender and receiver are different. They haven’t reached outer space yet, but the scientists have demonstrated their flexible toolbox for senders 1 meter apart (C11.00005). Other talks in the invited session feature the adversary itself: Quantum Hacking (C11.00004).C11.00003 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/191209C11.00004 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/183268C11.00005 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/183269
UNDERSTANDING THE RAPID EVOLUTION OF DRUG AND RADIATION RESISTANCE IN CANCER Cancer has an uncanny ability to adapt quickly to attacks – whether tumor-killing drugs or radiation. Two teams of researchers will discuss their work analyzing the biomolecular mechanisms that allow cancer cells to rapidly evolve resistance to treatments. Electrical engineer James Sturm and biophysicist Robert Austin of Princeton University in N.J. – along with a large group of collaborators from the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and the University of California at Santa Cruz – designed microchips with internal structures that created gradients in drug concentration. Colonies of drug-resistant cancer cells developed rapidly in the areas where drug concentration was low enough for some cells to survive. Though the mechanism used by the resistant cells is not clear, one possible explanation is an acquired ability to pump out the drugs, says Princeton University graduate student Amy Wu, who will present the group’s findings. The team is now looking for genetic signatures in the cells that would indicate increased activity for this pump. (Y45.00002) A second talk, by Austin and colleagues So Hyun Kim of Ehwa Womans University in South Korea and Atif Kahn and Monal Mehta of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey in New Brunswick, uses a similar gradient environment to examine how brain tumors develop resistance to radiation treatments. (Y45.00010) These are the first studies to examine how cancer cells in gradient environments develop treatment resistance.Y45.00002 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/190676Y45.00010 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/190684
MOSH PITS TEACH PHYSICISTS ABOUT THE BEHAVIOR OF PANICKED CROWDS At heavy metal concerts, loud music and bright, flashing lights put mosh pit “moshers” into a state of excitement and agitation. Physicists from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., will present their work making models of these moshers’ collective motion to learn how groups of panicking people behave during riots, protests, or natural disasters. Previous studies have relied on observations of pedestrian traffic and other situations where study participants are in a relatively calm state of mind. But agitation can drastically change people’s behavior, say graduate student co-presenters Jesse Silverberg and Matthew Bierbaum. The team reasoned that mosh pits represent a new way to reliably, consistently, and ethically study human behavior in a world where footage of real panic situations is, fortunately, rare. “There’s very limited observational data of motion of people during these panic situations,” Silverberg says. “We use heavy metal concerts, which do happen regularly, as a proxy.” So far the group has found that their model matches collective behavior seen at real heavy metal concerts, and even predicts a new behavior not yet observed in other models. The researchers hope their work will inspire architectural designs that help crowds exit buildings safely.W44.00010 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/190094
ART AND PHYSICSApplied physics meets art in two additional conference talks. Martin Fischer of Duke University in Durham, N.C., will discuss a state-of-the-art laser spectroscopy technique that allows high-resolution and non-destructive 3-D imaging of both biological tissue and artworks. In addition to medical uses such as identifying skin cancer, the technique could be used on masterworks to tell the source of an underlying pigment, deduce firing temperatures of pottery, or study the extent of damage in degrading artwork, Fischer says. (U11.00001) And the predictive power of Twitter is the subject of a talk by researchers from Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., who explain how this online social networking tool was used to forecast the elimination of contestants in the television show American Idol. The work illustrates how online information systems can be used as real-time indicators of public opinion. (F28.00003)U11.00001 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/188681F28.00003 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/184115
WOMEN IN STEM CAREERSDespite progress in recent years, women remain underrepresented in science and engineering (STEM) fields. Presentations in several March meeting sessions examine the latest research into why women drop out of science and what can be done to encourage more women to become life-long physicists. Roxanne Hughes (Center for Integrating Research and Learning at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Tallahassee, Fla.) will present research charting the career trajectories of 26 women who began undergraduate STEM degree paths but did not all finish. Hughes draws lessons from these women’s stories to develop strategies that might increase the percentage of women who stick with STEM careers. (G9.00005) Once women become scientists, many studies demonstrate that there is still gender bias. Researchers from Northwestern University in Illinois and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain will present an analysis of the gender difference in publication rate and impact among STEM faculty members at top U.S. research institutions. They present results that suggest the widely-reported lower publication rates of female faculty may be explained by the lower level of institutional support historically received by females. (G28.00002) Lilia Meza-Montes (Instituto Física BUAP, Mexico) will add a global perspective, with an overview of the situation of female physicists in Latin America. She will present statistics on the numbers of female physicists, examine common cultural attitudes towards women in the sciences, and present possible regional agreements that could support female scientists. (R9.00002)G9.00005 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/184460G28.00002 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/184705R9.00002 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/187410
UNIDENTIFIED CHEMICAL IMPLICATED IN TYPE 2 DIABETES REMISSION FOLLOWING WEIGHT-LOSS SURGERY High blood sugar is a hallmark of type 2 diabetes, a leading cause of obesity-related morbidity that can lead to blindness and limb amputations. One of the welcome side effects of weight-loss surgeries (such as gastric bypass) is lowered glucose levels, traditionally associated with the restriction of calories. But in one type of gastric bypass, blood sugar levels return to normal within days after surgery, long before patients lose an appreciable amount of weight. A team from Texas A & M University and the Qatar Biomedical Research Institute is developing models to explain this rapid reduction in blood sugar. Their work shows that the peptide GLP-1, the molecule traditionally thought to be responsible for diabetes remission following surgery, cannot fully account for the blood sugar decline. Instead, the models suggest the production of another chemical or chemicals that use pathways different from those associated with insulin to suck up excess glucose and return blood sugar to normal levels. One potential candidate chemical is the blood vessel-enlarging peptide bradykinin. “One can imagine medication which would benefit the hundreds of millions of people with type 2 diabetes” if such a biochemical were to be identified, says author Roland Allen of Texas A & M University.J44.00015 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/185813
FROM WHISKEY TO WATER: SIMPLE AND SUSTAINABLE BEVERAGE TESTING AND PURIFICATION TECHNIQUES Scientists are working on simple and sustainable new methods to ensure the beverages people drink are safe. In the developing world an increasing number of people suffer from methanol poisoning, often as a result of drinking illegally distilled or adulterated alcohol. Researchers at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia have developed a sensor to detect these harmful amounts of methanol in typical alcoholic beverages. The sensor is wireless and low cost and the researchers hope that it can be deployed widely to identify unsafe drinks. (N46.00013) The Chu-Hsiao research group at Stony Brook University is developing an energy efficient and sustainable method to purify another commonly consumed fluid: water. The group used a combination of mechanical and chemical pathways to isolate cellulose nanofibers from tree wood. After studying the structure of the fibers in detail using synchrotron X-ray scattering, the team used the cellulose to make a separation membrane to purify water. “We have taken advantage of what nature has already fabricated,” says Benjamin Chu, a professor in the chemistry department at Stony Brook University. In addition to drinking water, the membrane can be used to filter water used for other purposes such as agriculture, the researchers note. The sustainable cellulose-containing separation membrane tackles the dual problems of water and energy. (F11.00003)N46.00013 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/187018F11.00003 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/183875
PHYSICS AND THE FUTURE ECONOMYThe American Physical Society’s Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics (FIAP) this year will partner with the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Industrial Physics Forum (IPF) to present four sessions that examine the essential relationship between physics and the economy. Presenters will discuss innovation and entrepreneurship in physics, addressing how cutting-edge discoveries may potentially fuel investment and new applications. In exploring the frontiers of physics, scientists will discuss a number of emerging fields in physics, including the latest results from the Large Hadron Collider on its quest to unlock the secrets of the Higgs Boson. Other talks will highlight new insights in topics ranging from quantum computing to potential applications for carbon nanotubes. The third session will look at nanomanufacturing, which is already harnessing the emergent properties and unique capabilities of the extremely small. The continued promise of nanotechnology will be featured in a series of talks that look at computational devices, atomic-scale electronics, and terawatt-scale energy applications. Finally, at the intersection of biology and physics, presenters will discuss the current trajectory of research in areas such as molecular imaging, drug design, and synthetic biology. http://www.aps.org/meetings/march/events/industrial.cfm
SCIENCE OF AMERICA’S FUTUREAmerican Scientific Leadership and the New Administration Looking to the next four years and beyond, the scientific goals of the new administration and America’s international role in science will be the subject of two invited sessions at the 2013 March meeting.
On Wednesday, William Colglazier, the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State, will discuss the importance of science as an asset to international diplomacy, while the Director of Science in the Office of Energy, William Brinkman and Gerald Blazey, the Assistant Director for Physical Sciences in the Executive Office, will speak on the science budget and research goals of the new administration for large-scale experiment and groundbreaking research. Dhalia Sokolov, the Democratic Staff Director on the Research and Science Education subcommittee for the U.S. House of Representatives Committeee on Science, will offer a rare perspective of scientific policy making on the Hill with Robert Jaffe, the Jane and Otto Morningstar Professor of Physics at MIT, discussing the past and present issues for science policy in Washington.
Thursday’s session on the future of America’s scientific leadership will feature a discussion panel and Q&A with congressional policy makers, agency heads, scientific leaders, presidential advisers. Maxine Savits, vice chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology will begin with a discussion of the recent report on the future of the U.S. research enterprise, followed by representatives Rush Holt and Bill Foster of the U.S. House of Representatives. Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow will weigh in on the future of large-scale scientific experiments alongside MIT Director of the Center for Bits and Atoms and FabLab innovator Neil Gershenfeld.- U10: Science of the New Administrationhttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/SessionIndex2/?SessionEventID=188674- N47: Future of American Scientific Leadershiphttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/sessionindex2/?SessionEventID=193805
MAJORANA FERMIONS EMERGE FROM THE FOGA long-theorized particle known as a Majorana fermion, which has the curious property of being its own antiparticle, has recently been created in the form of particle-like structures in nanodevices. While neutrinos and other exotic particles may be Majoranas, such possibilities have not yet been confirmed. Majorana particles can, however, be emulated in some electronic devices. New experiments bolster confidence that they can be created and possibly manipulated with enough control to enable quantum computations. Researchers were able to coax these retiring particles into existence by combining a strong superconductor with a semiconducting nanowire 1000 times thinner than a human hair. The nanowire, in effect, functioned as a semiconductor, which produced the necessary conduction for their emergence. It is a solid theoretical prediction that Majorana fermions always come in pairs, so they should appear as localized states living in the nanowire at both ends of the segment. The new research provides evidence that there are indeed Majorana's at both sides of the superconductor, as theoretically predicted. By adding a set of so-called “gates” that can control the electron densities in the wire, the researchers speculate that they eventually may be able to move these fermions along the nanowire, which could lead to practical applications and new scientific insights.T13.00008 – http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/188088
OTHER INTERESTING TALKS BY DAY
MONDAY, MARCH 18Einstein’s umbrage at a referee whose criticism of his paper was eventually vindicatedhttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/182670
Distributing vaccines randomly to avert epidemicshttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/183751
TUESDAY, MARCH 19Tracking technology trends with Google’s N-Gram Datasethttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/184706
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20How the ``Blues'' reveals the intimacy of music and physicshttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/186464
THURSDAY, MARCH 21The Venus flytrap and Bio-inspired Roboticshttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/188302
Listening to trees: tracking down the source of crackling emitted by trees suffering from droughtshttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/189852
Stretchable electronicshttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/189863
FRIDAY, MARCH 22Recyclable buckysponges for oil-spill cleaninghttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/190186
Developing fins for self-propelled robo-fishhttp://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/Event/190616
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MORE INFORMATION FOR JOURNALISTS- General Meeting Information: http://www.aps.org/meetings/march/index.cfm- Searchable Abstracts: http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR13/APS_epitome
PRESS CONFERENCESPress conferences will be held daily in the Baltimore Convention Center room 313. A press conference schedule, which will include instructions for dialing in remotely, will be issued in early March.
REGISTERING AS A JOURNALISTJournalists planning to attend the meeting should contact James Riordon ([email protected]) about free registration.
PRESSROOM INFORMATIONA dedicated and staffed pressroom will operate throughout the meeting at the Boston Convention Center. Phones, computers, printers, and free wireless Internet access will be available to reporters using the pressroom.- Location: Baltimore Convention Center, rooms 311-312- Hours: MON-THU, 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and FRI, 7:30 a.m. to noon- Food service: Both breakfast and lunch will be provided Monday through Thursday. Breakfast only will be served on Friday.
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ABOUT APSThe American Physical Society (www.aps.org) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy and international activities. APS represents 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories and industry in the United States and throughout the world. Society offices are located in College Park, MD (Headquarters), Ridge, NY, and Washington, DC.
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