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(PhysOrg.com) -- If typical black paint absorbs about 85% of incoming light, then a newly designed metamaterial that absorbs up to 99% of incoming light may be considered “darker than black." By taking advantage of the unique light-scattering properties of metamaterials, researchers have discovered that a hyperbolic metamaterial with a corrugated surface can have a very low reflectance, which could make it promising for high-efficiency solar cells, photodetectors, and radar stealth technology.

Perhaps one of Leonardo da Vinci's greatest paintings has never been reprinted in books of his art. Known as the "Battle of Anghiari," it was abandoned and then lost—until a determined Italian engineer gave the art world hope that it still existed, and a physicist from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory developed a technique that may reveal it to the world once again.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers developing key new technology electronics like quantum computing or advanced detectors, as well as those studying basic material science and metal surface properties, often find their experiments plagued by excess electrical noise arising from the surfaces of metals in their equipment, a kind of distracting surface glitter.

Quantum logic is quite a new and absolutely fascinating field of physics and might – ultimately – lead to the fabrication of a quantum computer. And it could also aid the search for the "theory of everything" – the missing link between traditional physics and quantum physics. One of the fundamental questions hereby is whether fundamental constants possibly vary.

The development of periodic structures in embryos giving rise to the formation of, e.g., spine segments, is controlled not by genes but by simple physical and chemical phenomena.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Neutron stars are what’s left over from supernova explosions; so dense that protons and electrons are crushed together forming neutrons. The result is something relatively small in size, but incredibly dense.

The kick-off meeting for ELENA, the Extra Low Energy Antiproton Ring, starts today at CERN. Approved by CERN Council in June this year, ELENA is scheduled to deliver its first antiprotons in 2016.

New research using graphene presents the most precise measurements of the quantum Hall effect ever made, one of the key steps in the process to redefine two SI units.

(AP) -- Aside from the slogan on the water tower that reads "City of Energy," there is little in this leafy Chicago suburb of gently rolling hills to indicate that it has been the center of the universe when it comes to studying, well - the universe.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Einstein infamously dismissed quantum entanglement as spooky action at a distance and quantum uncertainty with his quip that God does not play dice with the universe. Aside from revealing his conceptual prejudices, Einstein’s rejection of these now-established hallmarks of quantum mechanics point to the field’s elusive nature: Coherent quantum mechanical phenomena, such as entanglement and superposition, are not apparent at macroscopic levels of scale.

Scientists from the University of Vienna's Faculty of Physics in Austria recently gave a theoretical description of teleportation phenomena in sub-atomic scale physical systems, in a publication in the European Physical Journal D.

(PhysOrg.com) -- For years, scientists have dealt with the problem of trying to increase the efficiency and drive down the cost of solar cells. Now researchers have hit upon a new idea—trying to give the light collected by solar cells a bit of 'amnesia.'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Rogue waves, once considered nothing more than a sailor’s myth, are more predictable than ever thanks to new research from the oceanography team at Swinburne University of Technology.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists at the King's College London have discovered a means of making glass more transparent - by coating it in a thin layer of gold.

Tohoku University, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) announced on August 22, 2011 that Kenichi Uchida, a PhD student, and Professor Eiji Saitoh of Tohoku University and their colleagues have succeeded in injecting spin current into a magnetic material by acoustic wave spin pumping.