feed info

93 articles from PhysOrg

V404 Cygni: Huge rings around a black hole

This image features a spectacular set of rings around a black hole, captured using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The X-ray images of the giant rings reveal information about dust located in our galaxy, using a similar principle to the X-rays performed in doctor's offices and airports.

'Critical situation' as fires rage in Greece

"It's a very sad moment," said a villager in Evia who had to evacuate as a violent fire ravages the Greek island, one of dozens of blazes that have torn through the country this week in the worst heatwave in over three decades.

Decades of research bring quantum dots to brink of widespread use

A new article in Science magazine gives an overview of almost three decades of research into colloidal quantum dots, assesses the technological progress for these nanometer-sized specs of semiconductor matter, and weighs the remaining challenges on the path to widespread commercialization for this promising technology with applications in everything from TVs to highly efficient sunlight...

Control of the US Senate: What does history tell us about how much it affects legislative policymaking?

With the U.S. Senate evenly split between the Republican and Democratic caucuses—something that's only happened three other times—two political science scholars at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences were inspired to study one of those periods. Their research regarding the Senate during the 1953–54 session of Congress, published in the American Political Science Review,...

Research illuminates language of fireflies

A small flickering at dusk near the trees, a pinprick of light rising from the ground—fireflies bring an air of magic and wonder to long summer evenings. The twinkling conversation between beetles is commonly associated with mating patterns; and new data explains how swarms are able to achieve this communication.

This quantum crystal could be a new dark matter sensor

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have linked together, or "entangled," the mechanical motion and electronic properties of a tiny blue crystal, giving it a quantum edge in measuring electric fields with record sensitivity that may enhance understanding of the universe.

New process yields more, purer RNA at a fraction of the cost

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently unveiled their discovery of a new process for making RNA. The resulting RNA is purer, more copious and likely to be more cost-effective than any previous process could manage. This new technique removes the largest stumbling block on the path to next-generation RNA therapeutic drugs.

Far out: Why political parties go to extremes

The established view is that in a two-party representative democracy, political parties should target the average voter if they want to be re-elected. So why do some political systems become polarized, rather than remain in the center?

Helping India's smallholder farmers

To help smallholder farmers in India—farmers who own farms less than five acres in size—simply planting more crops is not enough, on its own, to provide year-round nutrition and the necessary food security.

How to preserve firm value during mergers and acquisitions

Researchers from San Diego State University, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and University of Georgia published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that shows that customer dissatisfaction with M&As can negate any gains in synergy and efficiency.

Need to change careers? This AI tool can help

Car manufacturing workers, long haul airline pilots, coal workers, shop assistants—many employees are forced to undertake the difficult and sometimes distressing challenge of finding a new occupation quickly due to technological and economic change, or crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

A major challenge to harvesting fusion energy on Earth

A key challenge for scientists striving to produce on Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars is preventing what are called runaway electrons, particles unleashed in disrupted fusion experiments that can bore holes in tokamaks, the doughnut-shaped machines that house the experiments. Scientists led by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics...

Privacy and security perceptions of online education proctoring services

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions have had to quickly transition to remote learning and exam taking. This has led to an increase in the use of online proctoring services to curb student cheating, including restricted browser modes, video/screen monitoring, local network traffic analysis and eye tracking.