Tag Archives: phenomenon

New Phenomenon in Nanodisk Magnetic Vortices

By Guest PostAugust 12, 2012Scienceals, antisymmetric coupling, atom, cxro, data storage, dzyaloshinskii moriya interaction, eye of hurricane, ferromagnetic nanodisk, hurricane, intrinsic factor, Japan, keisuke yamada, magnetic vortices, magnetism, mi young im, nanodisk, nanoscience, peter fischer, phenomenon, ram, shinya kasai, spin of electrons, symmetry, teruo ono, tomonori sato, xray beams, yoshinobu nakatani

Berkeley Lab Researchers Take a Mesocale Look at Magnetic Vortex Formations

The phenomenon in ferromagnetic nanodisks of magnetic vortices – hurricanes of magnetism only a few atoms across – has generated intense interest in the high-tech community because of the potential application of these vortices in non-volatile Random Access Memory (RAM) data storage systems. New findings from scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) indicate that the road to magnetic vortex RAM might be more difficult to navigate than previously supposed, but there might be unexpected rewards as well.

In an experiment made possible by the unique X-ray beams at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS), a team of researchers led by Peter Fischer and Mi-Young Im of the Center for X-Ray Optics (CXRO), in collaboration with scientists in Japan, discovered that contrary to what was previously believed, the formation of magnetic vortices in ferromagnetic nanodisks is an asymmetric phenomenon. It is possible that this breaking of symmetry would lead to failure in a data storage device during its initialization process. (more…)

Greg Landsberg: Seeking the Higgs boson

By Guest PostJune 29, 2012Scienceamerican group, brown, CERN, cms, compact muon solenoid, data, david cutts, david orenstein, electromagnetic interaction, electroweak force, electroweak symmetry breaking, fermilab, gerald guralnik, greg landsberg, higgs, higgs boson, higgs field, higgs mechanism, higgs signal, high precision, lack of sleep, Large Hadron Collider, meenakshi narain, megapixel camera, particle, phenomenon, photon, professor of physics, skype, standard model, statistical significance, switzerland, ultich heintz, universe, z bosons

Greg Landsberg, professor of physics at Brown, is the physics coordinator for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) at CERN in Switzerland, part of a Brown team that includes professors David Cutts, Ultich Heintz, and Meenakshi Narain. The giant instrument’s primary mission is finding the Higgs boson, a particle whose existence would confirm the best guess physicists have made about why things have mass.

On July 4, Landsberg and his colleagues will reveal the latest results of their search. Anything could happen when Greg Landsberg and, including an announcement that the Higgs has been found or that it has been ruled out, sending theorists back to the whiteboard. Landsberg spoke by Skype with science news officer David Orenstein on June 26 as CERN physicists were preparing for their press conference. (more…)

Scientists Discover Huge Phytoplankton Bloom in Ice Covered Waters

By Guest PostJune 13, 2012Environmentalaska, aleutian islands, alga phaeocystis, arctic algal boom, arctic circle, arctic summer, arctic waters, beaufort seas, bob pickart, chlorophyll, climate change, continental shelf, ecosystem, emily peacock, healy, heidi sosik, ice free waters, icebreaker, icescape program, imaging flowcytobot, kevin arrigo, magnifying lenses, melt water, microscopic marine plants, NASA, optical measurements, phenomenon, photosynthetic, phytoplankton, polar chukchi, pools of water, rob olson, sam laney, sea ice, skylights, stanford university, thalassiosira, us coast guard, whoi

A team of researchers, including scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), discovered a massive bloom of phytoplankton beneath ice-covered Arctic waters. Until now, sea ice was thought to block sunlight and limit the growth of microscopic marine plants living under the ice.

The amount of phytoplankton growing in this under-ice bloom was four times greater than the amount found in neighboring ice-free waters. The bloom extended laterally more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) underneath the ice pack, where ocean and ice physics combined to create a phenomenon that scientists had never seen before. (more…)

Locked RNA Editing Yields Odd Fly Behavior

By Guest PostApril 26, 2012Scienceabiotic factor, als, arthur sugden, asli sahin, brown university, cell, charles lawrence, dadar, enzyme adar, epilepsy, factor, fruit fly, function, genetic, jacquelyn dorsky, james jepson, lauren alpert, locking down, lou gehrigs disease, nucleus, organism, phenomenon, protein, rna, robert reenan, suicidal depression, temperature, wallflowers, yiannis savva

At the level of proteins, organisms can adapt by editing their RNA — and an editor can even edit itself. Brown University scientists working with fruit flies found that “locking down” the self-editing process at two extremes created some strange behaviors. They also found that the process is significantly affected by temperature.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Because a function of RNA is to be translated as the genetic instructions for the protein-making machinery of cells, RNA editing is the body’s way of fine-tuning the proteins it produces, allowing us to adapt. The enzyme ADAR, which does this editing job in the nervous system of creatures ranging from mice to men, even edits itself. In a new study that examined the self-editing process and locked it down at two extremes in fruit flies, Brown University scientists found some surprising insights into how this “fine-tuning of the fine-tuner” happens, including bizarre behavioral effects that come about when the self-editor can’t edit. (more…)

Plant Scientists Find Mechanism That Gives Plants ‘Balance’

By Guest PostApril 23, 2012Sciencearabidopsis, decision, defense mode, disease, gibberellins, growth mechanism, harsh weather, hormone, jasmonates, michigan state university, narrow leafed plant, phenomenon, plant, sheng yang he

EAST LANSING, Mich. — When a plant goes into defense mode in order to protect itself against harsh weather or disease, that’s good for the plant, but bad for the farmer growing the plant. Bad because when a plant acts to defend itself, it turns off its growth mechanism.

But now researchers at Michigan State University, as part of an international collaboration, have figured out how plants can make the “decision” between growth and defense, a finding that could help them strike a balance – keep safe from harm while continuing to grow. (more…)

The Weird World of “Remote Heating”

By Guest PostApril 10, 2012Scienceatom, bounce, carbon nanotube, electric current, electron, john cumings, joule heating, kamal baloch, metal wire, nanoelectronic, nanometer, nanoscale, nature nanotechnology, object, phenomenon, university of maryland

*UMD Researchers Discover Nanoscale Phenomena with Potential for Computer Speed Advances*

College Park, Md.– A team of University of Maryland scientists have discovered that when electric current is run through carbon nanotubes, objects nearby heat up while the nanotubes themselves stay cool, like a toaster that burns bread without getting hot. Understanding this completely unexpected new phenomenon could lead to new ways of building computer processors that can run at higher speeds without overheating.

“This is a new phenomenon we’re observing, exclusively at the nanoscale, and it is completely contrary to our intuition and knowledge of Joule heating at larger scales-for example, in things like your toaster,” says first author Kamal Baloch, who conducted the research while a graduate student at the University of Maryland. “The nanotube’s electrons are bouncing off of something, but not its atoms. Somehow, the atoms of the neighboring materials-the silicon nitride substrate-are vibrating and getting hot instead.” (more…)

Clocking an Accelerating Universe: First Results from BOSS

By Guest PostApril 4, 2012Scienceaccelerate, adam riess, apache point observatory, bao, baryon acoustic oscillation, berkeley lab, beth reid, big bang, brian schmidt, cmb, cosmic microwave background, dan long, dark energy, david schlegel, density peak, einstein, eric huff, euclidean universe, Galaxy, george smoot, gravitational attraction, gravity, high z supernova, hubble, martin white, megaparsecs, Milky Way, new mexico, nobel prize, phenomenon, redshifts, saul perlmutter, scp, sdss, sloan telescope, spectrograph, statistical analysis, universe, zosia rostomian

Berkeley Lab scientists are the leaders of BOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. They and their colleagues in the third Sloan Digital Sky Survey have announced the most precise measurements ever made of the era when dark energy turned on.

Some six billion light years distant, almost halfway from now back to the big bang, the universe was undergoing an elemental change. Held back until then by the mutual gravitational attraction of all the matter it contained, the universe had been expanding ever more slowly. Then, as matter spread out and its density decreased, dark energy took over and expansion began to accelerate.

Today BOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, the largest component of the third Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III), announced the most accurate measurement yet of the distance scale of the universe during the era when dark energy turned on. (more…)

Cellphone Use Linked to Selfish Behavior in UMD Study

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2012Culture, Technologyajay t abraham, anastasiya pocheptsova, basic human need, cellphone user, cellphones, control group, counterpart, devices, Facebook, john consoli, phenomenon, prosocial behavior, rosellina ferraro, social media, Technology, university of maryland

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Though cellphones are usually considered devices that connect people, they may make users less socially minded, finds a recent study from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Marketing professors Anastasiya Pocheptsova and Rosellina Ferraro, with graduate student, Ajay T. Abraham, conducted a series of experiments on test groups of cellphone users. The findings appear in their working paper, The Effect of Mobile Phone Use on Prosocial Behavior. (more…)