Physics

GHGSat‐D observations of methane plumes at various sites in the Korpezhe oil/gas field of western Turkmenistan. (Courtesy: Geophysical Research Letters https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083798) The satellite was supposed to be looking for mud volcanoes. Instead, it found an ongoing environmental hazard. That, in essence, is the story Adina Gillespie told attendees at the Appleton Space Conference, which was

The 2019 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony was held in September at Harvard University, where the world’s top thinkers gathered to celebrate the year’s strangest scientific advances. The competition was fierce. The particles in the air were ionized by the sheer dynamicity of it.  Science, at times, can be a little stuffy. Scientists, on the other

FluoroTome 1 is a portable apparatus that performs on-site tomographic scanning of radio-fluorogenic gels within minutes of radiation exposure. (Courtesy: CC BY 4.0/J M Warman et al Polymers 10.3390/polym11111729) The ability to create 3D images of radio-fluorogenic (RFG) gels following radiation exposure could enable visualization of the dose deposited during a radiation treatment. To achieve

Smart wound dressing: Ruchi Gupta holds a model of her optical biosensor. (Courtesy: Hamish Johnston) On Friday I was at the Institute of Physics (IOP) in London for an event called “Showcasing Physical Sciences Impact”, which was organized by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI)  and

The researchers (left to right): PhD student and first author Daseuli Yu and senior authors Byung Ouk Park and Won Do Heo. Korean researchers have used light to control the binding of two separate and inactive antibody fragments and generate a specific, timely immune response to antigens. The platform that they created could help develop

With the Physics World 2019 Breakthrough of the Year due to be announced on 12 December, Physics World journalists look back at the past decade of winners and explore how research in that field has moved on. Here, Tami Freeman examines the 2013 breakthrough, awarded to the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory for “making the

Streaming from the Sun: this image from Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument shows a coronal streamer over the east limb of the Sun. The bright object near the centre of the image is Mercury and the dark spots are a result of background correction. (Courtesy: NASA/Naval Research Laboratory/Parker Solar Probe) The closest ever mission to

This week and next, the Physics World Weekly podcast is dedicated to our Top Ten Breakthroughs in Physics for 2019. This week we chat about the first five breakthroughs on our list. These are a new technology for converting thoughts into speech; the first images of a black hole event horizon; the first detection of

From the Moon and comets, to dragons and demons, this year’s top physics books are an eclectic mix This year, Physics World‘s Book of the Year award is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Indeed, 2019 marks a decade of excellence in popular-physics books, and suffice to say that this year’s shortlist reflects this. We’ve based our

[embedded content] Miguel Wattson is an electric eel (Electrophorus electricus) who lives in the Rivers of the World gallery at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, US. The eel is best known for his tweeting ability under the Twitter handle @EelectricMiguel (although aquarium staff write his messages, which are triggered by the electrical pulses that Miguel emits while

Astronaut Kathleen Rubins examines human heart cells cultured aboard the International Space Station. (Courtesy: NASA) Human heart cells exposed to microgravity show surprisingly quick changes in function and gene expression, but largely return to normal when back on Earth, say researchers in the US. The team compared the RNA, morphology and behaviour of two sets

Omar Baddour on WMO State of the Climate report On Tuesday 3 December the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) released the provisional statement for its 2019 State of the Climate report. The full report will be published in March but it looks certain that 2019 will conclude the decade with the highest average global temperature since

Without context, you might think a “superwalker” is an extra-fast power walker, topnotch zombie, or even a high-tech mobility device. But this is a physics blog, so that’s your first clue that we’re headed in a different direction. The superwalkers in this story don’t even have legs—they are small drops of liquid with surprising capabilities

The researchers (from left): Xiaoguang Zhao, Xin Zhang and Stephan Anderson. (Courtesy: Jackie Ricciardi, BU Photography) MRI is a mainstay of clinics around the world. It is an imaging technique that provides unparalleled anatomical and pathological information while also avoiding exposure to ionizing radiation. MR does have some limitations, however. MR signal arises from a

Only the best: we reveal our 10 finalists for 2019. One of the highlights in the Physics World calendar is the annual announcement of our Breakthrough of the Year, which will be made this year on Thursday 12 December. Today, we are revealing the 10 finalists for 2019, which serves as a shortlist from which

Large video displays are a possible application of the new cadmium-free quantum dot LEDs. (Courtesy: iStock/metamorworks) Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) containing semiconducting nanocrystals called quantum dots are ideal for applications such as large-panel displays and solar cells thanks to their high efficiency and colour purity. To date, the chief drawback of these quantum-dot LEDs has been

With the Physics World 2019 Breakthrough of the Year due to be announced on 12 December, Physics World journalists look back at the past decade of winners and explore how research in that field has moved on. Here Matin Durrani reflects on the 2011 breakthrough for “weak measurement” Strength in weakness: physicists in 2011 gained

Taken from the December 2019 issue of Physics World, where it appeared under the headline “A mathematical mindset”. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. Matin Durrani reviews The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature’s Deepest Secrets by Graham Farmelo For the last 40

When the astronomer Galileo Galilei first set his sights on Jupiter through his telescope in 1610, he noticed two strange things: First, there four small moons orbiting the planet, and second, planet had these strange alternating bands of color. Now, over 400 years later, we’re looking at these stripes on the Solar System’s largest planet

With the Physics World 2019 Breakthrough of the Year due to be announced on 12 December, Physics World journalists look back at the past decade of winners and explore how research in that field has moved on. Here Margaret Harris reflects on the 2010 breakthrough for “new ways of controlling antiatoms of hydrogen” Shared glory at CERN as antihydrogen research takes

Heavy duty: artist’s impression of LB-1 showing the accretion of gas onto a stellar black hole from its blue companion star. (Courtesy: Jingchuan YU/Beijing Planetarium/2019) A 70-solar-mass black hole has been discovered orbiting a star in the Milky Way. The object is the heaviest stellar-mass black hole detected so far in our galaxy. Its very

A new type of lightweight, inexpensive hyperspectral camera. CREDIT: Maiken Mikkelsen & Jon Stewart, Duke University Researchers at Duke University in the US have developed a cheap and easy-to-construct thermal camera that can capture a multispectral image half a million times faster than existing broad-spectrum detectors. The new camera owes its speed to advanced plasmonic

Mark Prausnitz holds an experimental microneedle contraceptive skin patch. Designed to be self-administered by women for long-acting contraception, the patch could provide a new family planning option. (Courtesy: Christopher Moore, Georgia Tech) In an effort to increase access to long-acting contraception, a US-based research team has developed a microneedle patch that slowly releases contraceptive hormone

Entangled ions: new scheme could lead to practical quantum computers. (Courtesy: iStock/Traffic-Analyzer) A technique for remotely entangling ions of strontium much more accurately and at far higher rates than previously possible has been unveiled by physicists in the UK. The team says that their scheme paves the way to scalable quantum computers made from multiple ion traps that are linked to one another

With the Physics World 2019 Breakthrough of the Year due to be announced on 12 December, Physics World journalists look back at the past decade of winners and explore how research in that field has moved on. Here Michael Banks examines the 2009 breakthrough for the first “quantum computer” All on a chip: Researchers at

Sixth force: has a new particle called X17 been discovered? (Courtesy: iStock/duncan1890) If you have been scratching your head about curious reports of the discovery of a fifth (or possibly sixth) force and a mysterious particle called X17, check out Matt Strassler’s recent blog “Has a new force of nature been discovered?”.    “I thought I’d better throw some cold water

This episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast is a special celebration of our Physics World Book of the Year award, to mark its 10th anniversary . Ahead of announcing this year’s shortlist of Top 10 physics books (which will be out on 6 December), we look back at the last decade of popular physics books

‘Physics at the movies’ is the theme of the November issue of Physics World magazine. In this star-studded episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester interviews a trio of people who have worked on – or inspired – Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters. First up, Glester travels to MCM Comic Con in London to meet Paul

(Courtesy: iStock/Anterovium) Thousands of scientists will be gathering in Boston, US, next week for the Fall Meeting of the Materials Research Society. With freezing temperatures on the horizon, There will be plenty of time to size up the latest equipment for materials characterization and analysis. Here are a few of the highlights. Integrated Hall solution

On target: profile of the electron beam at the Advanced Light Source. (Courtesy: Berkeley Lab) Machine learning has been used by scientists in the US to reduce unwanted fluctuations in photon beams from a synchrotron light source. The technique does this by stabilizing the synchrotron’s electron beam and offers a way around an important barrier

The QUANTM Irradiation System can generate 68Ga at record breaking levels. (Courtesy: ARTMS Products) Gallium-68 (68Ga) is a positron emitter that’s becoming established as a valuable diagnostic isotope, primarily for detection of neuroendocrine tumours (NETs). Such tumours do not metabolize glucose well – precluding their visualization via standard FDG-PET scans – but overexpress somatostatin receptors

Full marks: how can you tell a quantum computer is giving the correct answers? (Courtesy: Shutterstock/jijomathaidesigners) A new and very efficient protocol for assessing the correctness of quantum computations has been created by Samuele Ferracin, Animesh Datta and colleagues at the UK’s University of Warwick. The team is now collaborating with experimental physicists to evaluate

Even though it’s been a warm couple of months already, it’s officially summer. A delicious, science-filled way to beat the heat? Making homemade ice cream. (We wrote this article a few years ago, but since then we’ve learned a LOT about ice cream, so we’re re-releasing this article, with expanded ice cream science and a

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, but very few are worth 5 million gigabytes. In April 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, an international team of over 200 scientists, unveiled the first-ever picture of a black hole (or more specifically–the event horizon around it). Capturing an image of M87* was a supermassive accomplishment

Experimental setup showing the system components and highlighting the path followed by the quantum cascade laser light (red) and terahertz radiation (blue). (Courtesy: Arman Amirzhan, Harvard SEAS) Researchers have created a new terahertz radiation emitter with highly-sought-after frequency adjustment capability. The compact source could enable the development of futuristic communications, security, biomedical and astronomical imaging

Its been over three years since my first triathlon, but I still cringe thinking about that initial dive into the water. See, I can’t really swim. If you were to watch a race between me and a housecat, I’d strongly suggest putting your money on the cat. In spite of my poor technique, I came

Tunnel vision: Work began on the SwFr1.5bn (£1.1bn) High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) last year. (courtesy: CERN/ Julien Marius Ordan) CERN is expected to announce a delay to a major upgrade of the lab’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at a meeting at CERN tomorrow. Work began on the SwFr1.5bn (£1.1bn) High Luminosity Large Hadron

It seems like there’s a podcast for everything these days, and everyone (and their dog) is making a podcast. Whether you’re into beekeeping or bigfoot, there’s a pod out there for you. In the U.S., 33% of people report listening to a podcast in the past month; and 16 million Americans would call themselves an

The super-photon team. Courtesy (c) Photo: Volker Lannert/Uni Bonn Researchers at the universities of Bonn and Cologne in Germany have developed a new way of splitting photon wavepackets that involves cooling them down to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double-ridge microresonator structure. This thermodynamic method differs from the usual optical beam-splitting techniques because it

“What’s it like to see something that no one has seen before?” I asked Tatiana Latychevskaia, a physicist at the University of Zurich. “You’re always puzzled, trying to look for something similar,” she says. She explains that you talk to colleagues, search the literature, and think back to conference presentations… Usually, you don’t know in

Chaos theory encompasses large swathes of mathematics and physics, but it was Edward Lorenz who immortalized it in popular culture. His now-famous 1972 presentation, which summarized his decade-long work in the field, focused on a single provocative question: Can the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? Although he

Poignant and bleak, the critically acclaimed HBO series Chernobyl revisits a difficult chapter in history to tell an important story about the role of science in society. While portions of the plot and characters have been embellished for TV, its an exceptional portrayal of what can happen when a community ignores the signs of an

“The snow is melting into music” -John Muir’s Unpublished Journal (1938) The ethereal melody of melting snow is certainly peaceful, but if the famed naturalist were alive to hear it right now, that music might sound faster than he remembered. Listening to that sound today, it doesn’t exactly give me the same chill vibes. While

Platinum (left) and glassy carbon (right) microelectrodes for deep brain stimulation. (Courtesy: SDSU) Deep brain stimulation (DBS) – in which electrodes implanted in the brain send electrical signals to areas that control movement – is increasingly employed to treat symptoms of movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor or dystonia. It is also used

This week’s episode focuses on the interface between physics and computing, with deep dives into how artificial intelligence (AI) is contributing to medical physics and how silicon could form the basis of a future quantum computer. First, we hear from Tami Freeman, Physics World’s resident expert on medical physics, about a new positron emission tomography (PET)

Gold standard: artist’s impression of the disc-shaped photonic switches integrated within an optical circuit. (Courtesy: C. Haffner/NIST) A highly compact, low-energy device capable of switching the paths taken by light within photonic systems has been unveiled by physicists in the US and Switzerland. The new switch could provide a basis for artificial-intelligence (AI) systems that

[embedded content] “A robust bio-inspired, liquid, sludge and bacteria-repellent coating that can essentially make a toilet self-cleaning,” is how Tak-Sing Wong describes a recent invention of his research group at the University of Pennsylvania. The coating is sprayed onto the toilet surface in two steps – the first puts down a layer of hair-like molecules

Tricky technique: the new glass was made using pulsed laser deposition. (Courtesy: Jonne Renvall and Erkka Frankberg) Flexible glass that does not shatter on impact could soon be made using insights from a study of a glass-like material made from aluminium oxide. Erkka Frankberg at Tampere University in Finland and colleagues have come to this