International projects face flak in Congress
Sensenbrenner has long campaigned against ITER, an international collaboration between fusion labs in Europe, Japan, Russia and the US. He claims that ITER has soaked up valuable funds that could be u...
Positrons found in quasar jets
Quasar jets are streams of plasma that travel at near the speed of light from supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies. The jets appear at radio wavelengths, but can also be detected in the ...
Secret files reveal plan to kidnap Bohr
Bohr had escaped from German-occupied Denmark in September 1943 and crossed the Atlantic to work with British and American physicists on the Manhattan atomic-bomb project at Los Alamos. However, he re...
Superconductivity debate gets ugly
However,it is the last paragraph that makes the paper unique: “The tragedy of beautiful theories, ” write Chakraverty et al., “is that they are often destroyed by ugly facts. One per...
Electronics put it on plastic
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 advantage...
Closing in on the Planck constant
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 sta...
Physics fights terrorism
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 tha...
Tevatron upgrade complete
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 ...
US looks to unlock the future in science
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 strength...
New tools for brain surgery
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 ro...
