Amplification of matter waves
Bose-Einstein condensation itself was only observed for the first time in 1995. There has been intense interest in the process ever since because of the unique quantum behaviour displayed by matter in...
Clinton backs US research
The good news is contained in the budget request for the fiscal year 1999 (FY99), which begins in October. The National Science Foundation will receive 10% more than this year, while science and techn...
Newsbytes: Galileo and aliens
Galileo declassified The Vatican has finally made public its archives, after four and a half centuries of secrecy. Scholars will be able to access files relating to figures such as Galileo, up to the ...
Nuclear firms prepare for merger
The merger between Magnox Electric and British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) should be complete within a year, creating a new group with a combined turnover of £1.8 bn and almost 18 000 staff, inc...
Pathfinder leads the way to red planet
In The Crystal Egg, a short story written in 1897, HG Wells describes how a remarkable object in Mr Cave’s Curiosity Shop allows its owner to gaze at a real-time image from the surface of Mars w...
Larger lenses
Despite the popularity of cheap plastic lenses, glass lenses are still essential for many applications. To make a glass lens, a gob of molten glass is dropped onto a catching tool, which compresses it...
Why are American workers more productive than British and German workers?
Germany is thought to have some of the most highly trained and productive workers in the world. However, new data from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) in London show tha...
Critical issues at the original nuclear lab
First published November 1997 in Physics World As the sixth director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, John Browne faces broad challenges at a critical time in the laboratory’s history. Aft...
UK focuses on research strengths and opportunities
The analyses were commissioned by Sir John Cadogan, director general of the research councils, who chairs a panel that is reviewing the UK science budget. He is using the SWOT analyses to help him jud...
Fast spinning pulsar
Frank Marshall, Will Zhang and Eric Gotthelf from the Goddard Space Flight Center, and John Middleditch of Los Alamos National Laboratory found the star by studying data from NASA’s Rossi X-Ray ...
