It has been 100 years since the discovery of superconductivity, a state achieved when mercury was cooled, with the help of liquid helium, to nearly the coldest temperature achievable to form a superfluid that provides no resistance to electrons as they flow through it.
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Feed SubscriptionCatching Balkan War Criminals The Digital Way
An ambitious effort to digitize 300 years of Serbian military records has led to the indictment of more than a dozen war criminals and the discovery of unmarked mass graves.
Read More »Can A Black Stain Lead The Hydrogen Economy?
Just in case the whole electric-car revolution doesn't pan out, vehicle manufactures have been hedging their bets with hydrogen-powered vehicles; just last week, Toyota opened the first hydrogen refueling station connected directly to a hydrogen pipeline. But human production of hydrogen from water is often a dirty process--most hydrogen today is produced from natural gas. Plants, however, split water all the time
Read More »Another Higgs rumor reminds us how science is correctly done
(PhysOrg.com) -- With the Large Hadron Collidor (LHC) running smoothly for well over a year now, the excitement surrounding the possibility for the discovery of new physics has generated a few rumors - speculations that have not been published in peer-reviewed journals. The latest came last week, when an anonymous person posted the abstract of a note on Columbia University mathematician Peter Woits blog that claimed an intriguing observation.
Read More »Early human fossils from South Africa could upend longheld view of human evolution
MINNEAPOLIS--It’s a great irony of paleoanthropology that for all the insights scientists have been able to glean from the fossil record about our early ancestors, the australopithecines (Lucy and her kin), they have precious little to document the origin of our own genus, Homo. They know that Homo descended from one of those australopithecine species, and that over the course of that transition our ancestors evolved from chimp-size creatures with short legs and small brains into tall humans with long legs and large brains, among other hallmark traits
Read More »Prize in the sky: The Templeton Foundation rewards "spiritual progress," but what the heck is that?
Is there such a thing as a spiritual fact? Finding? Discovery?
Read More »NIST debuts online museum of quantum voltage standards
On April 8, 2011, the scientific community will celebrate the centennial of the discovery of superconductivitythe ability of certain materials to conduct electricity without resistance when cooled below a specific temperature.
Read More »Dimension-Cruncher: Exotic Spheres Earn Mathematician John Milnor an Abel Prize
John Milnor, an American mathematician best known for the discovery of exotic hyperspheres, was awarded the 2011 Abel Prize , the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announced March 23. [More]
Read More »In a Scrape: Seafloor Trawling Threatens Deep Ocean Species
Dear EarthTalk : Recent news reports have revealed the discovery of previously unknown species inhabiting the deepest parts of our oceans. Is anything being done to protect this habitat before humans have a chance to fish it to death or otherwise destroy it? --Matthew Polk, Gary, Ind.
Read More »Reflections from Science
Science, it is sometimes claimed, is neutral: it is up to society to decide how to employ research findings.
Read More »Space shuttle Discovery lands in Florida, capping its 39th and final mission
It took space shuttle Discovery several months to get off the ground on its final mission, but the shuttle's landing came off without a hitch. Discovery touched down on schedule, just before noon March 9, putting an end to its 26 years of service, in which the orbiter made 39 trips to space and logged more than 230 million kilometers. [More]
Read More »Earthbound: Potential Suitors Await News on Space Shuttle Discovery ‘s Future Home
After 26 years, 230 million kilometers, and a combined year in orbit, space shuttle Discovery is headed home one last time. The oldest, most utilized shuttle in NASA's fleet is inbound from its final visit to the International Space Station and is scheduled to touch down at Kennedy Space Center in Florida just before noon Eastern Standard Time on March 9. But Kennedy, the traditional home of the shuttle program, may not be the final destination for Discovery this time around
Read More »Virtual Archaeology at Stonehenge [Video]
Theories about Stonehenge have historically tended to regard it as a stand-alone monument. But an increasingly well-supported view holds that Stonehenge was just part of a much larger ceremonial landscape, as this article in the March issue of Scientific American explains
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