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A massive computer simulation has produced a model of the universe's evolution with new accuracy in some important measures—and yielded a new prediction concerning the distribution of matter in the cosmos....

Have you ever noticed that time flies when you're having fun? Well, not for light. In fact, photons don't experience any time at all. Here's a mind-bending concept that should shatter your brain into pieces....

Help us improve Scitation! ✖ Please take our online survey. Click here for a chance to win a $100 gift card. weblog/weblog.blogpost aip/physicstoday /content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/news-picks/even-smaller-galaxies-hint-of-dark-matter-a-news-pick-post www.physicstoday.org/news 1887 Advanced Volume/Page Publication: Choose... AIP Advances AIP Conference Proceedings APL Materials APL: Organic...

Physicists find new way of fine-tuning electronic properties ...

(Phys.org) —Not only rubber is elastic: There is also another, completely different form of elasticity known as superelasticity. This phenomenon results from a change in crystal structure and was previously only found in alloys and certain inorganic materials. A Japanese scientist has now introduced the first superelastic organic compound in the journal Angewandte Chemie....

(Phys.org) —In an atom laser, millions of individual atoms propagate through space with minimal spreading, just like photons propagate in a coherent photon laser beam. Although both types of lasers are similar, atom lasers are still in the early stages of research with much work to be done before they can be used for applications, which may include atom lithography, atom interferometry, and magnetometry...

Metamaterials are engineered to interact with light and sound waves in ways that natural materials cannot. They thus have the potential to be used in exciting new applications, such as invisibility cloaks, high-resolution lenses, efficient and compact antennas, and highly sensitive sensors....

(Phys.org) —A pioneering study on superconductivity by MagLab physicist Dragana Popović and collaborators has been published in Nature Physics. It unveils results that shatter long-held beliefs about the effects of magnets on superconductors....

Trapping light into a small volume is a useful way of amplifying optical effects. Optical cavities, for example, can enhance the interaction between light and matter. Incorporating these tiny structures into actual devices is difficult however, because they are easily broken or can become optically misaligned....

A "holographic" theory, which was conjectured to describe accurately the dynamical phenomena occurring in a black hole, has been tested numerically by a research group composed of four researchers: Masanori Hanada, Ph.D., an associate professor at Kyoto University; Yoshifumi Hyakutake, Ph.D., an associate professor at Ibaraki University; Goro Ishiki, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Kyoto University;...

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By: Physics Today Wed May 07 11:45:00 UTC 2014 Previous Post News Picks Next Post New York Times : In March, China's Ministry of Environmental Protection found that 71 of 74 cities failed to meet the country's minimum air-quality standards. Last month, the National People's Congress revised the nation's environmental protection laws to allow for more aggressive punishments for polluters. Following...

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Since April last year, the Superconducting Magnets And Circuits Consolidation (SMACC) team has been strengthening the electrical connections of the superconducting circuits on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Last week they installed the last of 27,000 electrical shunts to consolidate "splices" – connections between superconducting magnets – on the accelerator....

For people who study such tiny objects as protons, neutrons, quarks, and gluons, particle physicists do things big. They belong to teams of collaborators that comprise hundreds; they work in laboratories that extend for miles; and they generate thousands of terabytes of data. Yet these grand behaviors are not acts of bravado; rather, they are performed out of necessity....

A team of U.K. researchers has developed a way to dramatically reduce the complexity of modeling "bistable" systems which involve the interaction of two evolving species where one changes faster than the other ("slow-fast systems"). Described in The Journal of Chemical Physics, the work paves the way for easier computational simulations and predictions involving such systems, which are found in fields...

The eye is an exquisitely sensitive system with many aspects that remain somewhat of a mystery—both in the laboratory and in the clinic. A U.S.-based team of mathematicians and optometrists is working to change this by gaining a better understanding of the inner workings of tear film distribution over the eye's surface. This, in turn, may lead to better treatments or a cure for the tear film disease...

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