Best of Last Week – Halting photons, a peer review problem and circadian clock shifting from e-readers
(Phys.org)—It was an interesting week even as we entered the holiday season, researchers at MIT found that halting photons could lead to miniature particle accelerators and perhaps improved data transmission. The light trapping process discovered last year involved twisting the polarization direction now appears to be related to a wide range of other seemingly unrelated phenomena. Also, physicist Robert Erlich claimed that neutrinos are likely tachyons, which would make them able to travel faster than light. He also believes the proof lies in finding the faster-than-light particles by weighing them. In space news, a team of Russian and American researchers found what they are calling the Milky Way's new neighbor—an isolated dwarf galaxy that lies almost 7 million light years away from us; they have named it KKs3. Also a pair of researchers proposed using ballistic capture as a cheaper path to Mars—it involves putting a space craft into the...