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A clock accurate to within a tenth of a second over 14 billion years – the age of the universe – is the goal of research being reported this week by scientists from three different institutions. To be published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the research provides the blueprint for a nuclear clock that would get its extreme accuracy from the nucleus of a single thorium ion.

The world's strongest neutron beam is produced by a scientific instrument at the research neutron source FRM II (Forschungs-Neutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz) at the Technischen Universitaet Muenchen (TUM). But that is not all: During the long maintenance break in 2011, the instrument PGAA (Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis) was improved to give it the best ratio between usable neutrons and noisy background radiation worldwide.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Custom modifications of equipment are an honored tradition of the research lab. In a recent paper, two materials scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology describe how a relatively simple mod of a standard scanning electron microscope (SEM) enables a roughly 10-fold improvement in its ability to measure the crystal structure of nanoparticles and extremely thin films. By altering the sample position, they are able to determine crystal structure of particles as small as 10 nanometers.

If you want to get your mind around the research that won three astronomers the Nobel Prize in physics last week, it helps to think of the universe as a lump of dough - raisin-bread dough, to be precise - mixed, kneaded and ready to rise. Hold that thought.

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A young Emperor penguin that captured global attention when it washed up on a New Zealand beach after straying thousands of kilometers from home will be head back to the subantarctic aboard a research vessel and in a specially designed cage. The Wellington Zoo, where the bird -- nicknamed "Happy Feet" by locals -- has been living since June, said on Wednesday the penguin would be on the research vessel Tangaroa when it leaves on August 29 for a fisheries survey.

Hundreds of physicists from around the world are making plans to shoot the world's most intense beam of neutrinos from Illinois, underground through Iowa, all the way to a former gold mine in South Dakota. And Iowa State University's Mayly Sanchez is part of the research team.

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.

A new way of understanding the structure of proteins, polymers, minerals, and engineered materials will be published in the May 2011 issue of the journal Nature Materials. The discovery by two Penn State University researchers is a new type of symmetry in the structure of materials, which the researchers say greatly expands the possibilities for discovering or designing materials with desired properties. The research is expected to have broad relevance in many development efforts involving physical, chemical, biological, or engineering disciplines including, for example, the search for advanced ferroelectric ferromagnet materials for next-generation ultrasound devices and computers

The Tata Group continues its ever-expanding quest to bring resources to low-income citizens of the world, this time with an announcement that it has joined up with MIT scientist Daniel Nocera, founder of SunCatalytix , to create power from water. Specific terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) in Innsbruck, Austria, have reached a milestone in the exploration of quantum gas mixtures. In an international first, the research group led by Rudolf Grimm and Florian Schreck has succeeded in producing controlled strong interactions between two fermionic elements - lithium-6 and potassium-40.