Will Mankind Destroy Itself? - Michio Kaku

The physicist, Michio Kaku, sees two major trends in the world today: the first is toward a multicultural, scientific, tolerant society; the other, as evidenced by terrorism, is fundamentalist and monocultural.

Whichever one wins out will determine the fate of mankind.

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Scottish Scientists examine the science of lightning in extrasolar planets

A thunderstorm above Unna, in Germany. 

Credit: S Mial /Wikipedia.

Scientists in Scotland are hoping to make a major 'leap' in working out whether a bolt of lightning could trigger life on planets outside the solar system.

The team, at the University of St Andrews, has been studying lightning in extrasolar planets to better understand how atmospheres on earth become electrically charged.

In turn, the researchers, from the University's LEAP (Life Electricity Atmosphere Planets) group at the School of Physics & Astronomy hope to learn more about the role lightning played in generating the 'building blocks' for life.

Christiane Helling

Lead researcher Dr Christiane Helling will reveal one of her group's findings today at a major meeting involving 11,000 scientists working in the Earth, planetary and space sciences.

The researcher will talk about her work in a special session on lightning at the EGU (European Geosciences Union) General Assembly in Vienna.

Dr Helling said, "Atmospheric electrical discharges, or lightning, have been observed on planets other than Earth such as Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, but it is very likely that lightning also occurs outside the Solar System too.

"We studied both exoplanets and brown dwarfs, which host clouds made of minerals or gemstones, to see how much energy is deposited into the atmosphere if a lightning strike hits.

A lightning discharge is started by a small-scale 'streamer discharge' which can evolve into a large-scale lightning bolt.

By building a discharge model related to lab works from the University of Eindhoven TU, Dr Helling and her team were able to study the large-scale properties of lightning in extrasolar, cloud-forming atmospheres, and how much energy would be injected by such a lightning strike.

They found that lightning strikes are more energetic in brown dwarfs than in giant gas planets.

"Our work combines plasma physics experiments performed in laboratories on Earth with our research into cloud formation in extrasolar atmospheres," Dr Helling explained.

"Our work tests the physical processes on Earth in non-terrestrial environments such as hydrogen-dominated atmospheres and gemstone clouds outside the solar system, in contrast to the nitrogen-dominated atmosphere and water clouds on Earth."

The St Andrews research could help in extreme situations of lightning on Earth.

More information: Dr Helling will deliver the scientific talk on the topic 'Large-scale properties of lightning in extrasolar objects' on Friday 2 May 2014, 16.45 in room G1 at the EGU conference cite in Vienna. Online: adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014ApJ...784...43B

Science: It's a girl thing! - Official teaser - YouTube

Science: it's a girl thing! From cosmetics to chemistry, from fashion to biology, from rhythm to electronics, girls have what it takes to succeed in science. Put your lab glasses on and see science with different eyes!

A slightly controversial video created with good intentions but coming under a trickle of criticism. What do you think? Good, emberassing, effective, or what?

The Most Astounding Fact - Astrophysicist Dr Neil De Grasse

Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked in an interview with TIME magazine, “What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?”

ESA’s blogging astronauts on the road to space - images

Alexander Gerst, ESA astronaut, training for spacewalks. 

Here he is in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab at NASA's Sonny Carter Training Facility, near Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. 

Alexander preparing for his mission to the International Space Station in 2014, as a flight engineer for Expeditions 40 and 41.

Alexander Gerst was born in Künzelsau, Germany, in 1976. 

He studied at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, where he received a diploma in geophysics. 

He also studied Earth Science at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, where he was awarded a Master of Science. 

He has been working as a researcher since 2001. In his spare time he enjoys mountaineering, diving, climbing and skydiving.

Credits: NASA

UK NPL takes the lead in redefining the kilogram

New research, published by the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL), takes a significant step towards changing the international definition of the kilogram, which is currently based on a lump of platinum-iridium kept in Paris.

NPL has produced technology capable of accurate measurements of Planck's constant, the final piece of the puzzle in moving from a physical object to a kilogram based on fundamental constants of nature.

The techniques are described in a paper published in Metrologia on the 20th February.

The international system of units (SI) is the most widely used system of measurement for commerce and science. It comprises seven base units (metre, kilogram, second, Kelvin, ampere, mole and candela). Ideally these should be stable over time and universally reproducible, which requires definitions based on fundamental constants of nature. The kilogram is the only unit still defined by a physical artifact.

In October 2011, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) agreed that the kilogram should be redefined in terms of Planck's constant (h). It deferred a final decision until there was sufficient consistent and accurate data to agree a value for h. This paper describes how this can be done with the required level of certainty.

It provides a measured value of h and extensive analysis of possible uncertainties that can arise during experimentation. Although these results alone are not enough, consistent results from other measurement institutes using the techniques and technology described in this paper will provide an even more accurate consensus value and a change to the way the world measures mass – possibly as soon as 2014.

Planck's constant is a fundamental constant of nature which relates the frequency (colour) of a particle of light (a photon) to its energy. By using two quantum mechanical effects discovered in the last 60 years: the Josephson effect and the quantum Hall effect, electrical power can be measured in terms of Planck's constant (and time).

A piece of kit called the watt balance - first proposed by Brian Kibble at the National Physical Laboratory in 1975 - relates electrical power to mechanical power. This allows it to make very accurate measurements of Planck's constant in terms of the SI units of mass, length and time.

The SI units of length and time are already fixed in terms of fundamental and atomic constants. If the value of h is fixed, the watt balance would provide a method of measuring mass.

Dr Ian Robinson, who leads the project at the National Physical Laboratory, explains how the watt balance works: "The watt balance divides its measurement into two parts to avoid the errors which would arise if real power was measured.

The principal can be illustrated by considering a loudspeaker placed on its back. Placing a mass on the cone will push it downwards and it can be restored to its former position by passing a current through the speaker coil.

The ratio of the force generated by the current is fixed for a particular loudspeaker coil and magnet and is measured in the second part of the experiment by moving the speaker cone and measuring the ratio of the voltage produced at the speaker terminals to the velocity of the cone.

When the results of the two parts of the experiment are combined, the product of voltage and current (electrical power) is equated to the product of weight and velocity (mechanical power) and the properties of the loudspeaker coil and magnet are eliminated, leaving a measurement of the weight of the mass which is independent of the particular speaker used."

Measurements of h using watt balances have provided uncertainties approaching the two parts in one hundred million level, which is required to base the kilogram on Planck's constant.

Thanks to improvements highlighted in the paper published today, measurements at the National Research Council in Canada, which is now using the NPL equipment, look set to provide considerably greater accuracy.

Another set of data comes from NIST, the USA's measurement institute. Currently the watt balance at NIST is showing slightly different results and the differences are being investigated. If the results are found to be consistent, it will be the start of the end for the physical kilogram.

A Planck based kilogram would mean a universal standard that could be replicated anywhere at any time. It will also bring much greater long-term certainty to scientists who rely on the SI for precise measurements, or on h itself. The watt balance would provide a means of realising and disseminating the redefined unit of mass.

Dr Robinson concludes: "This is an example of British science leading the world. NPL invented the watt balance and has produced an apparatus and measurements which will contribute to the redefinition. The apparatus is now being used by Canada to continue the work, and we anticipate their results will have lower uncertainties than we achieved, and the principle is used by the US and other laboratories around the world to make their own measurements."

"This research will underpin the world's measurement system and ensure the long term stability of the very top level of mass measurement. Although the man on the street won't see much difference - you'll still get the same 1kg bag of potatoes – these standards will ultimately be used to calibrate the world's weighing systems, from accurate scientific instruments, right down the chain to domestic scales."

NPL to make reflected light measurements

A researcher from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), the national measurement institute of the USA, recently visited the UK to utilise NPL's world-leading facilities for measuring the optical properties of materials, and specifically for measuring reflectance of samples in the infrared.

Out of all the measurement institutes around the world, NPL is capable of making these measurements over the widest range of infrared wavelengths.

In the USA, NIST is developing a fibre-coupled cryogenic radiometer that links optical fibre power measurements directly to fundamental electrical units at the 10 nW power level.

Such a device could have a role in telecommunications, medical devices and other industries that require ultra low power calibrations.

Cryogenic radiometry was first developed at NPL. It works by absorbing optical power which causes a temperature rise in the absorber.

The amount of electrical power needed to induce the same temperature rise is then measured. To make the most accurate measurements, the device needs to employ a surface that absorbs the largest amount of optical energy possible, and reflects the least.

A coating of carbon nanotubes, arranged so that they stand vertically on the surface like a forest of trees, provide this surface.

The arrangement forms the lowest reflective, or darkest, surface known to man and only NPL's facilities are capable of making the required measurements of reflected infrared light to test it.

Two facilities were used at NPL: the first, based on a grating spectrometer and integrating sphere, covers the range of the electromagnetic spectrum from visible light to a wavelength of 2.5 µm; and the second facility uses a Fourier transform spectrometer and reflecting hemisphere to cover the range from 2.5 µm to 50 µm.

The measurements made during this project represent the first ever reflectance measurements of materials with reflectance less than 1% in the 15–50 µm region and confirm that the NIST carbon nanotube coatings have the lowest known reflectance in the infrared region.

NPL and NIST have collaborated since 2003 to assess the benefits to the performance of thermal detectors obtained by using carbon nanotube coatings, and half a dozen papers have been jointly authored reporting those findings.

The current work has expanded NPL's collaboration with NIST and is described in a paper submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

More on NPL's work on Optical Radiation and Photonics

More on NPL's work on Reflected Light

For further information, please contact Christopher Chunnilall or Theo Theocharous

Frames of Reference Videos (1960) - YouTube

A 1960 film from the "Physical Science Study Committee" (PSCC) series on the laws of physics, inertia, and special relativity in different frames of reference.

Producer & Director: Richard Leacock
Cinematography: Abraham Morochnik
Narration: University of Toronto professors Donald Ivey and Patterson Hume

David Fearn, the father of ION propulsion

David Fearn, who died on August 29 aged 68, was internationally recognised as the father of ion propulsion in spacecraft, which he developed at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough (now QinetiQ); his work enables telecommunications satellites to be positioned more accurately and, by saving on heavy rocket fuel, has made feasible missions to deep space that were previously impossible.

Find here a SpaceUK directory of Rocket Propulsion before the ion drive

Until the development of ion propulsion, manoeuvring artificial Earth satellites and deep-space probes was only possible by using conventional rocket thrusters.

Although relatively simple, they were inefficient and required large amounts of fuel.

As the size of Earth satellites has increased, the efficiency of the manoeuvring thrusters has become ever more critical, leading to the need for larger, more costly launch rockets and, ultimately, limiting capabilities.

Many of these limitations have been overcome by ion thrusters, which use the inert and naturally occurring gas xenon.

Physicist David Fearn, who died aged 68 on 29th Sept 2007, was the driving energy behind their development in the UK, and was internationally recognised as a father of spacecraft ion propulsion.

In 1999 two ion thrusters were flown on the European Space Agency Artemis satellite when it was used in the successful spacecraft rescue following the failure of the launch rocket.

Two thrusters are used on the gravity and ocean circulation explorer satellite, which provides a new level of understanding of the planet's composition, climate change and the processes operating below the Earth's crust.

This ground-breaking mission would be impossible without the ion thrusters that compensate for the disturbances the spacecraft experiences as it speeds through the rarefied upper atmosphere five times faster than a rifle bullet.

The level of control is analogous to compensating for the disturbance experienced by a supertanker when a snowflake lands on the deck.

In 2006 ESA used electric propulsion on its Moon mission, SMART-1. Following that event, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Australian National University (ANU) successfully tested a new design of spacecraft ion engine that dramatically improved performance.  

This new engine was over ten times more fuel efficient than the one used on SMART-1.

Dr Roger Walker of ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team, Research Fellow in Advanced Propulsion and Technical Manager of the project, said at that time: "Using a similar amount of propellant as SMART-1, with the right power supply, a future spacecraft using our new engine design wouldn’t just reach the Moon, it would be able to leave the Solar System entirely"

So, in line with continuing progress on ion drive development, larger thrusters, pioneered by Fearn, will also be used on the 2013 ESA BepiColombo mission to propel a spacecraft to Mercury.

The significance of Fearn's work is illustrated by his extensive list of publications - more than 250 technical papers and scientific articles.

Find here an article written by David Fearn about the Prospero4 /X5 spacecraft

He led teams from a number of UK government, academic and industrial organisations, as well as international collaborative work with the European Space Agency (ESA), United States air force (USAF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).

A recent ESA accolade described him as "the father of electric propulsion in the UK and one of the most influential and inspirational figures in the field of European spacecraft propulsion".

He was awarded a visiting chair at Surrey University and often acted as an external supervisor for postgraduate students. His enthusiastic and approachable manner was an inspiration to generations of young scientists.

Chicxlub Impact Crater: Princeton model shows fallout of a giant meteorite strike

The Princeton model shows (at left) that the structure of the Earth's surface at the time of the meteorite impact that caused the Chicxulub crater in Mexico would have placed the Deccan Traps in India far west of the crater's antipodal point, instead of directly opposite of the impact. 

Correspondingly, the model shows (at right) that the meteorite struck far east of the antipodal point for the Deccan Traps, which are remnants of large volcanoes thought to have contributed to the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period. 

The model also revealed that the Chicxulub impact, when the Earth's surface and shape are considered, would have likely been too small to cause the Deccan Traps. (Images by Conor Myhrvold)

Seeking to better understand the level of death and destruction that would result from a large meteorite striking the Earth, Princeton University researchers have developed a new model that can not only more accurately simulate the seismic fallout of such an impact, but also help reveal new information about the surface and interior of planets based on past collisions.

Princeton researchers created the first model to take into account Earth's elliptical shape, surface features and ocean depths in simulations of how seismic waves generated by a meteorite collision would spread across and within the planet.

Current projections rely on models of a featureless spherical world with nothing to disrupt the meteorite's impact, the researchers report in the October issue of Geophysical Journal International.

The researchers, based in the laboratory of Jeroen Tromp, the Blair Professor of Geology in Princeton's Department of Geosciences, simulated the meteorite strike that caused the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, an impact 2 million times more powerful than a hydrogen bomb that many scientists believe triggered the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

The team's rendering of the planet showed that the impact's seismic waves would be scattered and unfocused, resulting in less severe ground displacement, tsunamis, and seismic and volcanic activity than previously theorised.

The Princeton simulations also could help researchers gain insight into the unseen surface and interior details of other planets and moons, the authors reported.

The simulations can pinpoint the strength of the meteorite's antipodal focus - the area of the globe opposite of the crater where the energy from the initial collision comes together like a second, smaller impact.

The researchers found this point is determined by how the features and composition of the smitten orb direct and absorb the seismic waves.

Scientists could identify the planet or moon's characteristics by comparing a crater to the remnants of the antipodal point and calculating how the impact waves spread.

Lead author Matthias Meschede of the University of Munich developed the model at Princeton through the University's Visiting Student Research Collaborators program with co-authors Conor Myhrvold, who earned his bachelor's degree from Princeton in 2011, and Tromp, who also is director of Princeton's Institute for Computational Science and Engineering and a professor of applied and computational mathematics. Meschede describes the findings as follows:

ESA gain ISO quality stamp care of NPL

Cosmic radiation is a threat to a spacecraft's electronics, so irradiation by gamma rays is one of the most crucial tests carried out on candidate spacecraft components to confirm their suitability for space flight.

Gamma radiation from a cobalt-60 source is a standard method for simulating exposure to the cosmic particles encountered in orbit. The facility replicates the lifetime effects of cumulative radiation doses, with accelerated testing to simulate years of exposure within just a few days.

Spacecraft such as satellites need to be tested with exposure to gamma rays to confirm they are ready for space flight

The European Space Agency (ESA) has its own cobalt-60 source at its ESTEC technical and engineering centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, where it tests spacecraft components, with the high level of measurement confidence required by its customers.

NPL's Radiation Dosimetry group worked closely with the ESA team to help them develop the measurements and procedures necessary to achieve an independent accreditation to the ISO 17025 standard - General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.

The process was a lengthy one, with initial discussions back in 2007, and NPL played the crucial role of external adviser, coming up with ways of improving not just methods of testing, but also their accompanying technical documentation.

In practical terms, this now means all ESA projects and external customers using the facility can be sure its results have well-defined uncertainty margins, following testing and quality procedures that adhere strictly and transparently to international standards.

With space an ever-more international endeavour, different partner countries can apply these results with full confidence, knowing they are completely reproducible and repeatable.

Find out more about NPL's Dosimetry research.

Find out more about NPL's Radiation Dosimetry facilities.

Find out more about ESA's cobalt-60 irradiation facility.

CAesium Fountain atomic clock with the world's best long-term accuracy

A caesium fountain clock that keeps the United Kingdom's atomic time is now the most accurate long-term timekeeper in the world. 

This has been ascertained by a new evaluation of the clock that will be published in the October 2011 issue of the international scientific journal Metrologia by a team of physicists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the United Kingdom and Penn State University in the United States. 

This image shows the clock, NPL-CsF2, which is located at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, U.K. The whole device is approximately 8.2 feet (2.5 m) high.

Atoms are tossed up 3.2 feet (1 m), approximately 12 inches (30 cm) above the cavity that is contained inside a vacuum vessel. 

The large external cylinder screens the atoms inside the clock from the relatively large and unstable external magnetic field. Credit: National Physical Laboratory, United Kingdom.

The atomic clock housed in Britain's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the world's most accurate, according to new research.

The clock is a caesium fountain clock, meaning that the "tick" is provided by the measurement of the energy required to change the caesium atoms' spin.

Caesium atoms are placed into a cavity, and exposed to electromagnetic radiation of different wavelengths. Once the spin "flips", the waves are at the right frequency to define what a second is.

In the case of caesium, that quantity is defined as 9.2GHz (or, to be appropriately exact, 9,192,631,770Hz). When the spin flips, the clock operators can set the frequency at that point, and work backward to determine the exact length of a second.

The international Bureau of Weights and Measures takes readings from a selection of "primary frequency standards", in France, the US, Germany, Japan -- and, the most accurate of them all, in the UK.

A team led by NPL's Krzysztof Szymaniec and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University found that Britain's atomic clock was accurate to one part in 4,300,000,000,000,000, nearly doubling the accuracy found when the clocks were last measured in 2010. That level of precision means that NPL's clock wouldn't stray by more than a second in 138 million years.

While that might seem like overegging the pudding in terms of making sure your alarm clock goes off in time for you to get to work, the definition of most electrical units are based on these measurements, and given the vast amounts of energy and data pouring through the world's computer systems, even a tiny change can have measurable economic impact.

"The frequency we measure is not necessarily the one prescribed by the definition of a second, which requires that all the external fields and 'perturbations' would be removed," Szymaniec stated. "In many cases we can't remove these perturbations; but we can measure them precisely, we can assess them, and introduce corrections for them."

"It's vital for the UK as an economy to maintain a set of standards, a set of procedures, that underpin technical development," he added.

NASA's Zero-G carry Princeton University teachers: PPPL lets teachers hitch a ride

As part of a Princeton-sponsored team, Miller and Williams were flying at that moment on a NASA aircraft modified to simulate a reduced-gravity environment.

They were there to study how microgravity affected the movement of the pendulum, crafted from a softball, and the dynamics of the bubbles, all of which were contained in a clear plastic box.



PPPL team members Susan Franko of Gregory Elementary School in Trenton (left) and Patty Hillyer (center, in red T-shirt) of Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School in Cliffwood observe their experimental box on the zero-gravity flight.

The teachers had journeyed to NASA Johnson Space Center's Ellington Field in Houston to conduct experiments along with some 80 participants in NASA's Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program July 22-29.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) sponsored six of the dozen teams, including one dubbed the "Space Cowboys" with Miller, Williams and four others. In total, PPPL sponsored about 40 participants, including teachers from various New Jersey school districts and researchers from the lab.

"Many of the teachers, for the first time, designed, built and performed an actual scientific experiment," said PPPL Science Education Program Head Andrew Zwicker, who rode the Zero-G aircraft twice with this year's K-12 educators. "They plan to use the experience, and the curricula they designed based upon their experiments, in their classrooms."

Princeton University - PPPL lets teachers hitch a ride on NASA's Zero-G

NPL Research: GeT-ting genes delivered

Confocal fluorescence micrograph of cells containing a gene delivered by GeT, encoding for the synthesis of green fluorescent protein.

NPL scientists have mimicked the ways viruses infect human cells and deliver their genetic material.

The research hopes to apply the approach to gene therapy – a therapeutic strategy to correct defective genes such as those that cause cancer.

Gene therapy is still in its infancy, with obvious challenges around targeting damaged cells and creating corrective genes. An equally important challenge is finding ways to transport the corrective genes into cells.

This is a problem, because of the poor permeability of cell membranes.

The research addresses this challenge by describing a model peptide sequence, dubbed GeT (gene transporter), which wraps around genes, transports them through cell membranes and helps their escape from intracellular degradation traps. The process mimics that which viruses use to infect human cells.

To prove the concept, the researchers used GeT to transfer a synthetic gene encoding for a green fluorescent protein that can be seen and monitored using fluorescence microscopy.

The design can serve as a potential template for non-viral gene delivery systems and future treatments of genetic disorders.

This research is part of the NPL-led international research project 'Multiscale measurements in biophysical systems', which is jointly funded by NPL and the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance.

Read the full article detailing this research published in Chemical Communications – the flagship journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

More on NPL’s work in Biotechnology

For more information please contact Max Ryadnov

NASA ARTEMIS Spacecraft Prepares for Lunar Orbit

They've almost arrived. It took one and a half years, over 90 orbit maneuvers, and - wonderfully - many gravitational boosts and only the barest bit of fuel to move two spacecraft from their orbit around Earth to their new home around the moon.

Along their travels, the spacecraft have been through orbits never before attempted and made lovely curlicue leaps from one orbit to the next. This summer, the two ARTEMIS spacecraft - which began their lives as part of the five-craft THEMIS mission studying Earth's aurora - will begin to orbit the moon instead. THEMIS is an acronym for the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interaction during Substorms spacecraft.

The view from above of the ARTEMIS orbits as they make the transition from the kidney-shaped Lissajous orbits on either side of the moon to orbiting around the moon. 

Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Even with NASA's decades of orbital mechanics experience, this journey was no easy feat.

The trip required several maneuvers never before attempted, including several months when each craft moved in a kidney-shaped path on each side of the moon around, well, nothing but a gravitational point in space marked by no physical planet or object.

"No one has ever tried this orbit before, it's an Earth-moon libration orbit," says David Folta a flight dynamics engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It's a very unstable orbit that requires daily attention and constant adjustments."

The journey for ARTEMIS - short for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun - began in 2009, after THEMIS had completed some two years of science data collection on the magnetic environment around Earth, the aurora, and how these are affected by the sun.

The spacecraft are solar-powered, but orbits for the two outermost THEMIS spacecraft had slipped over time and were going to be subjected to regular eight-hour periods of darkness. These spacecraft could withstand up to three hours without sunlight, but this much darkness would soon leave the batteries completely discharged.

NASA PS-PVD: Plasma Spray-Physical Vapour Deposition

Inside the Plasma Spray-Physical Vapour Deposition, or PS-PVD, ceramic powder is introduced into the plasma flame, which vapourises it and then condenses it on the object, to form the ceramic coating.

The PS-PVD rig at NASA's Glenn Research Center uses new technology to create super thin ceramic coatings, which are being developed to protect high efficiency engines.

The coatings created in the PS-PVD rig are thinner and more complex than those previously available.

The PS-PVD rig uses a system of vacuum pumps and a blower to remove air from the chamber, reducing the pressure inside to fraction of normal atmospheric pressure. The plasma flame is extremely hot and reaches 10,000 degrees Celsius.

Ceramic powder is introduced from the torch into the plasma flame. The plasma vapourises the ceramic powder, which then condenses 5 feet away from the torch onto the component to form the ceramic coating.

Plasma, neither a gas, liquid or a solid, is the fourth state of matter and often behaves like a gas, except that it conducts electricity and is affected by magnetic fields. On an astronomical scale, plasma is very common.

The sun is composed of plasma, fire is plasma, fluorescent and neon lights contain small amounts of plasma. NASA’s PS-PVD rig is one of only two such facilities in the country and one of four in the world.

Image Credit: NASA/Marvin G. Smith (Wyle Information Systems LLC)

Space–time invisibility cloak could 'edit history' - physicsworld.com

Physicists in the UK have proposed a "space–time" invisibility cloak that, if built, could be used to prevent signal interference or give the illusion of a Star Trek teleportation device.

The idea comes after four years of research by different groups that are creating devices to make objects invisible.

In 2006 researchers at Duke University in the US created the first device that could cloak a small object in two dimensions in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Last year groups at Cornell University and the University of California at Berkeley, US, independently created 2D cloaks that operated at optical wavelengths.

Then, earlier this year, a team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany went one step further to produce a 3D optical cloak.

The latest development, by Martin McCall and colleagues of Imperial College, London, and the University of Salford, might see cloaks add yet another dimension to their capability: time. The idea is to create a tunnel through which an object could perform an action – move or change shape, for example – while appearing as though it is doing nothing at all.

Space–time invisibility cloak could 'edit history' - physicsworld.com

CERN Press Release: First Proton Particle Collision seen

CERN Press Release

Geneva, 30 March 2010. Beams collided at 7 TeV in the LHC at 13:06 CEST, marking the start of the LHC research programme.

Particle physicists around the world are looking forward to a potentially rich harvest of new physics as the LHC begins its first long run at an energy three and a half times higher than previously achieved at a particle accelerator.

“It’s a great day to be a particle physicist,” said CERN1 Director General Rolf Heuer. “A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends.”

Connection to CERN Atlas Control Room and LHC images

“With these record-shattering collision energies, the LHC experiments are propelled into a vast region to explore, and the hunt begins for dark matter, new forces, new dimensions and the Higgs boson,” said ATLAS collaboration spokesperson, Fabiola Gianotti. “The fact that the experiments have published papers already on the basis of last year’s data bodes very well for this first physics run.”

“We’ve all been impressed with the way the LHC has performed so far,” said Guido Tonelli, spokesperson of the CMS experiment, “and it’s particularly gratifying to see how well our particle detectors are working while our physics teams worldwide are already analysing data. We’ll address soon some of the major puzzles of modern physics like the origin of mass, the grand unification of forces and the presence of abundant dark matter in the universe. I expect very exciting times in front of us.”

"This is the moment we have been waiting and preparing for", said ALICE spokesperson Jürgen Schukraft. "We're very much looking forward to the results from proton collisions, and later this year from lead-ion collisions, to give us new insights into the nature of the strong interaction and the evolution of matter in the early Universe."

“LHCb is ready for physics,” said the experiment’s spokesperson Andrei Golutvin, “we have a great research programme ahead of us exploring the nature of matter-antimatter asymmetry more profoundly than has ever been done before.”

CERN will run the LHC for 18-24 months with the objective of delivering enough data to the experiments to make significant advances across a wide range of physics channels. As soon as they have "re-discovered" the known Standard Model particles, a necessary precursor to looking for new physics, the LHC experiments will start the systematic search for the Higgs boson. With the amount of data expected, called one inverse femtobarn by physicists, the combined analysis of ATLAS and CMS will be able to explore a wide mass range, and there’s even a chance of discovery if the Higgs has a mass near 160 GeV. If it’s much lighter or very heavy, it will be harder to find in this first LHC run.

Chinese Scientists Seek Support For Dark Matter Mission In Space

Chinese Scientists Seek Support For Dark Matter Mission In Space

Chinese scientists are lobbying for greater government support for a groundbreaking project that would see the launch of a satellite to investigate mysterious dark matter in space.

The Center for Space Science and Applied Research (CSSAR) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was focusing on developing China's first astronomical satellite to prove the existence of dark matter.

"This would be a major breakthrough in the field of basic science which has been dormant for decades since Einstein's Theory of Relativity," said center director Wu Ji.

Dark matter and dark energy represent the vast majority of the mass in the observable universe, but their presence is only inferred from their gravitational effects on visible matter. Dark matter is believed to play a central role in galaxy evolution and the formation of universe.

Scientists Create World's First Molecular Transistor

Scientists Create World's First Molecular Transistor

A group of scientists has succeeded in creating the first transistor made from a single molecule. The team, which includes researchers from Yale University and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, published their findings in the December 24 issue of the journal Nature.

The team, including Mark Reed, the Harold Hodgkinson Professor of engineering and Applied Science at Yale, showed that a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts could behave just like a silicon transistor.

The researchers were able to manipulate the molecule's different energy states depending on the voltage they applied to it through the contacts. By manipulating the energy states, they were able to control the current passing through the molecule.

"It's like rolling a ball up and over a hill, where the ball represents electrical current and the height of the hill represents the molecule's different energy states," Reed said. "We were able to adjust the height of the hill, allowing current to get through when it was low, and stopping the current when it was high." In this way, the team was able to use the molecule in much the same way as regular transistors are used.