Best of Last Week – Evidence of quark-gluon interactions, new portable device hack and why we may never live forever
(Phys.org) —With summer drawing to a close, research is starting to heat up. Last week, physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider used supercomputer calculations to offer evidence that particles predicted by the theory of quark-gluon interactions are being produced in heavy-ion collisions—it's the first such evidence found and it should offer scientists a way to mimic condition that existed 14 billion years ago. Also, researchers at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Denver Colorado have found the first direct evidence of "spin symmetry" in atoms. The team used an ultra-stable laser and their findings could lead to a better understanding of superconductivity and colossal magneto-resistance. Meanwhile, another team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory demonstrated ultra low-field nuclear magnetic resonance using Earth's magnetic field—it was a proof of concept experiment looking into ways to sense the interior chemical and physical attributes of an object from a distance, without sampling...