Tractor beams get real

WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- Tractor beams, energy rays that can move objects, are a science fiction mainstay. But now they are becoming a reality -- at least for moving very tiny objects.Researchers from the Australian National University have announced that they have built a device that can move small particles a meter and a half using only the power of light.Physicists have been able to manipulate tiny particles over miniscule distances by using lasers for years. Optical tweezers that can move partic.. Read more »

How not to: The Fire Tornado

You should absolutely, under no circumstances, attempt to recreate the following; but if you were to, here's what you would need and what it would look like.In the last two weeks, both water and fire tornadoes have been widely covered by the media. First there was the dramatic shots from Japan of a so-called "waterspout," then there was the unbelievable footage of this fire tornado in Brazil, followed immediately by this one from Hawaii. And as any good physicists would have, we immediately thou.. Read more »

Taking The Temperature Of A Dinosaur

Rare isotopes preserved in fossil teeth could serve as an ancient thermometer.Tyrannosaurus rex is often portrayed as a cold-blooded killer, but whether the Cretaceous-era dinosaur actually had a slow, reptilian-like metabolism or a faster, more bird-like metabolism is still a mystery.Now a new technique using rare isotopes preserved in tooth enamel is proving to be a reliable way of determining body temperatures of recently extinct animals like woolly mammoths and researchers are hoping the met.. Read more »

Fermilab to continue hunt for the Higgs

Yesterday an advisory panel at Fermilab doubled down on the center's Tevatron once again, giving the aging accelerator one last push to find the elusive Higgs Boson in the race with CERN. The panel is recommending that the instrument receive continued funding of $150-million, extending its operations through 2014. The Tevatron is currently scheduled to end operations after 2011.The information came on the heels of protests at CERN last week over the half-billion dollar budget cut imposed on that.. Read more »

An experiment to test string theory?

Michael Duff, a professor at the Imperial College in London, was at a conference in Tasmania watching a colleague give a talk on quantum entanglement when he realized the equations being presented looked rather similar to a set of equations he had created to describe string theory inside black holes. When he returned to London, he checked the formulas against each other and discovered that not only were they similar, but the equations were in fact the same.It's now thought that Duff's discovery .. Read more »

Beauty in art and physics

When a physicist talks about beauty in science, it's usually in an abstract way. Astronomers have Hubble, biologists have flowers and rainforests, and geologists have the Grand Canyon. But what does the public think of physicists? We're all bombs and particle accelerators in many people's eyes. Here's a clear example of why that's not true. Kai-hung Fung, a diagnostic radiologist at a hospital in Hong Kong, used a little art and a 3D Computed Tomography (CT) scan to create this image. It's calle.. Read more »

Free: One never used laser interferometer (building not included)

For decades Australian physicists have lusted after a gravitational wave detector, but despite their lobbying, the Southern Hemisphere still has no such instrument. According to Science Magazine's News of the Week, American's at our own Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) have concocted a scheme that could change that.The U.S. currently has two detectors, the Livingston Observatory in Louisiana and the Hanford Observatory in Washington State. Because gravitational waves - .. Read more »