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Six months after physicists shocked the world by announcing they'd found particles seemingly traveling faster than light, the growing scientific consensus seems to be that the results were flawed. Neutrinos are the vampires of physics. Researchers at the ICARUS project in Italy have recreated an independent version of the original Switzerland-based experiment, called OPERA, and found that their particles traveled at a respectable, sub-light speed. Though the results don't automatically disprove OPERA's findings, they add to most scientists' sense that the shocking finding was an anomaly "The evidence is beginning to point towards the OPERA result being an artifact of...

Neutrinos are having a moment. They’re speeding across Europe (just how fast is under review), they’re changing flavors in China and, now, they’re carrying rudimentary messages through bedrock in Illinois. A team of physicists encoded a short string of letters on a beam of neutrinos at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., and sent the message to a detector more than a kilometer away. On the journey the neutrinos passed through 240 meters of solid rock, mostly shale. What was the word they transmitted in the preliminary demonstration? “Neutrino.” The experiment is described in a paper posted to the...

Squeezing hydrogen at extreme pressures changes it into a mix of honeycombed atoms layered with free-floating molecules — an entirely new state of the element and the first new phase found in decades. If confirmed, the discovery will be only the fourth known phase of hydrogen, the simplest element and one long probed for basic insights into the nature of matter. “I think we have pretty bulletproof evidence that there is a new phase,” says Eugene Gregoryanz of the University of Edinburgh, leader of the team that will report the work in an upcoming Physical Review Letters. Hydrogen’s first three...

Faulty wiring has been proposed as the glitch that caused a European physics experiment to clock particles flying faster than light. Scientists at Italy’s OPERA experiment reported in September that nearly weightless particles called neutrinos were apparently traveling from the CERN laboratory on the Swiss-French border to an underground detector in Italy, 730 kilometers away, faster than the speed of light. The apparent violation of Einstein’s theory of special relativity immediately produced a chorus of theorists offering reasons why neutrinos simply could not be going that fast (SN: 11/5/11, p. 10). “It was always clear to me that the results...

Enlarge Image The new graphene. Graphyne may be less famous than graphene, but it could have better electronic properties. Credit: D. Malko et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (2012) Graphene, a layer of graphite just one atom thick, isn't called a wonder material for nothing. The subject of the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics, it is famed for its superlative mechanical and electronic properties. Yet new computer simulations suggest that the electronic properties of a little-known sister material of graphene—graphyne—may in some ways be better. The simulations show that graphyne's conduction electrons should travel extremely fast—as they do in graphene—but...

Enlarge Image Underpass. Appropriately sculpted ripples on the ocean floor could convert surface waves into internal interfacial waves, allowing them to pass under a floating object and protecting the thing from jostling. Credit: M.-R. Alam, PhysRevLett, 108 (24 February, 2012) The weird science of invisibility has entered uncharted waters. By altering the sea floor in just the right way, it should be possible to hide an object floating on the sea from passing waves, a fluid mechanician predicts. The technique might help to protect ships and floating structures from rough seas. And because the scheme works entirely differently from...

Enlarge Image Nuclear dermatology clinic. The vessel containing the lead sample in the PREX experiment (left) and the massive spectrometers used to detect the electrons scattered from the lead nuclei and measure the nuclei's skin. Credit: Photos Courtesy of Robert Michaels A large atomic nucleus is like a chocolate truffle with a gooey interior and a harder shell. Inside, the nucleus contains a mixture of protons and neutrons. Outside, it's covered with a nearly pure layer of neutrons—the "neutron skin." Now, for the first time, nuclear physicists have measured the thickness of that skin in a fairly direct way....

The CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva has confirmed Wednesday's report that a loose fiber-optic cable may be behind measurements that seemed to show neutrinos outpacing the speed of light. But the lab also says another glitch could have caused the experiment to underestimate the particles' speed. In a statement based on an earlier press release from the OPERA collaboration, CERN said two possible "effects" may have influenced the anomalous measurements. One of them, due to a possible faulty connection between the fiber-optic cable bringing the GPS signals to OPERA and the detector's master clock, would have caused the experiment...

Fires can't burn in the oxygen-free vacuum of space, but guns can shoot. Modern ammunition contains its own oxidizer, a chemical that will trigger the explosion of gunpowder, and thus the firing of a bullet, wherever you are in the universe. No atmospheric oxygen required. The only difference between pulling the trigger on Earth and in space is the shape of the resulting smoke trail. In space, "it would be an expanding sphere of smoke from the tip of the barrel," said Peter Schultz an astronomer at Brown University who researches impact craters. The possibility of gunfire in space allows...

Enlarge Image Heavy bass. This subwoofer plays a constant beat that pumps the air up and down inside the wind tunnel. The diffusers allow air to flow without turbulence so that the paper pyramid floats inside. Credit: Bin Liu Think that floating pyramids are more metaphysics than physics? Think again. Results just in from an experiment that levitated open-bottomed paper pyramids on gusts of air reveal a curious phenomenon: When it comes to drifting through the air, top-heavy designs are more stable than bottom-heavy ones. The finding may lead to robots that fly not like insects or birds but...

Enlarge Image Laser-induced switching. Experimental images showing two small domains with magnetic orientation up (white) and down (black). Each laser pulse reverses the direction repeatedly. Credit: Johan Mentink; Richard Evans (inset) An ultrashort heat pulse can predictably flip a bit in a magnetic memory like the one in your hard drive. The surprising effect could ultimately lead to magnetic memories hundreds of times faster and more energy efficient than today's hard drives. It also provides a way to control the direction in which a bit is magnetized without applying something else that has a direction, such as a magnetic...

The mysteries of the universe are as vast and wide as existence itself. Throughout history, mankind has searched and struggled to find the answers tucked away inside the universe and everything we see around us. .. True, we have yet to come up with the answers to life, the universe, and everything — but oh do we have questions! Solving these mysteries may help to explain not only the creation of the universe, but also how it works, why it works, and possibly how it will end. 1. The Higgs boson The Higgs boson is a hypothetical particle whose accompanying...

Spectroscopy, a key method of identifying atoms and molecules with light, has been taken to its most fundamental level - a single photon absorbed by a single molecule. In addition to paving the way toward new experiments that observe the interaction between light and matter at its most basic level, the researchers that accomplished the feat suggest that their technique could also work with other photon-emitters, including those under study for quantum communication.Spectroscopy works by finding the frequencies of light that will put an atom or molecule into an excited state - these comprise the chemical's unique absorption and emission...

Are there any other fans of FABRIC OF THE COSMOS out there? I found it to be perhaps the most fascinating science show ever produced. The information in the show is nothing less than stunning and definitely changed my view of the universe. Some of the information is so stunning that it is hard to comprehend. But guess what? Even physicists have a hard time getting their minds around it. And an oatmeal cookie to the first person who can post who the major backer of this series is.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado man who was killed when a 3-foot tree branch flew through his windshield and impaled him in the chest was able to steer the car to safety before losing consciousness. The wife of 61-year-old James Baker-Jarvis told the Daily Camera (http://goo.gl/WsaHg ) that her husband was able to pull the Subaru Outback over to the roadside, saving her from any injury. Baker-Jarvis died later at a hospital.

The world of physics is abuzz with speculation over an announcement expected Tuesday, Dec. 13, from the CERN laboratory in Geneva -- home of the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The announcement, planned for 8 a.m. EST, will address the status of the search for the elusive Higgs boson particle, sometimes called the "God Particle" because of its importance to science This particle, which has long been theorized but never detected, is thought to give all other particles mass. Scientists at the LHC have been hoping that when protons inside the machine collide together at extremely...

High noon is approaching for the biggest manhunt in the history of physics. At 8 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday morning, scientists from CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, are scheduled to give a progress report on the search for the Higgs boson — infamously known as the “God particle” — whose discovery would vindicate the modern theory of how elementary particles get mass. The report comes amid rumors that the two competing armies of scientists sifting debris from hundreds of trillions of proton collisions in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, or L.H.C., outside Geneva, have both finally seen hints...

Thomas Edison and his direct current, or DC, technology lost the so-called War of the Currents to alternating current, or AC, in the 1890s after it became clear that AC was far more efficient at transmitting electricity over long distances. Today, AC is still the standard for the electricity that comes out of our wall sockets. But DC is staging a roaring comeback in pockets of the electrical grid. Alstom, ABB, Siemens and other conglomerates are erecting high-voltage DC grids to carry gigawatts of electricity from wind farms in remote places like western China and the North Sea to faraway...

Enlarge Image Standing proud. The LHCb experiment has uncovered hints of "new physics," but will its results hold up? Credit: CERN In late 2008, a few onlookers believed that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) would bring the end of the world. Three years later, our planet remains intact, but the European particle smasher may have made its first crack in modern physics. If this crack turns out to be real, it might help explain an enduring mystery of the universe: why there's lots of normal matter, but hardly any of the opposite—antimatter. "If it holds up, it's exciting," says...

There is extensive evidence from physics for a beginning and fine-tuning of the universe. When the complementary nature of these insights is seen, it provides compelling evidence for a transcendent, intelligent Creator. Cosmic Origins features eight world-class physicists talking about modern physics and God. They include Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias (who discovered the background radiation from the Big Bang); Templeton Prize winners John Polkinghorne (Cambridge) and Michael Heller (Vatican Observatory); Owen Gingerich (Harvard); Lisa Randall (Harvard); Jennifer Wiseman (NASA); and narrated by Stephen Barr (University of Delaware).