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Some baseball superstitions are accepted as cold, hard truth. But in the world of physics, the most accepted verities are subject to experimentation.

Physicists working at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Konstanz in Germany have developed a breakthrough in the use of diamond in quantum physics, marking an important step toward quantum computing. The results are reported in this week's online edition of Nature Physics.

The German Federal Ministry of Health has awarded more than one million euros in research and development funding for the efficient production of an important cancer diagnostic agent at the research neutron source FRM II. In a 2009 feasibility study, the Technische Universitaet Muenchen demonstrated that due to the high neutron flux the neutron source in Garching can produce about half of the European demand of the radioisotope molybdenum-99.

(PhysOrg.com) -- When a meteor impacts a planet or a moon, it always stops at a relatively shallow depth, even when impacting at high speeds.

Every Friday afternoon for several years in the 1970s, a group of underemployed quantum physicists met at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, in Northern California, to talk about a subject so peculiar it was rarely discussed in mainstream science: entanglement. Did subatomic particles influence each other from a distance? What were the implications?

In a paper published in Nature Photonics, U of T Engineering researchers report a new solar cell that may pave the way to inexpensive coatings that efficiently convert the sun's rays to electricity.

Professor Jeremy O'Brien, Director of the University of Bristol's Centre for Quantum Photonics, and his Japanese colleagues have demonstrated a quantum logic gate acting on four particles of light -- photons. The researchers believe their device could provide important routes to new quantum technologies, including secure communication, precision measurement, and ultimately a quantum computer -- a powerful type of computer that uses quantum bits (qubits) rather than the conventional bits used in today's computers.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Although human vision is capable of perceiving objects in three dimensions (3D), we spend much of our day looking at two-dimensional screens. The latest televisions and monitors can trick us into perceiving depth, by presenting different images to our left and right eyes, but they require special-purpose glasses, or specialized large-area lenses applied directly to the screen.

Astronomers’ research on celestial bodies may have an impact on the human body. Ohio State University astronomers are working with medical physicists and radiation oncologists to develop a potential new radiation treatment – one that is intended to be tougher on tumors, but gentler on healthy tissue.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The eye of the peacock mantis shrimp has led an international team of researchers to develop a two-part waveplate that could improve CD, DVD, blu-ray and holographic technology, creating even higher definition and larger storage density.

Controlling a boiling plasma at several million degrees Celsius – that's the challenge of nuclear fusion, our great energy hope for the future. EPFL's Plasma Physics Research Center (CRPP) has just published two scientific articles that advance the state of knowledge in the domain.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The rule that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, c, is one of the most fundamental laws of nature. But since this speed limit has only been experimentally demonstrated for information carried by large groups of photons, physicists have recently speculated as to whether single photons and the information carried by them may be able to exceed the speed of light. In a new study, physicists have performed the difficult task of producing single photons with controllable waveforms, and have shown that single photons also obey the speed limit c.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The simplest, most sensible "Big Bang" universe, theoretical physicists believe, would be one in which equal numbers of particles and antiparticles are formed in pairs. As the universe cools, most of these particles would encounter their antiparticles, and they would annihilate.

Researchers used the SEQUOIA inelastic spectrometer at the Spallation Neutron Source to map the dynamics of hydrogen atoms in a natural crystal of muscovite.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The often counterintuitive quantum world of superposition, entanglement, and tunneling can greatly enhance applications as diverse as communication, information processing, and precision measurement. At the same time, photons have the equally attractive properties of low noise, light speed transmission, and ease of manipulation using conventional optics. However, due to the probabilistic nature of single photons, the two have never been integrated into a single system – until now.