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 […]
The goal of all-polymer electronics has motivated an increasing number of research groups around the world for the past 20 years. These groups hope to provide plastics – which have the advantages of low-cost processing, flexibility and toughness – with the electronic properties needed for practical circuitry. In the past few months, exciting new results […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Previous experiments found it difficult to measure plasma spectra because the high temperatures inside the plasma caused the spectral lines to blur. The Weizmann team solved the problem by adding oxygen ions to the plasma: these ions are less disturbed by the heat and density inside the plasma and produce clear spectral lines. Maron’s team […]
