WASHINGTON, D.C., November 5, 2014 -- The following articles are freely available online from Physics Today, the most influential and closely followed magazine in the world devoted to physics and the physical science community.
You are invited to read, share, blog about, link to or otherwise enjoy:
1) MAKING THE MOON
David Stevenson, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, examines the theory that our moon may have been formed in a dramatic collision.
"Like implementing fusion on Earth, an explanation for the origin of the Moon always seems to be a decade away. A standard idea…a giant impact on Earth by a body roughly the mass of Mars…is compelling, but getting that story to explain all that we see has proven elusive."
MORE: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.2583
2) FUNDING DRIES UP FOR INNOVATIVE CANCER RESEARCH
Physics Today's David Kramer reports on innovative but funding-threatened physical sciences–oncology centers (PS–OC), a dozen of which were created in an initiative by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 2009.
"Their express purpose was to team physical scientists with biologists and oncologists to seek a new understanding of cancer development that could lead to improved treatments and diagnostics. Located at universities and other institutions around the U.S., the PS–OCs were supported by the NCI for five years; that funding ran out on 1 September."
MORE: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.2578
3) RESEARCHERS GLIMPSE ELUSIVE SOLAR NEUTRINOS
Physics Today's Ashley Smart recaps and explores an Italian lab's work to detect the lowest-energy solar neutrinos, a new window into the sun's core.
" From [the neutrinos'] flux and energy, one can deduce rates of reactions occurring in the core . ... The measurements fill in one of the last and by far biggest pieces of the solar-neutrino puzzle."
MORE: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.2569
4) IMAGING EARTH DAILY TO HELP HUMANITY
Physics Today's Toni Feder reports on Planet Labs, a startup company with the goal of imaging the entire planet every day in order to monitor global trends like deforestation and wildfires.
"As of mid- September, the company had launched 71 satellites, 24 of which were sending home images of Earth; another 28 were due to launch in late October. The plan is to have 100 to 150 satellites in orbit at any given time."
MORE: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.2580
5) CRACKING MUD, FREEZING DIRT, AND BREAKING ROCKS
Lucas Goehring of the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Structural Organization in Germany and Stephen Morris of the University of Toronto team up to discuss the physics of cracking patterns found in nature.
"Ordered crack patterns are so common in nature that they are often overlooked. From tile-like formations in ordinary mud, to the vast polygonal networks that stretch across the polar deserts of Earth and Mars, they are typical features in geomorphology…. In this article we discuss some modern insights into crack patterns in geomorphology, including their formation and dynamics, the role of energy, and the mechanisms of scale and pattern selection."
MORE: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.2584
6) SQUEEZING QUANTUM NOISE
Sheila Dwyer, a postdoctoral research fellow at the LIGO Hanford Observatory in Richland, Washington, explains how to improve the precision of tricky quantum-level measurements.
"Squeezed states were first considered almost a century ago as theoretical constructs illustrating one of the difficult nonclassical concepts of quantum mechanics: the uncertainty principle. Once scientists created those states in the lab, they used them to test fundamental ideas of quantum mechanics. Now squeezed states are becoming a tool to improve precision measurements, to search for signals from distant astrophysical events, and to demonstrate quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography."
MORE: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.2596
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