science wire

High-tech centre opens its doors to South West companies
Businesses in the South West are being invited to tour a Plymouth University research facility and see for themselves how it could benefit their manufacturing processes and enhance profitability.

Imperial physicists share in prize for masterminding Higgs boson detector
Two Imperial physicists have been praised as particle detector masterminds, following last year's discovery of a Higgs boson at CERN.

Single-pixel power: scientists make 3D images without a camera
Physicists have found a way to make sophisticated 3D images without using conventional digital cameras. http://itunes.gla.ac.uk/web/news/video/3DCI_MattEdit.mp4 Their system uses simple, cheap detectors which have just a single pixel to sense light instead of the millions of pixels used in the imaging sensors of digital cameras.

Prestigious election for Durham University Physics professor

Scientists develop device for portable, ultra-precise clocks and quantum sensors
Researchers have developed a portable way to produce 'ultracold' atoms for quantum technology and quantum information processing. The project was carried out jointly between University of Strathclyde, Imperial College London, University of Glasgow and the National Physical Laboratory. Many of the most accurate measurement devices, including atomic clocks, work by observing how atoms transfer between individual quantum states.

Manchester appoints world-leading academic to bring graphene closer to medicine
07 May 2013 The University of Manchester has today announced the appointment of a world-leading academic, who is playing a pivotal role in nanomedicine - a growing field with potential to benefit patients suffering from neurodegenerative disease and cancer.

New Co-Director for Dalton Nuclear Institute
07 May 2013 The University of Manchester has appointed Professor Melissa Denecke as Co-Director of the world-leading Dalton Nuclear Institute.

Scientists develop device for portable, ultra-precise clocks and quantum sensors
New quantum physics research will improve earth and space navigation tele , geological exploration, and medical imaging. Researchers have developed a portable way to produce 'ultracold' atoms for quantum technology and quantum information processing. The project was carried out jointly between University of Strathclyde, Imperial College London, University of Glasgow and the National Physical Laboratory.

I’m a glass half-full kind of person: Gareth Evans gives public talks on war and peace
In a series of public talks over the next ten days, the distinguished Australian politician and university chancellor Gareth Evans will look at some of the most pressing issues that face us in avoiding the horrors of war between and within states.

Triple celebration for Faculty’s three new Fellows
03 May 2013 Three University of Manchester scientists have been elected Fellows of The Royal Society, it was announced today (Friday).

Birmingham joins the world’s largest nuclear physics research facility
Researchers from Birmingham will have access to the most impressive and advanced nuclear physics research facility in the world as the UK has today officially become part of a €1.6 billion* international project that will become to nuclear physics what CERN is to particle physics. The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has today (3 May 2013) signed an agreement that makes the UK an associate member of FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) currently under construction next to the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, in Darmstadt, Germany.

University Institutes secure €3.4million to train future investigators
02 May 2013 The Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB) and Photon Science Institute (PSI) have secured a Marie Curie training network grant worth €3.4 million to train the future generation of investigators.

Professor of welding technology joins Dalton Nuclear Institute
02 May 2013 The University of Manchester's Dalton Nuclear Institute has appointed Mike Smith as its new research professor in the field of nuclear manufacture technology.

Graphene’s high-speed seesaw
30 Apr 2013 A new transistor capable of revolutionising technologies for medical imaging and security screening has been developed by graphene researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Nottingham.

Graphene’s high-speed seesaw
A new transistor capable of revolutionising technologies for medical imaging and security screening has been developed by graphene researchers from the Universities of Nottingham and Manchester.

University of Sheffield appoints Mike Tynan as chief executive of Nuclear AMRC
Mike Tynan, currently chief executive of Westinghouse UK, has been appointed chief executive of the Nuclear AMRC by the University of Sheffield.

Herschel Space Observatory loses its cool
Europe's Herschel Space Observatory has exhausted its supply of liquid helium coolant, after almost four years of scientific observations. As none of the instruments can work without helium-cooling, Herschel's operational life is now over. The spacecraft itself will soon be placed in a parking orbit around the Sun, but the analysis and evaluation of the data will continue for years to come.

UCL and NYU Wagner announce pioneering joint Global Executive MPA

Tom Kibble: Renaming Higgs boson would be ’silly’
Imperial's Emeritus Professor Tom Kibble FRS writes his opinion about what to call the Higgs boson, if not the Higgs boson.

Quantum cellmates with noisy networks
Being locked in a cell with three companions can be a good thing if you are a component of a quantum computer.

TEDxCERN simulcast at UCL

Scientists spin photons to send light in one direction
Researchers at King's College London have achieved previously unseen levels of control over the travelling direction of electromagnetic waves in waveguides. Their ground-breaking results could have far-reaching benefits for the way light is controlled in optical waveguides and fibres, significantly improving integration, efficiency and speed.

Neutrino scientist awarded particle physics prize

Strange new bursts of gamma rays point to a new way to destroy a star
A team led by the University of Warwick has pinpointed a new type of exceptionally powerful and long-lived cosmic explosion, prompting a theory that they arise in the violent death throes of a supergiant star. These explosions create powerful blasts of high energy gamma-rays, known as gamma-ray bursts, but while most bursts are over in about a minute, this new type can last for several hours.

Plants provide blueprint for cheap green energy
The process by which plants convert energy from the sun's rays into chemical ‘fuel' has inspired a new way of generating clean, cheap, renewable hydrogen power which could solve looming problems with the UK's energy infrastructure.

Casino Royale School of Mines team crowned Pub Quiz champs

Imperial developing better construction methods for nuclear power plants
New methods for for building nuclear reactors from preassembled parts is the focus of a new academic and industrial collaboration.

Quantum carotenoids - how pigment’s ’dark state’ helps turn light into energy
Scientists at the Universities of Glasgow and Toronto have finally uncovered the mechanism by which carotenoids – the same pigment that gives carrots an orange colour – help chlorophyll turn light into useful chemical energy. Carotenoids are important light-absorbing pigments in photosynthesis and their role in absorbing light and transferring it to chlorophyll to be turned into energy has been extensively studied for 60 years.

Physicists visit neutrino experiment site
Physicists visit neutrino experiment site Physicists from the University of Sussex are in the USA this month helping to set up the largest-ever experiment into neutrinos to be built there, just weeks after its neutrino detector, which is still under construction, recorded its first three-dimensional images of particles.

Imperial celebrates women in physics

Travel: Professor Tejinder Virdee
Born in Kenya, now commuting between the Alps and London, Professor Tejinder Virdee is a particle physicist working at the CMS experiment at CERN.

Map of the Universe at 380,000 years old
Latest pictures from Planck satellite have mapped the whole Universe as it was just after the Big Bang Pictures taken by Europe's Planck satellite are giving scientists a view of the Universe that's more than 50 million years older than anything they have previously seen.

Kibble at 80
Imperial marks pioneering physicist Tom Kibble's 80th birthday with a guest lecture from Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg.

UK nuclear strategy welcomed by Dalton Nuclear Institute
The University of Manchester's Dalton Nuclear Institute has welcomed today's publication of the UK's nuclear industrial strategy and research and development (R&D) roadmap.

Liverpool Chemist receives Royal Society Professorship

Senior particle physicist from Birmingham takes on lead role at the ATLAS experiment
Dave Charlton, Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Birmingham's School of Physics and Astronomy, took up the position of Spokesperson , the overall scientific lead, for the ATLAS project at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, on 1 March 2013.

Scientists SET to present their work at Parliament
Biologists, engineers and physicists from the University of Glasgow will visit the UK Parliament in London on Monday 18 March to present their research to a range of politicians and a panel of expert judges as part of the SET for Britain event.

Building a better battery
A new battery technology provides double the energy storage at lower cost than the batteries that are used in handheld electronics, electric vehicles, aerospace and defence.

Team to study Jupiter’s moons in first outer-planetary European mission
A sophisticated instrument designed and built by scientists and engineers from Imperial College London will fly to Jupiter in 2022, when Europe launches its first mission to the giant planet.

Lightyear foundation brings practical science to schools in Ghana
In October 2012 PhD students Naomi Nickerson and Adam Billing (both Physics) travelled to Accra, Ghana, with 16 other volunteers from the Lightyear Foundation, an organisation bringing practical science to schools there.

Efficient distributed quantum computing
A quantum computer doesn't need to be a single large device but could be built from a network of small parts, new research from the University of Bristol has demonstrated. As a result, building such a computer would be easier to achieve.

UK-India project set to enhance talent in atomic physics research
A new partnership between Indian and UK scientists to develop talent and innovation in a progressive branch of atomic physics is now underway.

Nuclear engineer appointed to top Government role

Breakthrough study models dying stars in a lab
If a fridge magnet with this strength was sitting in the Science Museum in central London, everyone with a pacemaker would have to move outside the M25." —Matt Pang A team of scientists has successfully reproduced conditions in one of the most hostile environments in the galaxy, enabling them to find out more about how atoms behave in these extreme settings.

Graphene appointed an EU Future Emerging Technology flagship
The European Commission has chosen the Graphene Flagship as one of Europe's first 10-year FET flagship projects.

A taste of the graphene sandwich
Writing in PNAS , University of Manchester graphene researchers found that sandwiching a layer of the wonder material between boron nitride could produce highly-accurate capacitors. Capacitors could pave the way for flexible and superstrong electronic devices. Wonder material graphene was first isolated in 2004 at The University of Manchester by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov.

Solar cell fabrication is simplified by spray painting
Solar cells made using a process like spray painting have been developed by a research collaboration between scientists at the University of Sheffield. The method could potentially reduce the cost of solar cells significantly meaning the technology could be provided to people in developing countries and perhaps one day be used on glass in buildings or car roofs.

University of Glasgow project taps plasma power to protect products and people
Scientists at the University of Glasgow have developed a new method to make packaged food safer for consumers and more long-lived on the shelf by harnessing the germ-killing power of ozone.

Liverpool chemists awarded £4.2M research funding
Two scientists from the University of Liverpool have been awarded prestigious research grants from the European Research Council (ERC).

New lab honours founding physicist

Light reading: The Department of Physics's nanoplasmonics group
Stefan Maier's nanoplasmonics group started five years ago with just one other member. It is now a 30-strong team which last year produced 40 publications, almost all in high impact journals, including Nature journals and Science.

A family matter – twin brothers graduate with PhDs in particle physics
A pair of identical twin brothers with a passion for atom-smashing have both gained PhDs in physics from the University of Warwick.

Europe pledges one billion euros on graphene as platform for emerging technologies
The integration of these new materials could bring a new dimension to future technologies, creating faster, thinner, stronger, more flexible broadband devices." —Andrea Ferrari T

Durham University academic lands funding for solar research
A lecturer from Durham University has been awarded a grant for his part in a project that seeks to further our understanding of how the sun works.

CASTEP achieves $30 million in sales
When CASTEP came along, for the first time you could learn something about the system before the system is even made." —Mike Payne CASTEP, based on the research of Mike Payne of

Graphene: Taking the wonder-stuff from dream to reality
—Sir Leszek Borysiewicz The Cambridge Graphene Centre will start its activities on February 1 st 2013, with a dedicated facility due to open at the end of the year.

The material that's like an octopus
The atomic structure of a zinc-based material has a surprising amount in common with the tentacles of an octopus, Oxford University researchers have found. When pressure is applied all around them most materials shrink. But materials exhibiting a rare property known as negative linear compressibility (NLC) are different.

Efficient gas separation
A new polymer developed by researchers at Cardiff may lead to more efficient large-scale separation of gas mixtures for chemical engineering and energy generation.

EDF and University of Manchester Sign Extended R&D Collaboration Agreement
The agreement, between EDF R&D, EDF Energy and the University's Dalton Nuclear Institute , was signed in a joint meeting with Bernard Salha (Senior Vice President of EDF SA, President of EDF Resear

Planning a science comeback
Getting back into postdoctoral research after taking a career break can be very difficult – a particular issue for female scientists who have decided to start a family.

The reason we lose at games
Writing in PNAS , a University of Manchester physicist has discovered that some games are simply impossible to fully learn, or too complex for the human mind to understand.

Tribute: Felix Weinberg
Felix Weinberg , Emeritus Professor of Combustion Physics died on 5 December 2012 at the age of 84.

Unlocking nature’s quantum engineering for efficient solar energy
Some of the key issues in current solar cell technologies appear to have been elegantly and rigorously solved by the molecular architecture." —Alex Chin Certain biological systems living in low light environments have unique protein structures for photosynthesis that use quantum dynamics to convert 100% of absorbed light into electrical charge, displaying astonishing efficiency that could lead to new understanding of renewable solar energy, suggests research published today .

Physics hits the West End
Science is no stranger to cinema, being a regular staple of Hollywood blockbusters ever since Star Wars in the 1970s through to Prometheus last year.

Searching for rare kaon decays
UNIVERSITY of Liverpool scientists are engaged in an experiment searching for extremely rare decays of a kaon. Only 3 candidates for this rare decay have been seen worldwide, whereas the Liverpool scientists are hoping to identify several hundred. Using equipment designed by John Fry and Peter Sutcliffe  and constructed by University technicians within the Department of Physics , the team plans to identify the charged kaons prior to their decay into a pion and two neutrinos.

Scientists view the atomic structure of the crystal under the optical microscope
Scientists from the University of Sheffield have analysed the microscopic structure of widely used crystal materials for the first time to reveal their detailed atomic properties.

Mini profile: Terry Rudolph
Ever since being introduced to quantum physics as an undergraduate, Professor Terry Rudolph (Physics) has pondered its mysteries, even getting up in the small hours to think of new ways around problems.

Changing our material future, layer by layer
20 Dec 2012 The proposal, which will involve researchers from the Universities of Manchester , Cambridge and Lancaster , has been awarded 13.4 million Euros (around £11m) to form a “Synergy Group” by the European Research Council (ERC).

Changing our material future, layer by layer
The impact of the proposed research can be imagined considering that graphene is just one of a potentially endless range of embodiments of the general concept we aim to explore." —Andre

£6M funding for XMaS facility
The University of Liverpool's world-leading x-ray magnetic scattering (XMaS) facility has been awarded £6million funding to continue its study of the microscopic and atomic structure of matter.

An early XMaS present: BIS and ESPRC award £6 million to enable University of Warwick co-owned x-ray facility to continue delivering world-class science
An early XMaS present: BIS and ESPRC award £6 million to enable University of Warwick co-owned x-ray facility to continue delivering world-class science UK government research funders have awarded

Is graphene a wonder material?
Graphene is the latest revolutionary material that has scientists and engineers salivating. What is it? Well, take a lump of pencil lead (graphite), which is essentially stacked layers of carbon, put some tape on it, then peel it off.

Ed Byrne in Oxford volcano adventure
Comedian Ed Byrne has teamed up with Oxford University scientists to help explain the science of volcanoes.

Funding success for Physicists
The University's Particle Physics Group has been awarded £9Million from the Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) for its research into the fundamental properties of the Universe.

James Stirling to be Imperial’s first Provost
James Stirling CBE FRS has been named Provost of Imperial, and becomes the first person to occupy the new position at the university.

Imperial physicists share world’s biggest science prize
Three Imperial physicists will receive a share of a new $3 million prize, awarded for their part in identifying a Higgs-like boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator at CERN.

Proliferation warnings on nuclear wonder-fuel
Small-scale chemical reprocessing of irradiated thorium can create an isotope of uranium - uranium-233 - that could be used in nuclear weapons." —Steve Ashley The element thorium

National Composites Centre Celebrates Government funding for Phase II project

The dance of quantum tornadoes
Being half-light and half-matter these particles are feather-light and move quickly around, sloshing and cascading much like water in a mountain river." —Dr Natalia Berloff from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Tornado-like vortexes can be produced in bizarre fluids which are controlled by quantum mechanics, completely unlike normal liquids.

Obituary: Dr Brian Easlea
Dr Brian Easlea, who died on 24 November, was first appointed to the Sussex faculty as a Lecturer in Theoretical Physics in 1963, by when he had already taught in Denmark and the USA.

Controlling hybrid quantum bits is child’s-play
New research has demonstrated a way to make bismuth electrons and nuclei work together as qubits in a quantum computer. The discovery takes us a key step further to creating practical quantum computing which could tackle complex programs that would otherwise take the lifetime of the universe to finish.

Leeds joins Spitfire dig
University of Leeds geophysics expertise will be called in to help with the final stage of Lincolnshire aviation enthusiast David Cundall's bid to locate buried Spitfires in Myanmar.

Obituary: Dr Sandy Grassie

Manchester academic wins Physics prize