Pakistan retaliates with nuclear tests
Sharif claimed on national television that the country had exploded five nuclear devices. Presently only two explosions -with 12 and 25 kiloton yields – have been confirmed by seismic monitoring...
Isotope production comes back on-line in Canada and the US
Brookhaven will produce germanium-68, which is used to calibrate positron emission tomography (PET) scanners, and copper-67 for diagnostic and research purposes. It will also make strontium-82: this i...
First light for Europe’s new telescope
The VLT uses active optics to reduce the effect of atmospheric turbulence on observations. In this technique the optical quality of a star is continually monitored against a reference star and the sur...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
