Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists studying the rotation of the Earth have long known that our planet doesn't have a perfect spin. Most believe this is due to the different types of materials that make up the core, mantle and crust, which all have different rates of spin causing inherent friction

As you know from my last post , I am staunch proponent of open access to scientific information, especially the variety that I paid for by virtue of taxation . The Research Works Act ( HR3699 ) being proposed now will lock away taxpayer funded research from the hands of those whose hard-earned wages funded the research. It’s really a no-brainer and the NIH compromise was generous, allowing publishers to make a profit from research works for a whole year, during the crucial access time for new articles

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have known for quite some time that when light strikes objects, electrons are excited causing a tiny bit of oscillation to occur that results in the creation of an electric field. They also know that the amount of oscillation differs between different types of materials; electrons in metals such as gold and silver, for example, tend to oscillate more than do electrons in other materials.

Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day. Nokia Eyes U.S. With Lumia Windows Phone .

SAN FRANCISCO The public at times questions scientific results produced by government agencies, thinking that the findings may be meant to support particular political policies or positions or to deflect criticism of those policies. Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a formal scientific integrity policy yesterday that is intended to combat that cynicism

(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

Nearly one metric ton of hardware will land on Mars in about nine months' time, uncurl its limbs, and start rolling around in the name of science. Designing something like Curiosity isn't easy. Around August 6, 2012, a spacecraft will reach Mars' surface after a nine-month journey from Earth

In case you missed the news, a team of physicists reported in September that the tiny subatomic particles known as neutrinos could violate the cosmic speed limit set by Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The researchers, working on an experiment called OPERA, beamed neutrinos through the earth’s crust, from CERN, the laboratory for particle physics near Geneva, to Gran Sasso National Laboratory in L’Aquila, Italy, an underground physics lab. According to the scientists’ estimates, the neutrinos arrived at their destination around 60 nanoseconds quicker than the speed of light

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at Chalmers University of Technology have succeeded in creating light from vacuum – observing an effect first predicted over 40 years ago. The results will be published tomorrow (Wednesday) in the journal Nature. In an innovative experiment, the scientists have managed to capture some of the photons that are constantly appearing and disappearing in the vacuum.

CERN today kicked off the High Luminosity LHC study with a workshop bringing together scientists and engineers from some 14 European institutions, supported through the European Commission’s seventh Framework programme (FP7), along with others from Japan and the USA. The goal is to prepare the ground for an LHC luminosity upgrade scheduled for around 2020.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have demonstrated that a superconducting detector called a transition edge sensor (TES) is capable of counting the number of as many as 1,000 photons in a single pulse of light with an accuracy limited mainly by the quantum noise of the laser source.

It can take a bit more than a 30-second elevator pitch to understand Kaggle , a new Silicon Valley startup founded by 28-year-old Australian Anthony Goldbloom. After all, it's not selling anything, creating another social network, or peddling yet another useless app

(PhysOrg.com) -- Double-core-hole (DCH) states – in which two electrons are ejected from their positions, creating vacancies – occurring at different atomic sites are very sensitive to the chemical environment of the two holes.

Rick Perry's administration has forced a report on the effects of climate change on Texas to remove all references to, well, climate change. But that doesn't change what's happening to the state's climate. Scientists associated with a major study of environmental changes in the low-lying coastal region around Galveston, Texas, have withdrawn their names from the final report after high-level officials appointed by Governor Rick Perry removed references to sea level rise and climate change from the document.

By Ewen Callaway of Nature magazine Procedures that involve human embryonic stem cells cannot be patented, the European Court of Justice declared today. Oliver Br