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(Phys.org) -- With simple arguments, researchers show that nature is complicated. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have made a simple experiment that demonstrates that nature violates common sense – the world is different than most people believe. The experiment illustrates that light does not behave according to the principles of classical physics, but that light has quantum mechanical properties.

How to Explain Climate Change to a Skeptic Rick Santorum has recently described climate change as a hoax a bunch of bogus science that tries to make nature s normal boom and bust cycle into something man-made. His comments illustrate how, despite the fact that the scientific community accepts climate change as truth, and despite the fact that the science is gaining greater acceptance among the general public, you may still run into people that just don t believe the theory of climate change. In my experience working for oil companies and environmental organizations alike, I have heard pretty much every argument for and against climate change

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have combined two worlds – quantum physics and nano physics, and this has led to the discovery of a new method for laser cooling semiconductor membranes. Semiconductors are vital components in solar cells, LEDs and many other electronics, and the efficient cooling of components is important for future quantum computers and ultrasensitive sensors. The new cooling method works quite paradoxically by heating the material

The tiny hairs on the abdomen of a cricket have inspired researchers at the University of Twente, to make a new type of sensor which is ultra sensitive to air flows. These synthetic cricket hairs can now also be tuned very precisely for a certain range of frequencies: the hairs are 10 times more sensitive in this range

Dutch researchers at the University of Twente's MESA+ research institute, together with ASML, TNO (the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research) and TU/e (Eindhoven University of Technology) have developed a method for etching 3D structures in silicon.

An article in the November issue of Scientific American investigates the scientific truths about fracturing deep shales to harvest natural gas. But the story continues to develop in the news, so we've created this Storify file to track ongoing developments. Come back each week for the latest

The Advances section of Scientific American 's October issue includes coverage of preschoolers' innate sense of the scientific method, a report suggesting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is failing to do enough to regulate contaminants in tap water, recently re-discovered texts by Archimedes, and more. For those interested in learning more about the developments described in this section, a list of selected further reading follows.

Metrologists are measurement artists who are very precise – in the case of the Boltzmann constant up to the sixth decimal place. Whoever is able to determine it very exactly will cause a small revolution in the field of worldwide temperature measurement: The temperature unit will then no longer be based - as hitherto - on a chemico-physical material property, i.e. the triple point of water, but on an unchangeable fundamental constant.

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have measured the lifetime of an extremely stable energy level of magnesium atoms with great precision. Magnesium atoms are used in research with ultra-precise atomic clocks. The new measurements show a lifetime of 2050 seconds, which corresponds to approximately

Jon Huntsman posted a statement on his official Twitter account yesterday that is sure to endear the Republican presidential hopeful to the scientific community: The statement was retweeted widely, along with a few warnings that many people would, indeed, call Huntsman crazy for holding those beliefs. [More]

Quantum communication could be an option for the absolutely secure transfer of data. The key component in quantum communication over long distances is the special phenomenon called entanglement between two atomic systems. Entanglement between two atomic systems is very fragile and up until now researchers have only been able to maintain the entanglement for a fraction of a second.

The deadly mob violence that wracked England this past week has abated, as police came out in force and used surveillance images to track down and arrest some 1,900 alleged rioters. As London and other cities in the nation recover, officials and the public may be left wondering how to prevent such rioting in the first place. A key misunderstanding, however, seems to pervade popular thinking: that mobs are irrational and are driven to violence by a few bad apples

By Yereth Rosen ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A wildfire that burned over 400 square miles of Alaska tundra in the scorching summer of 2007 poured as much carbon into the atmosphere as the entire Arctic normally absorbs each year, according to a new study in the scientific journal Nature. [More]

Nobel laureates, like all scientists, have published their findings in peer-reviewed journals. Their initial results, theories and thoughts in these publications have been preserved in the digital archives of the scientific literature, as if they have been frozen in time. [More]

Six months ago a paper appeared on the Science Express pre-publication site of the prestigious journal Science . It came from a group of NASA-funded researchers, accompanied by the full NASA publicity hoopla, but it was harshly criticized by other researchers, with almost all agreeing that it was so seriously flawed that it should never have been published