With the search for the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the Standard Model of particle physics, apparently reaching its long-anticipated-and-finally-successful conclusion, anticipation of the next set of discoveries is growing. Recently the Stanford campus hosted a smallish gathering celebrating the 60th birthday of Savas Dimopoulos, justly acclaimed by each of the attendees as…
One of the biggest debuts in the science world could happen in a matter of weeks: The Higgs boson may finally, really have been discovered. Ever since tantalizing hints of the Higgs turned up in December at the Large Hadron Collider, scientists there have been busily analyzing the results of their energetic particle collisions to…
Japanese scientists have used induced stem cells to create a liver-like tissue in a dish. Although they have yet to publish their results and much work remains to be done, the achievement could have big clinical implications. If the results bear out, they would also constitute a significant advance in the ability to coax stem…
The message from Rio+20 is for practical action to deliver existing targets. Scientists must identify and overcome barriers to change. This is a meeting born out of gloom that so little has been achieved, as shown by the UN Environment Programme’s GEO-5 report launched recently. The question is, can the science, technology and innovation (ST&I)…
Recently analyzed data from the BaBar experiment may suggest possible flaws in the Standard Model of particle physics, the reigning description of how the universe works on subatomic scales. The data from BaBar, a high-energy physics experiment based at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, show that a particular type of…
Neutrons may be traveling from our universe into parallel worlds and back again, according to a new theory that explains a rather odd phenomenon. Experiments at ultra-low temperatures carried out by Anatoly Serebrov at the Institut Laue-Langevin in France have revealed a phenomenon known as neutron loss, whereby neutrons appear to vanish for short periods….
Neutrinos are most definitely not faster than light after all, says CERN. The laws of physics got the good news at the 25th International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics in Kyoto, in a talk titled “The neutrino velocity measurement by OPERA experiment.” Slides accompanying the talk say the faster-than-light results generated in 2011 were…
Speculation is an essential part of science, but how does it fit in? Two recent publications, both about the misty depths of canine and human history, suggest some answers. In one, an international team of scientists concludes that we really don’t know when and where dogs were domesticated. Greger Larson of the University of Durham,…
‘Tractor beams’ of light that pull objects towards them are no longer science fiction. Haifeng Wang at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute and co-workers have now demonstrated how a tractor beam can in fact be realized on a small scale. Tractor beams are a well-known concept in science fiction. These rays of light are often…
After 50 years of searching, physicists have spotted the fingerprint of radioactive plutonium, revealing the secrets of this complex molecule behind nuclear weapons. The researchers found the “plutonium signal” using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, which is often used to peer into the electronic structure of atoms and molecules. Their findings, detailed in a recent issue…