Latest science news in Physics & Chemistry
Supercollider = superstar
Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: By some accounts, a billion people tuned in for the Large Hadron Collider's startup — and there's more to come, including a potential TV series.
Bees 'do the wave' to save their lives
Giant honeybees are known to flip their bellies up en masse to create a giant wave called a shimmer, somewhat akin to humans rhythmically throwing their hands in the air...
Physicists Harness Effects Of Disorder In Magnetic Sensors
Scientists have discovered how to make magnetic sensors capable of operating at the high temperatures that ceramic engines in cars and aircraft of the future will require. The key to...
Hackers mock collider computer security
GENEVA, Switzerland, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Hackers put a damper on celebrations of the Large Hadron Collider's successful start-up in Geneva, Switzerland, leaving a mocking message on its...
Large Hadron Collider to Have "Practical" Spin-Offs?
In addition to solving big mysteries of the universe, the massive atom smasher may help treat disease, improve the Internet, and open the door to faster-than-light travel, scientists say.
"Big Bang" Experiment Passes Key Tests
The world's largest particle collider has successfully completed its first major tests. Scientists around the world watched as a beam of protons was fired all the way around a 17-mile...
Feature: The sandwich factor for safer cars
Research is opening the way for the design of environmentally friendly, lighter and safer cars.
Switched-on New Nanotechnology Paints For Hospitals Could Kill Superbugs
New nanotechnology paints for walls, ceilings, and surfaces could be used to kill hospital superbugs when fluorescent lights are switched on, scientists report.
Search for Magical Dark Matter Gets Real
Researchers hope to finally track down dark matter with the world's biggest atom smasher, which opened in Switzerland.
Switching on the large hadron collider
Ian Sample watches the Large Hadron Collider being switched on in Geneva. With comment from Professor Peter Higgs, inventor of the Higgs boson particle theory
Oxford turbines to harvest energy from tides
Oxford researchers have developed a new tidal turbine which has the potential to harness tidal energy more efficiently and cheaply, using a device which is simpler and more robust and...
The Fast Way Around
The purpose of the LHC is to get lots of protons moving very, very fast. The magnet system is the core piece of technology that makes this happen. More than...
Engineers hike hydraulic pump efficiency
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Sept. 10 (UPI) -- U.S. engineers say they've found a way to cut fuel consumption and dramatically improve hydraulic pump and motor efficiency in heavy...
Breaking Open the Unknown Universe
The proton is a persistent thing. The first one crystallized out of the universe's chaotic froth just 0.00001 of a second after the big bang, when existence was squeezed into...
In Defense of the LHC
Today’s most ambitious scientific instruments are modern-day cathedrals in their size and complexity, if not in their purpose—these are, after all, structures built to shatter worldviews, not to reinforce them....
New gecko-like adhesive shakes off dirt
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are continuing their march toward creating a synthetic, gecko-like adhesive, one sticky step at a time. Their latest milestone is the first adhesive...
UC Davis researcher begins study of Osama bin Laden audio tapes
More than 1,500 audiocassette tapes taken in 2001 from Osama bin Laden's former residential compound in Qandahar, Afghanistan, are yielding new insights into the radical Islamic militant leader's intellectual development...
Maxwell's demons may drive some biological systems
(PhysOrg.com) -- According to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy always increases. For example, two bodies of different temperatures, when brought into contact, will eventually mix together to result in...
Prototype Superconductor For Tokamak Fusion Reactor Proves Successful
Fusion for Energy (F4E) with the support of the European Commission, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and ITER Organisation have successfully tested a prototype superconductor for the ITER Poloidal Field...
Closest Look Ever At Graphene: Stunning Images Of Individual Carbon Atoms From TEAM 0.5 Microscope
Hailed as the world's most powerful transmission electron microscope, TEAM 0.5 is living up to expectations. Using the microscope, researchers have produced stunning images of individual carbon atoms in graphene,...
Diatom nanostructures bend light
Marine algae's clever light-scattering systems could be replicated in medical devices
Ian Sample talks to LHC project manager Lyn Evans about the big switch-on
The Guardian's Ian Sample talks to LHC project manager Lyn Evans about the big switch-on as scientists at Cern prepare to recreate the aftermath of the big bang
Large Hadron Collider: What the LHC could discover
From the particle that gives everything its mass, to mini black holes and extra spatial dimensions, the LHC has the potential to make a host of amazing discoveries
Home run complete, LHC set to repeat it backwards
'Start up' day goes smoother than most expected
Particle physics: The race to break the standard model
The Large Hadron Collider is the latest attempt to move fundamental physics past the frustratingly successful 'standard model'. But it is not the only way to do it. Geoff Brumfiel...
Worst Case: Collider Spawns Planet-Devouring Black Hole
When the world's biggest atom smasher starts up this week, most experts say we won't feel a thing. But if they're wrong, a golf-ball size black hole could absorb Earth.
Fusion power seeks super steels
Scientists say an understanding of how the Twin Towers collapsed will lead to new steels needed to build fusion reactors.
LHC by the numbers
The largest particle accelerator in the world, which will feel its first full proton beams tomorrow, just oozes numerical hyperbole.