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(PhysOrg.com) -- When scientists discovered in 1998 that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, the possibility that dark energy could explain the observation was intriguing. But because there has been little progress in figuring out exactly what dark energy is, the idea has since become more of a problem than a solution for some scientists. One physicist, Massimo Villata of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Pino Torinese, Italy, describes dark energy as “embarrassing,” saying that the concept is an ad hoc element to standard cosmology and is devoid of any physical meaning.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The problem exists on both a large and a small scale, and it even bothered the ancient Egyptians. However, although physicists have long had a good understanding of friction in things like stone blocks being pulled by workers into the shape of a pyramid, they have only now been able to explain friction in microscopic dimensions in any degree of detail.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) have for the first time engineered and detected the presence of high angular momentum collisions between atoms at temperatures close to absolute zero. Previous experiments with ultracold atoms featured essentially head-on collisions. The JQI experiment, by contrast, is able to create more complicated collisions between atoms using only lasers

Physicists from the University of Stuttgart show the first experimental proof of a molecule consisting of two identical atoms that exhibits a permanent electric dipole moment.

Plasma etching (using an ionized gas to carve tiny components on silicon wafers) has long enabled the perpetuation of Moore's Law -- the observation that the number of transistors that can be squeezed into an integrated circuit doubles about every two years. Without the compensating capabilities of plasma etching, Moore's Law would have faltered around 1980 with transistor sizes at about 1 micron (the diameter of a human hair is approximately 40-50 microns wide). Today, etch compensation helps create devices that are smaller than 20 nanometers (1,000 times smaller than a micron).

...as former Campbell's Soup Company CEO Doug Conant brought the brand back by encouraging every possibility. It was 2001 when Doug Conant became CEO of the Campbell Soup Company—he was just the eleventh man to hold the title in the company's 132-year history.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists of the CDF collaboration at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced the observation of a new particle, the neutral Xi-sub-b (Ξb0). This particle contains three quarks: a strange quark, an up quark and a bottom quark (s-u-b). While its existence was predicted by the Standard Model, the observation of the neutral Xi-sub-b is significant because it strengthens our understanding of how quarks form matter

(PhysOrg.com) -- By precisely shaking a container of shallow water, researchers have observed wave behavior that has never been seen before. In a new study, Jean Rajchenbach, Alphonse Leroux, and Didier Clamond of the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis in Nice, France, have reported the observation of two new types of standing waves in water, one of which has never been observed before in any media.

(PhysOrg.com) -- In April, scientists at one of Fermilab’s two particle detectors, CDF, observed what they thought might be a new particle not predicted by the Standard Model. But now, scientists at the lab’s second detector, DZero, have cross-checked the observation with their own independent data and analysis tools, and have found no evidence of a new particle. Instead, the DZero data are in agreement with predictions from the Standard Model.

The FCC's "The Information Needs of Communities" report is out , examining the state of news sharing across the U.S., and boy, it's a doozy.

Quantum mechanics is the most successful description of nature known to humans, yet it has many bizarre implications for our understanding of the world. There are phenomena of superposition (objects being in two places at the same time), entanglement (correlations that exceed any classical correlations) and nonlocality (apparent ability for information to travel instantaneously across vast distances)

(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1998, scientists discovered that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Currently, the most widely accepted explanation for this observation is the presence of an unidentified dark energy, although several other possibilities have been proposed. One of these alternatives is that some kind of repulsive gravity – or antigravity – is pushing the Universe apart