“I confess that in my early in my career as a physicist I was rather cynical about sophisticated statistical tools, being of the opinion that “if any of this makes a difference, just get more data”. That is, if you do enough experiments, the confidence level will be so high that the exact statistical treatment you use to evaluate it is irrelevant.” (Credit: Jon Butterworth)
via theguardian
It was the daytime soap opera of particle physics. But the final episode of the first season ends in an anticlimax. The Higgs boson’s decay into pairs of photons – the strongest yet most confusing clue to the particle’s existence – is looking utterly normal after all. (Credit: D. Moir/Reurters, M. Slezak)
via newscientist
NIST chip containing a single-photon detector was made of superconducting nanowires. Four chips like this were used in the experiment that entangled three photons. (Credit: Verma/NIST)
via extremetech
The new plan, proposed by researchers at the University of Southampton in England, is to eavesdrop on the faint nanosecond radio signals sent our way when cosmic rays hit edges of the Moon at a near-tangent. (Credit J. Hewitt, astrobiology.aob.rs)
via extremetech
“The key question is whether a real quantum dynamics, of the general form suggested by de Broglie and the walking drops, might underlie quantum statistics,” Bush said. “While undoubtedly complex, it would replace the philosophical vagaries of quantum mechanics with a concrete dynamical theory,” said John Bush of MIT. (Credit: D. Harris/MIT, M. Byrne)
via motherboard
A composite photo of comet 67P/C-G showing gases escaping from the ‘neck’. The first jets of dust were detected spurting from the comet as Rosetta approached it in August but detailed photographs weren’t available until last week. (Credit: Emily Lakdawalla/ESA)
via forbes
The spacecraft captured the views between July 20 and July 22, 2014, as it departed Titan following a flyby. Cassini tracked the system of clouds as it developed and dissipated over Ligeia Mare during this two-day period. Measurements of the cloud motions indicate wind speeds of around 7 to 10 miles per hour (3 to 4.5 meters per second). (Credit: NASA, Cassini)
via smithsonianmag
Less than two months after it first began repeatedly scanning the sky, the ESA’s Gaia space observatory has discovered its first supernova – a powerful stellar explosion that had occurred in a distant galaxy located some 500 million light-years from Earth, the agency announced on Friday. The above is an artist’s impression of a Type Ia supernova – the explosion of a white dwarf locked in a binary system with a companion star. (Credit: ESA/ATG medialab/C. Carreau, Bednar)
via redorbit
Grain boundaries are rows of defects that disrupt the electronic properties of two-dimensional materials, like graphene, but a new theory by scientists at Rice University shows no such effects in atomically flat phosphorus. That may make the material ideal for nano-electronic applications. (Credit: Evgeni Penev/Rice University)
via energy-daily
To find out if the universe is a hologram, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have powered up their exotic holographic inferometer, or Holometer. The results of the Fermilab E-990 experiment could indeed indicate that the nature of the universe is holographic. (Credit: Baskin, M. Freiberger)
via guardianlv
The ultimate fate of the universe depends on the nature of dark matter and dark energy, about which we know almost nothing. (Credit: NASA)
via mysteriousuniverse
This is an artist’s impression of supernova 1993J, an exploding star in the galaxy M81 whose light reached us 21 years ago. The supernova originated in a double-star system where one member was a massive star that exploded after siphoning most of its hydrogen envelope to its companion star. After two decades, astronomers have at last identified the blue helium-burning companion star, seen at the center of the expanding nebula of debris from the supernova. The Hubble Space Telescope identified the ultraviolet glow of the surviving companion embedded in the fading glow of the supernova. (Credit: NASA)
via sciencedaily
The nearby galaxy Centaurus A as viewed at X-ray, radio, and optical wavelengths, showing jets powered by a massive black hole at the center of the galaxy. (Credit: NASA)
via bigislandnow
Researchers at UT Arlington have created the first electronic device that can cool electrons to -228 degrees Celsius (-375F), without any kind of external cooling. (Credit: S. Anthony)
via extremetech
“Our research strengthens the argument that methane and oxygen together, or methane and ozone together, are still strong signatures of life. That’s because oxygen and methane abhor each other. An atmosphere heavy in one of these gases has to have its supplies of the other continually replenished, and the most reliable way that happens on Earth is through the mechanisms of life,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. (Credit: NASA, B. Richmond)
via motherboard
“When you get off the plane at the South Pole, there is a feeling like you’re out in the ocean,” says University of Chicago physicist John Carlstrom, the principal investigator for the South Pole Telescope team, who has logged 15 round trips to the South Pole over the past two decades. “It’s just a featureless horizon. The snow is so dry it feels like Styrofoam.” (Credit: J. Gallicchio, G. Roberts Jr.)
via symmetrymagazine
On the right, an artificial atom generates sound waves consisting of ripples on the surface of a solid. The sound, known as a surface acoustic wave (SAW) is picked up on the left by a “microphone” composed of interlaced metal fingers. According to theory, the sound consists of a stream of quantum particles, the weakest whisper physically possible. The illustration is not to scale. (Credit: Philip Krantz, Krantz NanoArt)
via chalmers
Close-ups of an experiment conducted by John Bush and his student Daniel Harris, in which a bouncing droplet of fluid was propelled across a fluid bath by waves it generated. (Credit: Dan Harris)
via phys
The Smoluchowsi trapdoor is a simple test for any proposed exorcism of Maxwell’s demon. It is immediately obvious that an information based exorcism is of no use. The are no sensors in this simple device that collect information; and there are memory devices that would need erasure if the demon is to return to its original state. (Credit: Hemmo, M.; Shenker)
via aip
Gravity Probe B (GP-B) has measured spacetime curvature near Earth to test related models in application of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. (Credit: S. Hossenfelder, Wiki Commons)
via backreaction
The research group resolved the challenging issue attributed to solid crystals, namely widely spread emission wavelengths, and succeeded in fabricating many single-photon sources that emit photons with nearly identical emission wavelengths. (Credit: National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS))
via innovations-report
C H Figure 1: Acausality: Penrose diagram of a black hole with signature c hange at high curvature (hashed region). In contrast to traditional non-sing ular models, there is an event horizon (dashed line H , the boundary of the region that is determined by backward evolution from future infinity) and a Chauchy horizon (dash-dotte d line C , the boundary of the region obtained by forward evolution of the high-curvature re gion) (Credit: Martin Bojowald)
via arXiv
Giant alien planets known as “hot Jupiters” can induce wobbles in their parent stars that may lead to the wild, close orbits seen by astronomers. This diagram shows the relationship between wobbling stars and the orbital tilt of hot Jupiter planets. (Credit: Cornell University/N.Storch, K.Anderson, D.Lai)
via space
In 2013, huge active plumes containing water vapour being released from the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa were discovered. This sensational find was made using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Europa has been a focus of extraterrestrial research for some time now, as there were clear indications that it harbors a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust. Now, it appears, the geysers have vanished. (Credit: K. Retherford, Southwest Research Institute, NASA/ESA/K.)
via dailygalaxy
A pulsar is the rapidly spinning and highly magnetized core left behind when a massive star explodes. Because only rotation powers their intense gamma-ray, radio and particle emissions, pulsars gradually slow as they age, and eventually cease their characteristic emissions. (Credit: F. Reddy of Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA)
via onislam
A weird theoretical cousin of the Higgs boson, one that inspired the decades-long hunt for the elusive particle, has been properly observed for the first time. The discovery bookends one of the most exciting eras in modern physics. The above is a simulation of the production and dec (Credit: Slezak)
via newscientist
MAVEN is NASA’s next Mars orbiter and launched on Nov. 18, 2014 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It will study the evolution of the Red Planet’s atmosphere and climate. Universe Today visited MAVEN inside the clean room at the Kennedy Space Center. With solar panels unfurled, this is exactly how MAVEN looks when flying through space and circling Mars and observing Comet Siding Spring. (Credit: Ken Kremer)
via universetoday
“This is a time of very rapid advances in the field. You don’t know on any given day what new discovery you’re going to see posted that night on arXiv,” said Liam McAllister, associate professor of physics and a specialist in string theory. (Credit: Glaser)
via cornell
Diagram illustrating quasar observations. In 2010, a research team looked at light from distant quasars that had passed through large intergalactic clouds of gas. They found evidence of some slight variation of alpha depending on the direction we looked in the sky, which would imply a spatial variation of the physical constants. This made lots of news in the press, but the findings were not strong enough to be conclusive. (Credit: J. C. Berengut, Koberlein)
via phys
The ratios of various elements found in the sample of RSGs, where the dark gray line is the theoretical model for a RSG, the lighter grey shows a three sigma deviation from normal, and the black points show the observed ratios for the sampled stars. The red, however, are the ratios observed in the TZO candidate HV 2112- indicating some elements are present at ratios far from expected. (Credit: E.Levesque et al.)
via astrobites
Once every year or two, a comet appears in the sky that is bright enough to be seen with a small telescope or binoculars. Right now, observers anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere can see such a comet. (Credit: Starry Night Software)
via space
Sofie Carsten Nielsen, Danish science minister, and Swedish education minister Jan Björklund break ground for the €1.84bn European Spallation Source in Lund, Sweden. (Credit: ESS)
via physicsworld
Artist impression of the Square Kilometer Array. If all goes according to plan in the next decade, we could see these small perturbations on the moon—and begin to solve some of the mysteries of space. (Credit: SKA)
via gizmodo
Space travelers from around the world are headed to China this month for an international Planetary Congress, which will explore the possibilities for expanding human spaceflight cooperation among different countries. Pictured above is China’s first astronaut, Yang Liwei, is now vice director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office. (Credit: CMS)
via space
An animation of the quicksort algorithm sorting an array of randomized values. The red bars mark the pivot element; at the start of the animation, the element farthest to the right hand side is chosen as the pivot. (Credit: RonaldH)
via wired
Rather than keeping all its eggs in D-Wave’s basket, Google’s “Quantum A.I. Lab” announced that it is starting a collaboration with an academic quantum computing researcher, John Martinis of the University of California-Santa Barbara. (Credit: Wiki, Timmer)
via arstechnica
