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Ever wondered what would happen if the dimension of time came to a sudden end? A new experiment reveals all One of the most exciting areas of science is the emerging field of spacetime analogues. This is the discipline in which physicists play around with systems that have a formal mathematical link with general relativity. For example, changes in the way electrons move in graphene as it is cooled are identical to the changes that may have occurred in the universe soon after the big bang. So physicists can use cool graph to test theories about the universe's earliest behaviour....

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers who have been working for nearly a decade to piece together the process by which an enzyme repairs sun-damaged DNA have finally witnessed the entire process in full detail in the laboratory. What they saw contradicts fundamental notions of how key biological molecules break up during the repair of sunburn – and that knowledge could someday lead to drugs or even lotions that could heal sunburn in humans. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Ohio State University researchers and their colleagues confirm what was previously known about the enzyme photolyase, which is...

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is offering money to researchers looking at identifying and controlling timing mechanisms in cells, including those of the human body. The blue sky gazing loon-collective notes that no single "master switch" has been found to control genes' activities. But it hopes that the "Biochronicity" programme will find a way to understand and predict "temporal features of biological systems". The four-year programme will start by identifying "episequences and validation in experimental biological systems". After two years, DARPA hopes to move to Phase II, which aims to conduct Live Fire Tests. Should the research prove...

Radio noise from distant cosmos is six times louder than expected..... LONG BEACH, Calif. - Space is typically thought of as a very quiet place. But one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected. The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it. Of course, sound waves can't travel in a vacuum (which is what most of space is), or at least they can't very efficiently. But radio waves can....

A violation of one of the oldest empirical laws of physics has been observed by scientists at the University of Bristol. Their experiments on purple bronze, a metal with unique one-dimensional electronic properties, indicate that it breaks the Wiedemann-Franz Law. This historic discovery is described in a paper published today in Nature Communications. In 1853, two German physicists, Gustav Wiedemann and Rudolf Franz, studied the thermal conductivity (a measure of a system’s ability to transfer heat) of a number of elemental metals and found that the ratio of the thermal to electrical conductivities was approximately the same for different metals...

Observations led by astronomers at the University of Warwick have shown that the flash from one of the biggest and brightest bangs yet recorded by astronomers comes from a massive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy. The black hole appears to have ripped apart a star that wandered too close, creating a powerful beam of energy that crossed the 3.8 billion light years to Earth. Their research was published June 16, 2011, in the journal Science, in a paper entitled "An Extremely Luminous Panchromatic Outburst from the Nucleus of a Distant Galaxy". The high energy X-rays...

A main source of the 44 trillion watts of heat that flows from the interior of the Earth is the decay of radioactive isotopes in the mantle and crust. Scientists using the KamLAND neutrino detector in Japan have measured how much heat is generated this way by capturing geoneutrinos released during radioactive decay. The Earth has cooled since its formation, yet the decay of radiogenic isotopes, and in particular uranium, thorium and potassium, in the planet’s interior provides a continuing heat source. The current total heat flux from the Earth to space is 44.2±1.0 TW, but the relative contributions from residual...

Thane Heins´ "Perepiteia" generator seems to turn magnetic friction into a magnetic boost, causing the motor to accelerate in a positive feedback loop Thane Heins knows the track record of inventors that claim to make breakthroughs in power generation methods, especially when they claim to defy the second law of thermodynamics. Every so often, a (usually untrained) scientist comes along with a machine that supposedly creates more energy than is put in. Every time, the ideas have been rebuked by real scientists. That's why 46-year-old Heins, a college drop-out from Ottawa who's been working on his project since 1985,...

Enlarge Image Turmoil. Magnetism produces much of the sun's surface phenomena, such as these sunspots, seen in ultraviolet light. Credit: NASA/TRACE Researchers have discovered that one of the mysterious forces that sweep the sun's surface shows an unexpectedly strong connection with the number of sunspots, magnetic disturbances that can affect Earth's weather and telecommunications. The findings should improve predictions of the sun's dynamics and might even help scientists develop better climate models. Along with heat and light, the sun emits x-rays and magnetically charged particles that can endanger astronauts, fry circuits aboard satellites orbiting Earth, and overload electric power...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Astronomy is a science of extremes - the biggest, the hottest, and the most massive. Today, astrophysicist Bryan Gaensler (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and colleagues announced that they have linked two of astronomy's extremes, showing that some of the biggest stars in the cosmos become the strongest magnets when they die. "The source of these very powerful magnetic objects has been a mystery since the first one was discovered in 1998. Now, we think we have solved that mystery," says Gaensler. The astronomers base their conclusions on data taken with CSIRO's...

Magnetic Stars The puzzle of `magnetic stars' solved by astrophysicists of the Max Planck Society How does one explain the enormous magnetic field strengths of the so-called `magnetic stars'? This question concerning magnetic fields in the cosmos, first posed half a century ago, has now been answered by scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching. With 3-dimensional numerical simulations they have found the magnetic field configurations that underly the strong magnetic fields observed on the surface of the so-called magnetic A-stars and magnetic White Dwarfs, and how these fields can survive for the life time of these...

Berkeley Lab scientists join their KamLAND colleagues to measure the radioactive sources of Earth's heat flowWhat spreads the sea floors and moves the continents? What melts iron in the outer core and enables the Earth's magnetic field? Heat. Geologists have used temperature measurements from more than 20,000 boreholes around the world to estimate that some 44 terawatts (44 trillion watts) of heat continually flow from Earth's interior into space. Where does it come from? Radioactive decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium in Earth's crust and mantle is a principal source, and in 2005 scientists in the KamLAND collaboration, based in...

White dwarfs are the burned-out cores of stars like our Sun. Astronomers have discovered a pair of white dwarfs spiraling into one another at breakneck speeds. Today, these white dwarfs are so near they make a complete orbit in just 13 minutes, but they are gradually slipping closer together. About 900,000 years from now - a blink of an eye in astronomical time - they will merge and possibly explode as a supernova. By watching the stars converge, scientists will test both Einstein's theory of general relativity and the origin of some peculiar supernovae.The two white dwarfs are circling...

Scientists in Israel say they have invented a way of turning traffic into electricity. The bright sparks at the country's Technion Institute of Technology in Haifa have developed a road that generates power when vehicles pass over it. And they hope the technology will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. In a university car park, Haim Abramovich and his team run a heavy truck repeatedly over a special stretch of tarmac. "The name of the game is harvesting," he told Sky News. "Harvesting means energy which is available but is going to waste. "So what I want to is to...

At least the first two parts of it, third part to be added shortly: http://vimeo.com/26432848 NPA stands for Natural Philosophy Alliance: http://www.worldnpa.org/main/

FULL TITLE: Voice of Thomas Edison's talking doll is heard again after 123 years as scientists crack the code of mysterious metal ring For decades it lay in the bottom of a secretary's desk drawer, its purpose unknown. But now, 123 year after it was made, the secret of this bent metal ring, which was found in Thomas Edison's laboratory, has finally been uncovered. Scientists have found that the microscopic grooves on the ring make up the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and mark the world's first attempt at a talking doll and the dawn of America's recording industry...

Scientists claim antimatter breakthrough Scientists have announced the first large-scale production of antimatter. A team based at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva say they have developed a large amount of the substance. Antimatter is a reverse form of ordinary matter. When the two kinds of matter meet they annihilate each other in an enormous burst of energy. It's this process which provides the power source for Starship Enterprise in its film and TV space adventures. Physicists have made only very small quantities of antimatter before. But the CERN team say they have made at least 50,000 atoms...

Physicists claim antimatter breakthrough Physicists in Switzerland say they have captured antimatter for the first time. Scientists have often wondered whether they can get energy from the reaction when antimatter and matter collide. Until now they have found it difficult to make and control antiatoms. Researchers on the ATRAP experiment at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva, now think they have succeeded. New Scientist reports they have made and stored thousands of antiatoms indefinitely in a particle trap. The team, led by Gerald Gabrielse of Harvard University, used powerful magnetic and electric fields to slow and ...

So - Dan Brown's turgid blockbuster Angels and Demons, in which a nefarious papal official nicks a vial of antimatter from CERN as part of a complicated scheme to become Pope by menacing the Vatican with explosive destruction. Twaddle? Or actually a perfectly feasible plan ripped from today's headlines, style of thing? Just a few minor technical errors hereWe here on the Reg particle-meddling desk naturally have no interest in the arcane Vatican rules of succession, the putative Illuminati secret society, the likelihood of finding a priest in the Pope's inner circle who would be capable of flying a helicopter...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. European scientists say they have created enough antihydrogen — a type of the mirror-image, antimatter stuff that fictionally powers spaceships on Star Trek — to test a widely held basic model of the universe. While antihydrogen has been made before, the more than 50,000 atoms created at the CERN particle accelerator in Geneva are "by far, the most produced," said Jeffrey Hangst, a leader of the ATHENA collaboration, one of two groups of physicists working on antihydrogen at CERN. The quest to understand and manipulate antimatter is one of the most...