Salty oceans on Europa
Europa is roughly the size of the Moon and is 85% water by weight. An icy crust reflects most of the light falling on the satellite. In 1979, the Voyager spacecraft flew past Europa and discovered a s...
Teller has no regrets over bomb
Teller played important roles in the development of the atomic and hydrogen bomb. In 1939 he chauffeured another Hungarian physicist, Leó Szilárd, to a meeting with Albert Einstein. Szil...
World supply of medical isotopes under threat
The Chalk River lab is owned by Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL) and supplies molybdenum-99, iodine-125, iodine-131 and xenon-133 to MDS Nordion for the manufacture of radiopharmaceuticals. A derivative...
Science strikes on-line deal with China
The deal was hatched in discussions between Ellis Rubinstein, editor of Science , and Zhou Guangzhao, president of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology. A group of Chinese funding agenci...
Small in size, high on impact
Secrets of success One of the reasons for this high impact is that Scandinavian physicists specialize in niche areas. According to Ole Hansen, director of the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of...
Japan increases contribution to LHC
The LHC will be a 14 TeV proton-proton collider. High-energy physicists will use to LHC to search for the Higgs particle (or particles), which are thought to explain the origins of mass. It will also ...
Pollution: cleaner coronas
Coronas form when a stream of gas passes between two electrodes maintained at different voltages. The potential difference causes energetic electrons to collide with the gas, producing a glowing plasm...
Birth of a black hole
The event is unusual in that the star appears to have been heavy enough – possibly 100 times the mass of the Sun – to collapse back on itself and form a black hole instead of completely bl...
Nations breach methodology of science tests
The TIMSS exercise tests students at the end of secondary school education in four subjects: general science, physics, mathematics, and advanced mathematics. But according to Rotberg, only 6 of the 16...
Quantum computers shape up
The two recent breakthroughs exploit the quantum properties of nuclear spins, which can point “up” or “down” relative to an applied electric or magnetic field. A team of physic...