Physical Sciences

Research performed by a team at Florida State University’s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory suggests that the benefits of building higher-field superconducting magnets likely will far outweigh the costs of building them. FSU researchers Riqiang Fu, Ozge Gunaydin-Sen and Naresh Dalal discovered something they weren’t expecting while trying to improve the resolution, or quality of image, in the magnet lab’s unique 900-megahertz, 21.1-tesla magnet. While experimenting with the giant magnet, the three noted an exponential increase in the ease of detecting the “fingerprint” of the chemical…

Sandia’s huge Z machine, which generates termperatures hottter than the sun, has turned water to ice in nanoseconds. However, don’t expect anything commercial just yet: the ice is hotter than the boiling point of water. "The three phases of water as we know them — cold ice, room temperature liquid, and hot vapor — are actually only a small part of water’s repertory of states," says Sandia researcher Daniel Dolan. "Compressing water customarily heats it. But under extreme compression, it is easier for dense water to enter its solid phase [ice] than maintain the more energetic liquid phase […

Genetic tests using blood samples already are used to diagnose some diseases and even personalize treatment. Now it is possible to develop similar tests that reveal a person's potential to become dependent on nicotine or marijuana or have antisocial personality disorder, University of Iowa researchers report online March 6 in the American Journal of Medical Genetics. Such tests would not dictate who would become substance dependent or have behavioral problems, as genes do not function in isolation but are influenced by other genes and environmental factors, said the study's lead author…

Last week, I arrived in Toronto during a snow storm and the limousine which was supposed to pick me up was late. When it finally arrived, it turned out there was another person waiting for the same company. Since he was already growing icicles on his nose, the driver took pity on him and I ended up sharing the backseat with a stranger called Chris. My friends know that my smalltalk abilities aren't worth mentioning, but over the years I've learned to cope with what Joerg calls 'aggressive friendliness'. It's quite easy actually. If you want somebody to stop talking, talk yourself. So,…

Although the human brain is skilled at facial recognition and discrimination, new research from Georgetown University Medical Center suggests that the brain may not have developed a specific ability for “understanding faces” but instead uses the same kind of pattern recognition techniques to distinguish between people as it uses to search for differences between other groups of objects, such as plants, animals and cars. The study, published in the April 6 edition of the journal Neuron, adds new evidence to the debate over how the brain understands and interprets faces, an area of neuroscience…