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More fighting in Iraq. Somalia in chaos. People in this country can’t afford their mortgages and in some places now they can’t even afford rice. None of this nor the rest of the grimness on the front page today will matter a bit, though, if two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe. Scientists say that...

WASHINGTON - The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye. The aging star, in a previously unknown galaxy, exploded in a gamma ray burst 7.5 billion light years away, its light finally reaching Earth early Wednesday. The gamma rays were detected by NASA's Swift satellite at 2:12 a.m. "We'd never seen one before so bright and at such a distance," NASA's Neil Gehrels said. It was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. However, NASA...

Everyone knows the score with black holes: even if light strays too close, the immense gravity will drag it inside, never to be seen again. They are thought to be created when large stars finally spend all their fuel and collapse. It might come as a surprise, therefore, to find that physicists in the UK have now managed to create an “artificial” black hole in the lab. Originally, theorists studying black holes focused almost exclusively on applying Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of massive objects arises from the curvature of space–time. Then, in 1974, the...

High-energy particle accelerators cost taxpayers large sums but stand little chance of discovering anything of practical value. Promoted as quests for understanding of the universe, particle accelerators serve mostly as job programs for physicists, postdocs, and politically connected laboratories and contractors. Yes, abstract experiments of bygone days produced great discoveries, and yes, the quest for abstract knowledge is inherent to human nature. But most experiments from the bygone golden age of physics were done at private expense, not using tax subsidies. Albert Michelson and Edward Morley did not demand that Ohio taxpayers provide them with a decade of luxury while...

IT IS one the biggest mysteries in physics - where did all the antimatter go? Now a team of physicists claims to have found the first ever hint of an answer in experimental data. The findings could signal a major crack in the standard model, the theoretical edifice that describes nature's fundamental particles and forces. In its early days, the cosmos was a cauldron of radiation and equal amounts of matter and antimatter. As it cooled, all the antimatter annihilated in collisions with matter - but for some reason the proportions ended up lopsided, leaving some of the matter intact....

Huntsville AL (SPX) Nov 17, 2005 We'll soon know the answer: A NASA/Stanford physics experiment called Gravity Probe B (GP-B) recently finished a year of gathering science data in Earth orbit. The results, which will take another year to analyze, should reveal the shape of space-time around Earth--and, possibly, the vortex. Time and space, according to Einstein's theories of relativity, are woven together, forming a four-dimensional fabric called "space-time." The tremendous mass of Earth dimples this fabric, much like a heavy person sitting in the middle of a trampoline. Gravity, says Einstein, is simply the motion of objects following the...

Atomic-Sized Graphene Double Layer Holds Nanoelectronics Promise YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, NY, Mar 06, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- IBM Researchers today announced a discovery that combats one of the industry's most perplexing problems in using graphite -- the same material found inside pencils -- as a material for building nanoelectonic circuits vastly smaller than those found in today's silicon based computer chips. For the first time anywhere, IBM scientists have found a way to suppress unwanted interference of electrical signals created when shrinking graphene, a two-dimensional, single-atomic layer thick form of graphite, to dimensions just a few atoms long. Scientists...

GENEVA — Engineers on Friday fitted the last major piece into what they say will be the world's largest scientific instrument — a nuclear particle accelerator in a 17-mile tunnel under the Swiss-French border.

Time travellers from the future 'could be here in weeks' By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm GMT 06/02/2008 The first time travellers from the future could materialise on Earth within a few weeks. Physicists around the world are excitedly awaiting the start up of the £4.65 billion Large Hadron Collider, LHC - the most powerful atom-smasher ever built - which is supposed to shed new light on the particles and forces at work in the cosmos and reproduce conditions that date to near the Big Bang of creation. 1.21 gigawatts of electricity: Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd...

Scientists have filmed an electron in motion for the first time, using a new technique that will allow researchers to study the tiny particle's movements directly. Previously it was impossible to photograph electrons because of their extreme speediness, so scientists had to rely on more indirect methods. These methods could only measure the effect of an electron's movement, whereas the new technique can capture the entire event. Extremely short flashes of light are necessary to capture an electron in motion. A technology developed within the last few years can generate short pulses of intense laser light, called attosecond pulses, to...

Now it is possible to see a movie of an electron. The movie shows how an electron rides on a light wave after just having been pulled away from an atom. This is the first time an electron has ever been filmed, and the results are presented in the latest issue of Physical Review Letters. Previously it has been impossible to photograph electrons since their extremely high velocities have produced blurry pictures. In order to capture these rapid events, extremely short flashes of light are necessary, but such flashes were not previously available. With the use of a newly developed...

Light may not seem very interesting in our everyday lives. But to scientists, light’s properties are a constant source of intrigue. The nature of light as both wave and particle, light as the universal speed limit, and the way light interacts with magnetic fields in the atmosphere to form auroras are a just a few examples of light’s fascinating behavior. Recently, researchers from the University of Glasgow and the University of Bristol in the UK have discovered another unusual property of light – or, more accurately, the darkness within light. As the researchers explain, natural light fields are threaded by...

DARK ENERGY DOMINATES THE UNIVERSE HANOVER, NH - A Dartmouth researcher is building a case for a "dark energy"-dominated universe. Dark energy, the mysterious energy with unusual anti-gravitational properties, has been the subject of great debate among cosmologists. Brian Chaboyer, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth, with his collaborator Lawrence Krauss, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University, have reported their finding in the January 3, 2003, issue of Science. Combining their calculations of the ages of the oldest stars with measurements of the expansion rate and geometry of the universe lead them to conclude...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. scientists have developed a microfiber fabric that generates its own electricity, making enough current to recharge a cell phone or ensure that a small MP3 music player never runs out of power. If made into a shirt, the fabric could harness power from its wearer simply walking around or even from a slight breeze, they reported Wednesday in the journal Nature. "The fiber-based nanogenerator would be a simple and economical way to harvest energy from the physical movement," Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who led the study, said in a statement. The...

Two Russian scientists claim a device created to investigate the origins of the universe could become the world's first ever time machine

President seeks competitive edge with final budget request. In his final year as president, George W. Bush has put forward a budget wish-list that looks to restore his priorities in science and research, with solid increases for some physical sciences and pretty much no new money for the biomedical sector. Whether Congress will go along with this remains to be seen. In terms of research and development, the budgetÂ’s most pronounced feature is a 15% (US$1.6 billion) increase in physical-sciences spending year on year (see Table 1). In December 2007, last-minute negotiations in Congress derailed the second year of BushÂ’s...

Which math-phobic among us has not beseeched God for help with another colon-clenching algebra or calculus exam? Had we heeded the words of the German mathematician Leopold Kronecker, perhaps we would have realized we've been talking to the wrong person: "God made the integers; all else is the work of man." Pythagoras, who gave us his eponymous theorem on right-angled triangles, headed a cult of number worshippers who believed God was a mathematician. "All is number," they would intone. The 17th-century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza echoed the Platonic idea that mathematical law and the harmony of nature are aspects of...

PARIS (AFP) - Astrophysicists believe they are closing in on one of the cosmos' great mysteries: why the expansion of the Universe, triggered by the Big Bang, is accelerating. The answer could be tantalisingly within reach, according to their study, released on Wednesday by the British weekly science journal Nature. A decade ago, astronomers were stunned to learn that the Universe was expanding more quickly than in the past. It had long been assumed that the mutual attraction of galaxies through gravity would slow the expansion of space, kicked off by the Big Bang some 14 billion years ago. Two...

Could The Universe Be Tied Up With Cosmic String? ScienceDaily (Jan. 21, 2008) — A team of physicists and astronomers from the University of Sussex and Imperial College London have uncovered hints that there may be cosmic strings - lines of pure mass-energy - stretching across the entire Universe. Cosmic strings are predicted by high energy physics theories, including superstring theory. This is based on the idea that particles are not just little points, but tiny vibrating bits of string Cosmic strings are predicted to have extraordinary amounts of mass - perhaps as much as the mass of the Sun...

Garrett Lisi: This surfer is no Einstein... Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 22/01/2008 No Einstein...but behind Garrett Lisi's 'theory of everything' lies an amazing idea, says Marcus du SautoyTwo months ago, the physics world was buzzing with the news of a new Einstein. Garrett Lisi, an unemployed physicist with no university affiliation who spent his time surfing in Hawaii, had come up with the Holy Grail of science: a theory unifying quantum physics and Einstein's theory of relativity.   Dude, where's my theory? Symmetry star Garrett Lisi The media went wild.However, in the last few weeks several physics blogs have uncovered a...