The first news story in that first issue was a sneak preview of the Edwards’ report on the future of physics departments in UK universities, which concluded that 20 staff and 200 full-time-equivalent students was the minimum feasible size for a department. Some 20 or so of the 53 departments of the time did not […]
Read article: Optical data storage
Companies are continuing to build on the tremendous success of the compact disc by developing systems that could eventually replace the traditional video recorder
The kilogram is currently defined by a platinum-iridium alloy maintained at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) in Paris and six official copies. However, the official mass of the standard kilogram has been known to vary with time, hence the interest in defining the kilogram is terms of fundamental constants like h. The […]
Bill Richardson, head of the DOE, says that Livermore “will provide critical new technologies to counter the threat of weapons of mass destruction [and provide] the FBI with new capabilities that could save American lives”. The partnership extends a previous agreement under which the agencies collaborated on crime-fighting technology. The move into civilian science is […]
The Main Injector has a circumference of 3.2 km and contains 432 magnets, each of which weighs over 18 tonnes. The Tevatron itself has a circumference of 6.3km and collides protons and antiprotons at a centre-of-mass energy of nearly two trillion electron volts (2 TeV). “Fermilab’s new Main Injector will open up extraordinary new opportunities […]
The report has three main recommendations: all areas of research must be given the opportunity to thrive; technology-based industries should be given the chance to grow; and education must be strengthened at all levels. To encourage research, the report states that the government must “make federal research funding stable and substantial, maintain diversity in the […]
Unlike other instruments, the invention does not require any sharp blades or cumbersome power sources (such as those needed for ultrasound devices) in the operating theatre. Instead, a small paddle rotates at high speed, converting the tissue into a liquid form that can be removed by a small vacuum pump attached to the instrument. By […]
HALCA was launched by Japanese astronomers in 1997 to detect radio signals at wavelengths that that are difficult to detect from the ground. In addition to conducting their own observations, the HALCA team have co-ordinated a series of observations with ground-based telescopes to produce enhanced images of quasars. These immensely energetic and distant objects are […]
According to the report, over 80% of the SMEs that received an award during 1995-97 had never taken part in an EU project before, and some 8000 companies had never been involved in any sort of public research project. And the number of SMEs involved in 4th Framework was 231% higher than in its predecessor. […]
Luckily, SOHO drifted back into sunlight long enough to recharge its solar cells for communications with Earth, and in the past month the fuel has been heated from -100 C to 10 C. Engineers had to be careful not to rupture the tanks while heating the fuel. The tanks have survived so far and the […]
