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(PhysOrg.com) -- To learn more about how the sun works, scientists study particles that are emitted from it into space due to thermonuclear reactions that occur inside; by applying known physics principles, they can then deduce which sort of nuclear reactions are taking place. As one example, researchers have been able to identify high energy proton to proton interactions that are described as pp neutrinos by detecting them when they reach Earth.

It's a question that arises with virtually every major new finding in science or medicine: What makes a result reliable enough to be taken seriously? The answer has to do with statistical significance -- but also with judgments about what standards make sense in a given situation.

At the high-brilliance synchrotron light source PETRA III, a team of DESY scientists headed by Dr. Ralf R

A team of University of California, San Diego researchers has built the smallest room-temperature nanolaser to date, as well as an even more startling device: a highly efficient, "thresholdless" laser that funnels all its photons into lasing, without any waste.

By harnessing quantum dots—tiny light-emitting semiconductor particles a few billionths of a meter across—researchers at the University of Washington (UW) have developed a new and vastly more targeted way to stimulate neurons in the brain. Being able to switch neurons on and off and monitor how they communicate with one another is crucial for understanding—and, ultimately, treating—a host of brain disorders, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, and even psychiatric disorders such as severe depression. The research was published today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The superconducting cables designed for the ITER fusion reactor (cost: 16 billion euros = $21.2 billion) are unable to withstand the planned forty to sixty thousand charge cycles. Barring a solution, the troubled mega-experiment will suffer still more delays and cost overruns.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland has found an iron-based superconductor that operates at the highest known temperature for a material in its class. The discovery inches iron-based superconductors—valued for their ease of manufacturability and other properties—closer to being useful in many practical applications.

(PhysOrg.com) -- MIT researcher Scott Aaronson has certainly riled the physics community with his offer this past Friday, of $100,000 to anyone who can prove that scaled-up quantum computing is impossible. His original reason for doing so was, as he describes in his blog, due to adding his two cents to an argument between skeptic Gil Kalai and researcher Aram Harrow about assumptions regarding the Quantum Fault-Tolerance Theorem, on another blog, where he argued that refuting the idea of scalable quantum computing would amount to more than just taking apart the QFT Theorem; it would he suggested, mean coming up with a new version of physical reality.

Back in December 2011, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN presented some exciting results that provided tantalising hints of the Higgs boson.

An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology.

It’s the size of five football pitches and generates light 10 billion times brighter than the sun. As the Diamond Light Source celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, Penny Bailey visits one of the UK’s biggest scientific investments to see how it works.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists at MPQ (Max Planck Institute) succeed in resolving the internal dynamics of individual molecules using UV femtosecond laser pulses.

For climatologists and environmental policy makers who need to determine the flux of greenhouse gases (GHG), there are three paramount questions: Where is it, how much is there, and how is it moving? A new measurement approach is being developed and tested by a PML research team and NIST colleagues that may provide answers of unprecedented accuracy to all three.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Collective, or coordinated behavior is routine in liquids, where waves can occur as atoms act together. In a milliliter (mL) of liquid water, 1022 molecules bob around, colliding

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists have demonstrated a system in which light is used to control the motion of an object that is large enough to be seen with the naked eye at the level where quantum mechanics governs its behavior.