Electron's shapeliness throws a curve at supersymmetry. A small band of particle-seeking scientists at Yale and Harvard has established a new benchmark for the electron's almost perfect roundness, raising doubts about certain theories that predict what lies beyond physics' reigning model of fundamental forces and particles, the Standard Model.
"We know the Standard Model does not encompass everything," said Yale physicist David DeMille, who with John Doyle and Gerald Gabrielse of Harvard leads the ACME collaboration, a team using a strikingly different method to detect some of the same types of particles sought by huge experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe. "Like our LHC colleagues, we're trying to see something in the lab that's different from what the Standard Model predicts. " ACME is looking for new particles of matter by measuring their effects on the shape of the electron, the negatively charged subatomic particle orbiting within every atom. You can’t get entangled without a wormhole. Quantum entanglement is one of the more bizarre theories to come out of the study of quantum mechanics — so strange, in fact, that Albert Einstein famously referred to it as “spooky action at a distance.”
Essentially, entanglement involves two particles, each occupying multiple states at once — a condition referred to as superposition. For example, both particles may simultaneously spin clockwise and counterclockwise. But neither has a definite state until one is measured, causing the other particle to instantly assume a corresponding state. The resulting correlations between the particles are preserved, even if they reside on opposite ends of the universe. But what enables particles to communicate instantaneously — and seemingly faster than the speed of light — over such vast distances? Earlier this year, physicists proposed an answer in the form of “wormholes,” or gravitational tunnels. The tangled web that is gravity This is where quantum entanglement could play a role. The Life and Death of Cells. +Enlarge image We may think of built-in obsolescence as a modern marketing trick, but biology got there first. Rather than being able to replicate indefinitely, most cells in our bodies divide only a finite number of times before they switch off.
The aging of a cell (senescence) is the process of accumulative changes to its molecular structure that disrupt its function with time, leading to its degradation and death. A key factor in senescence is the shortening of the protective ends of a cell’s chromosomes, called telomeres. As reported in Physical Review Letters [1], Khanh Dao Duc and David Holcman at Ecole Normale Supérieure, France, have formulated a statistical mechanics model that describes how this process is regulated, providing a powerful method for predicting whether cells live or die. Cell fate is dictated by the stability of the chromosomes. A source of instability is the fact that the ends of chromosomes may be indistinguishable from a break in double-stranded DNA.
K. Quantum Day. Nanotechnology News. Researchers split water into hydrogen, oxygen using light, nanoparticles. Researchers from the University of Houston have found a catalyst that can quickly generate hydrogen from water using sunlight, potentially creating a clean and renewable source of energy. Their research, published online Sunday in Nature Nanotechnology, involved the use of cobalt oxide nanoparticles to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Jiming Bao, lead author of the paper and an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UH, said the research discovered a new photocatalyst and demonstrated the potential of nanotechnology in engineering a material's property, although more work remains to be done. Bao said photocatalytic water-splitting experiments have been tried since the 1970s, but this was the first to use cobalt oxide and the first to use neutral water under visible light at a high energy conversion efficiency without co-catalysts or sacrificial chemicals. Nanoscale friction: High energy losses in the vicinity of charge density waves. In collaboration with the University of Basel, an international team of researchers has observed a strong energy loss caused by frictional effects in the vicinity of charge density waves.
This may have practical significance in the control of nanoscale friction. The results have been published in the scientific journal Nature Materials. Friction is often seen as an adverse phenomenon that leads to wear and causes energy loss. Conversely, however, too little friction can be a disadvantage as well -- for example, running on an icy surface or driving on a wet road. An understanding of frictional effects is therefore of great importance -- particularly in the field of nanotechnology, where friction has to be controlled at a nanoscale.
In the experiment led by Prof. Dr. Energy losses in the vicinity of charge density waves The team observed this energy loss only at temperatures below 70° Kelvin (-203° C). Seeing without light. Spelunkers who explore caves often say they can see their hands move in the dark. A new study suggests those cavers aren’t hallucinating. It finds evidence that the brain sometimes creates visual “images” without input from the eyes. The study based its conclusion on an experiment anyone can try. Find a dark place or put on a blindfold. (Or visit the nearest, darkest cave.) Next, wave your hands in front of your face. Many people can, researchers report in a study published Oct. 30 in Psychological Science. By sensing the action, the brain “‘knows’ where a moving hand is and, as our results show, it actually generates the expected visual image,” Duje Tadin reported to Science News. Tadin’s team tested 129 volunteers. It didn’t matter what the volunteers had been told: About half claimed to see motion through the blindfold.
The motion-vision connection was particularly strong for nine people. About half of the blindfolded people, however, saw nothing. Not all scientists agree.