Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Boreal forests across the Northern hemisphere are undergoing rapid, transformative shifts as a result of a warming climate that, in some cases, is triggering feedback loops producing even more regional warming, according to several new studies. Russia's boreal forest - the largest continuous expanse of forest in the world - has seen a transformation in recent years from larch to conifer trees, according to new research by University of Virginia researchers. [More]

If you're ever at a loss for conversation amid a group of information-graphics professionals, bring up the topic of pie charts or proportional circles.

As fiber optic technology continues to advance, it faces challenges from both its physical properties and its use of infrastructure. One emerging high-speed solution being developed at Stevens Institute of Technology uses lasers to transmit data through readily available open space, with the potential of expanding past the limitation of fibers into a system known as optical free space communications

Airplane manufacturers have been changing over from aluminum to advanced composite materials. These lighter, stronger composites are made of fibers of carbon or glass embedded in a second material, often plastic

Optical chips are the latest innovation in silicon technology with the potential to revolutionize telecommunications. Their operation relies on several key components, including light-emitting devices, waveguides and photodetectors.

There may be no scientist more obscure relative to his immense accomplishments than Claude Elwood Shannon, who died just over a decade ago, on February 24, 2001, at the age of 84. Shannon was not only the creator of information theory, which provides the mathematical framework that makes digital communications possible (and which I discussed in a recent post )

Shortly after experiments on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland began yielding scientific data last fall, a group of scientists led by a Syracuse University physicist became the first to observe the decays of a rare particle that was present right after the Big Bang. By studying this particle, scientists hope to solve the mystery of why the universe evolved with more matter than antimatter.

Students, parents, teachers : the Google Science Fair ’s deadline is April 4. Scientific American is a media partner, and I am a judge.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Although the uncertainty principle is probably the most well-known example of a fundamental limitation of measurement precision in quantum mechanics, it is not the only one. In fact, every physical system is characterized by a number of variables that do not change their values as the system evolves over time; such variables are called conserved quantities and they are said to obey a conservation law. The fact that some quantities cannot change their values suggests that there might be restrictions on the possible ways in which a measurement device can interact with a quantum object and extract information from it.

Last week, Nature issued a new paper .

If two men began a boisterous tug-of-war over the wine list at a posh restaurant, more than a few heads would turn. Yet two six-year-old kids quarreling over a pack of crayons at a diner would hardly seem unusual. It is normal for kindergartners to act out and for grown-ups to show restraint

Accent matters more than looks when it comes to identifying a person’s ethnicity, according to a study published in the November Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . [More]

Across the East China Sea, west of Japan and its ongoing crisis, sits the growing Qinshan nuclear power plant , where four new pressurized-water reactors are under construction in addition to the five already operating on-site.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Since 1996, when biophysicist Luca Turin first suggested that quantum mechanics may help explain how we smell various odors, the idea has met with controversy.

What could be cooler for an aspiring scientist or engineer than a hands-on project working with and learning about electronics and optics? How about one where each student ends up with his or her own digital camera. [More]