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Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory are part of collaborative team that's used a brand new instrument at the DOE's Spallation Neutron Source to probe iron-arsenic compounds, the "hottest" new find in the race to explain and develop superconducting materials. Rob McQueeney, an Ames Laboratory physicist, was part of that team whose findings, published in the Oct. 10 issue (101) of Physical Review Letters, mark the first research produced with the aid of the new tool.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists have recently discovered that heating one side of a magnetized nickel-iron rod causes electrons to rearrange themselves according to their spins. This so-called "spin Seebeck effect" could lead to batteries that generate magnetic currents, rather than electric currents. A source of magnetic currents could be especially useful for the development of spintronics devices, which use magnetic currents in order to reduce overheating in computer chips, since, unlike electric currents, magnetic currents don´t generate heat.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A UC San Diego engineer has revealed a new mode of propulsion based on how water snails create ripples of slime to crawl upside down beneath the surface.

New analytical tools coming on line at the Spallation Neutron Source, the Department of Energy's state-of-the-art neutron science facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, include a beam line dedicated to nuclear physics studies.

(PhysOrg.com) -- For astronomers, understanding what happened in the early moments of the universe could answer many questions in physics and astronomy. One possible player in the early universe is cosmic strings, which arise naturally in particle physics models. However, cosmic strings are quite strange hypothetical entities: they`re thinner than a proton, but can be as long as the universe. Cosmic strings might have formed as imperfections when the early universe was undergoing drastic phase changes.

(PhysOrg.com) -- One major goal on the path toward making useful superconducting devices has been engineering materials that act as superconductors at the nanoscale -- the realm of billionths of a meter. Such nanoscale superconductors would be useful in devices such as superconductive transistors and eventually in ultrafast, power-saving electronics.

Scientists at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington have designed a high-speed thermometer that can measure the temperature inside explosions without being damaged in the impact.

(PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time the transmission of data secured by quantum cryptography is demonstrated within a commercial telecommunications network. 41 partners from 12 European countries, including academics from the University of Bristol, have worked on realising this quantum cryptographic network since April 2004.

A research team at Singapore A*STAR's Data Storage Institute (DSI) has invented a new phase change material that has the potential to change the design of future memory storage devices.

Top Italian physicists say their colleague Nicola Cabibbo should have shared the Nobel Physics Prize with the American and two Japanese scientists who won the 2008 honour, Italian media said Wednesday.

Boosted by its win of the 2008 Nobel Physics Prize, Japan said Wednesday it hoped to play host to a major international scientific organisation's new machine exposing the secrets of the cosmos.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists have taken a step closer to realizing long-distance quantum communication, in which a quantum state is transferred from one location to another by becoming entangled with a traveling photon.

Humans like the comfort of symmetry -- the identical image in the mirror, the matching wings of the baroque mansion, the equal numbers in opposing football teams.

Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan and Yoichiro Nambu of the United States won the 2008 Nobel Physics Prize Tuesday for groundbreaking theoretical work in fundamental particles.

(AP) -- Scientists who have pursued dark matter, hunted for undiscovered planets and advanced nanotechnology were being touted Monday as candidates for the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics.

(AP) -- A bad electrical connection likely caused the malfunction that sidelined the world's largest atom smasher days after it was launched with great fanfare, a senior scientist said Monday.

What does a mixture of two different kinds of cells have in common with a mixture of oil and water? The same basic force causes both mixtures to separate into two distinct regions.

Leave it to hypothesized gravity to weigh down what physicists have thought for 30 years. If theoretical physicists, led by the University of Oregon's Stephen Hsu, are right, the idea that nature's forces merge under grand unification has grown fuzzy.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists have discovered a strange characteristic of quantum communication channels. If two quantum channels each have a transmission capacity of zero, they may still have a nonzero capacity when used together. This effect, which has no classical counterpart, reveals a new complexity in the fundamental nature of quantum communication.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A brilliantly bright light source that can examine the detail of atoms at a microscopic level is one step closer, thanks to the adoption of a Europe-wide convention, says a leading scientist from Imperial College London.