Materials Research Institute names five Roy Award winners
Three Penn State faculty and two graduate students have received the 2021 Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award.
Scientists Spot Rare Neutrino Signal for Big Physics Finding
Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory developed a software toolkit that reconstructs and isolates neutrino data in 3D. This software directly enabled the long-awaited findings from the MicroBooNE experiment released today by Fermilab in four complementary analyses. The Wire-Cell team at Brookhaven Lab led one of the four analyses--the most sensitive analysis of the electron-neutrino interaction. Some components of the Wire-Cell toolkit were also used in the other three analyses.
MicroBooNE experiment's first results show no hint of a sterile neutrino
For more than a decade, scientists have wondered whether a theorized new particle, a fourth kind of neutrino called the sterile neutrino, might exist in our universe. Evidence of this would add a new particle to the physicists' best theory, the Standard Model of Particle Physics. A new particle would be a radical shift in our understanding of the basic building blocks of the universe. MicroBooNE's four new experimental results all show the same thing: no sign of the sterile neutrino. Instead, the results align with the Standard Model of Particle Physics. With sterile neutrinos further disfavored as the explanation for anomalies spotted in neutrino data, scientists are investigating other possibilities. Unexplained data point toward promising research areas and lead us to more fundamental truths about how physics works at the smallest level.
Making Martian Rocket BioFuel on Mars
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a concept that would make Martian rocket fuel, on Mars, that could be used to launch future astronauts back to Earth.
Made in Ames: Physics, manufacturing expertise help build nuclear physics experiment
Iowa State physicists are contributing their expertise and sending thousands of pounds of Ames-manufactured hardware to the sPHENIX experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. The experiment's particle detector is designed to explore the flowing, liquid-like, quark-gluon plasma.
To Better Understand Speech, Focus on Who Is Talking
Researchers have found that matching the locations of faces with the speech sounds they are producing significantly improves our ability to understand them, especially in noisy areas where other talkers are present. In the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, they outline a set of online experiments that mimicked aspects of distracting scenes to learn more about how we focus on one audio-visual talker and ignore others.
Modeling Improvements Promise Increased Accuracy for Epidemic Forecasting
Accurate forecasting of epidemic scenarios is critical to implementing effective public health intervention policies. In Chaos, researchers from France and Italy use dynamical stochastic modeling techniques to reveal that infection and recovery rate fluctuations play a critical role in determining peak times for epidemics. Using a susceptible-infected-recovered epidemic model that incorporates daily fluctuations on control parameters, the study applies probability theory calculations to infection counts at the beginning of an epidemic wave and at peak times for populations in Italy.
Using Overpasses as Shelter From Tornado?
Meteorologists and emergency workers continue to contest the popular thinking that waiting out a tornado under an overpass is safe. According to the National Weather Service, doing so could actually increase the risk of death, in part because the wind from a tornado is thought to accelerate as it flows under the overpass, in what's known as the wind tunnel effect.
Metal-Halide Perovskite Semiconductors Can Compete with Silicon Counterparts for Solar Cells, LEDs
Common semiconductor materials for solar cells, such as silicon, must be grown via an expensive process to avoid defects within their crystal structure that affect functionality. But metal-halide perovskite semiconductors are emerging as a cheaper, alternative material class, with excellent and tunable functionality as well as easy processability.
'Smart bandage' may help solve a major problem when treating chronic wounds
How can doctors make sure a dressed wound is healing without taking off the bandage? This is a conundrum, because removing a bandage can disrupt the healing process.
BICEP3 tightens the bounds on cosmic inflation
A new analysis of the South Pole-based telescope's cosmic microwave background observations has all but ruled out several popular models of inflation.
Astrophysicists Reveal Largest-Ever Suite of Universe Simulations
To understand how the universe formed, astronomers have created AbacusSummit, more than 160 simulations of how gravity may have shaped the distribution of dark matter.
Giulia Galli awarded Rahman Prize from American Physical Society
The American Physical Society awards the Rahman Prize to Argonne senior scientist Giulia Galli.
Some of the world's oldest rubies linked to early life
While analyzing some of the world's oldest coloured gemstones, researchers from the University of Waterloo discovered carbon residue that was once ancient life, encased in a 2.5 billion-year-old ruby.
UC San Diego Physicist Helps Launch National Network Examining Earth's Planetary Limits
University of California San Diego Physics Professor Tom Murphy is among five authors of an essay, appearing in the November 2021 issue of the journal Energy Research & Social Science, that cautions current levels of worldwide economic growth, energy use and resource consumption will overshoot Earth's finite limits.
Zhongwei Dai: Exploring the Strange Quantum World of 2D Materials
Zhongwei Dai, a researcher in the Interface Science and Catalysis Group of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, probes the properties of atomically thin materials to identify promising candidates for quantum information science applications
Science snapshots from Berkeley Lab
New Berkeley Lab breakthroughs: engineering chemical-producing microbes; watching enzyme reactions in real time; capturing the first image of 'electron ice'; revealing how skyrmions really move
Three Los Alamos scientists elected 2021 Fellows of the American Physical Society
Three Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have been elected fellows by the American Physical Society (APS). The new APS fellows are Eric Brown, Takeyasu Ito and Nathan Moody.
5 named Argonne Distinguished Fellows in 2021
Only 3% of those at Argonne National Laboratory earn the distinction of being named an Argonne Distinguished Fellow. In 2021, five scientists achieved this honor: Pete Beckman, Stephen Gray, Jeffrey Elam, Lois Curfman McInnes and Rick Stevens.
New insights into heat pathways improve understanding of fusion plasma
Researchers at PPPL have made simple changes to equations that model the movement of heat in plasma. The changes improve insights that could help engineers avoid the conditions that could lead to heat loss in future fusion facilities.
Three Argonne scientists elected American Physical Society fellows
The American Physical Society has announced new fellows for 2021, and three Argonne scientists have been elected.
COVID-19 Vaccination Strategies: When Is One Dose Better Than Two?
While most of the COVID-19 vaccines are designed as a two-dose regimen, some countries have prioritized vaccinating as many people as possible with a single dose before giving out an additional dose. In the journal Chaos, researchers illustrate the conditions under which a "prime first" vaccine campaign is most effective at stopping the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The team found the vaccine waning rate to be a critically important factor in the decision.
Simulation Illustrates How COVID-19 Social Distancing Creates Pedestrian 'Traffic Jams'
In Physics of Fluids, researchers examine the dynamics of social distancing practices, common defense against the spread of COVID-19, through the lens of particle-based flow simulations. The study models social distance as the distance at which particles, representing pedestrians, repel fellow particles and sheds light on the relationship between social distancing and pedestrian flow dynamics in corridors by illustrating how adherence to social distancing protocols affects two-way pedestrian movement in a shared space.
Targeted Interventions To Contain Pandemics, Minimize Societal Disruption
Nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as isolation, quarantines, and lockdowns, have been implemented in an effort to contain the pandemic, but these are often disruptive and costly. In Chaos, researchers identify new and sustainable interventions to contain outbreaks while minimizing the economic and social costs. They built a data-driven mobility model to simulate COVID-19 spreading in Hong Kong, by combining synthetic population, human behavior patterns, and a viral transmission model, and found that by controlling a small percentage of grids, the virus could be largely contained.
Amount of Information in Visible Universe Quantified
Researchers have long suspected a connection between information and the physical universe, with various paradoxes and thought experiments used to explore how or why information could be encoded in physical matter. In AIP Advances, a University of Portsmouth researcher attempts to shed light on exactly how much of this information is out there and presents a numerical estimate for the amount of encoded information in all the visible matter in the universe -- approximately 6 times 10 to the power of 80 bits of information.