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Dark matter, the mysterious stuff thought to make up about 80 percent of matter in the universe, has become even more inscrutable.

(PhysOrg.com) -- We've all heard that no two snowflakes are alike. Caltech professor of physics Kenneth Libbrecht will tell you that this has to do with the ever-changing conditions in the clouds where snow crystals form. Now Libbrecht, widely known as the snowflake guru, has shed some light on a grand puzzle in snowflake science: why the canonical, six-armed "stellar" snowflakes wind up so thin and flat.

By focusing proton beams using high-intensity lasers, a team of scientists have discovered a new way to heat material and create new states of matter in the laboratory.

Life-threatening viruses such as HIV, SARS, hepatitis and influenza, could soon be combatted in an unusual manner as researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of plasma for inactivating and preventing the replication of adenoviruses.

Professor Dr.

Exotic materials called topological insulators, discovered just a few years ago, have yielded some of their secrets to a team of MIT researchers. For the first time, the team showed that light can be used to obtain information about the spin of electrons flowing over the material’s surface, and has even found a way to control these electron movements by varying the polarization of a light source.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Advanced imaging technology from the Brookhaven Labs and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble has revealed an authentic Rembrandt self-portrait in an art authenticity effort involving leading art historians and scientists at the two labs. The hunt for authenticity all began when a private collector showed art historians in Amsterdam a small panel “Old Man with a Beard” from about 1630.

A new advanced imaging scheme—with a resolution ten times better than that of its counterparts to date—can resolve objects as small as atoms1. Previously, the maximum resolution of optical instruments, including cameras and microscopes, was fundamentally limited to a precision that corresponded to approximately half of the wavelength of incoming light.

Researchers working at the Clarendon Laboratory at the University of Oxford in England have managed to get one small diamond to communicate with another small diamond utilizing "quantum entanglement," one of the more mind-blowing features of quantum physics.

Scientists and engineers have proven the worth of quantum cryptography in telecommunication networks by demonstrating its long-term effectiveness in a real-time network.

Probing the quantum mechanics of magnetism is not for the faint of heart. Literally

A ground breaking intelligent digital microscope developed at Massey University looks set to revolutionize climate research.

Our galaxy is a relatively quiet neighbourhood with the supermassive black hole at its heart gently dozing: or is it?

(PhysOrg.com) -- By measuring the motion of a vibrating, porous membrane separating water and air, researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, the NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory, the University of Maryland, and Boston University have revealed a new regime of fluid behavior near solid surfaces that has not been previously observed.

Ever wondered how your martini maintains its crisp and balanced taste, or why a manhattan remains clear if stirred but turns cloudy when shaken?