Honey, I shrunk the proton

New ScientistJon Cartwright

Published in New Scientist, 22 Jul 2013

Curious goings-on at the heart of the atom may be pointing to a new force of nature

20130720_800ONE quadrillionth of an inch. If you lost that off your waistline, you wouldn’t expect a fuss. Then again, you are not a proton.

Until recently, it was unthinkable to question the size of the proton. Its radius is so well known that it appears on lists of nature’s fundamental constants, alongside the speed of light and the charge of an electron. So when Randolf Pohl and his colleagues set out to make the most accurate measurement of the proton yet, they expected to just put a few more decimal places on the end of the official value. Instead this group of more than 30 researchers has shaken the world of atomic physics. Their new measurement wasn’t just more accurate, it was decidedly lower. The proton had apparently been on a diet.

Freak results do turn up from time to time in physics. Witness the furore in 2011 over the neutrinos that appeared to travel faster than light and whose unbelievable powers were traced months later to a dodgy cable connection. Yet the proton puzzle first came to light in 2009, and several experiments later we are running out of ways to explain how the particle can have seemingly shrunk. No experimental flaws have been found. The theory has been checked and rechecked. Physicists are now facing the possibility that a new phenomenon is at work. Has a big problem with a tiny particle revealed a brand new force of nature?

“As Sherlock Holmes would put it, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’,” says Itay Yavin, a particle physicist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. “That is new physics.” […]

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Cosmologist claims Universe may not be expanding

NatureJon Cartwright

Published in Nature, 16 Jul 2013

It started with a bang, and has been expanding ever since. For nearly a century, this has been the standard view of the Universe. Now one cosmologist is proposing a radically different interpretation of events — in which the Universe is not expanding at all.

In a paper posted on the arXiv preprint server, Christof Wetterich, a theoretical physicist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, has devised a different cosmology in which the universe is not expanding but the mass of everything has been increasing. Such an interpretation could help physicists to understand problematic issues such as the so-called singularity present at the Big Bang, he says. […]

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City dwellers produce more carbon dioxide

Energy & EnvironmentJon Cartwright

Published in ERW, 3 Jul 2013

People living in cities produce more greenhouse-gas emissions than those living in the countryside, a Finnish study has found. The study blames urban habits of “parallel consumption”, in which people duplicate activities they could do in their home elsewhere in a city.

In recent years, various studies have suggested that city dwellers ought to produce fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than those living in the countryside. It was thought that the higher density of living typical of urban environments would promote a more efficient use of energy, as people travel less and live in more confined spaces. […]

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An electrical misunderstanding

Physics WorldJon Cartwright

Published in Physics World, 1 Jul 2013

Cancer cells aren’t bad, they’re just not being treated right – or at least, that is what one US group’s research seems to suggest. Jon Cartwright reports on their findings

Few diseases instil more fear than cancer. More than any other illness, the rhetoric surrounding the diagnosis and treatment of cancer conjures images of an innate “badness” invading the body. The feeling is not just a popular impression but one that is reinforced through cancer therapy, which – be it radiotherapy, chemotherapy or surgery – is generally aimed at eradicating “malignant” cells.

But what if cancer isn’t some case of “cells gone bad”, some genetic defect? To put it another way, what if tumour cells can be made to act normally, given the right motivation? That is the question being asked by a group of researchers in the US, who have found that simply regulating the voltage of tumorous cells could be enough to stop them spreading out of control. Their work is in its very early stages, but already it is being viewed as a possible new way of detecting and treating cancer. […]

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Brazil exports more carbon emissions

Energy & EnvironmentJon Cartwright

Published in ERW, 28 Jun 2013

The international community is driving the deforestation of Brazilian forest at an increasing rate, a Norwegian study has found. The study reveals that the last decade saw 30% of the carbon emissions associated with Brazilian deforestation exported to consumers outside the country, up from 20% in the 1990s.

Deforestation is one of the strongest causes of the rise in global carbon emissions. The loss of forest, which occurs most in the tropics, releases carbon stored in biomass and soil into the atmosphere. Between 1970 and 2010 almost one-fifth of the Brazilian Amazon was deforested, mostly to make way for cultivation and pasture. […]

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Will nanorods be the next big male contraceptive idea?

Chemistry WorldJon Cartwright

Published in Chemistry World, 5 Jun 2013

Researchers in China have discovered a new method of male contraception: a quick injection of gold nanorods into the testes, followed by a 10 minute dose of infrared light. The procedure has only been demonstrated in mice, but the researchers believe it could be used for dogs and cats – and even humans.

Pet contraception is considered an important topic, given the four million unwanted dogs and cats that are thought to be put down every year in the US alone. Many vets routinely sterilise pets, but since surgery requires time and expertise scientists have been looking for cheaper, simpler alternatives. […]

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3D printer churns out bionic ear

Chemistry WorldJon Cartwright

Published in Chemistry World, 17 May 2013

Engineers in the US have created a bionic ear that can be manufactured using a 3D printer. The device is the first to use 3D printing to interweave electronics and biological tissue, the researchers claim, and will pave the way for other bionic implants.

Although bionic organs, and cybernetics in general, have become a hot research topic in recent years, devices are still primitive. Scientists can implant electronics into or on top of tissue to help patients restore some loss of function, but entire synthetic organs are difficult to manufacture. One method is to seed cells onto a gel scaffold, and culture them until they form a tissue in the scaffold’s shape. But such tissues are rarely as structurally complex as the real thing. […]

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Higgs hunters look beyond the Standard Model

Physics WorldJon Cartwright

Published in Physics World, 6 May 2013

After discovering the Higgs boson last year, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider are now trawling through the data as the collider undergoes an 18-month shutdown for repairs and upgrades. The goal is to discover hints of physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics – but tantalizing glimpses of new physics have been harder to spot than many physicists had expected.

Three years, eight-quadrillion particle collisions and the discovery of the most infamous particle of them all: the Higgs boson. With such achievements under their belt, you might think that physicists working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, near Geneva, would be taking a well-earned break. But the current shutdown – a two-year period of repairs and upgrades that began in February – is affording them no holiday. “This is actually the most intense period we’ve ever had,” says Joseph Incandela, spokesperson for the LHC’s CMS experiment. “The schedule is so tight there’s almost no contingency to prepare for the next run. It’s a bit insane.” […]

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The life of psi

Physics WorldJon Cartwright

Published in Physics World, 2 May 2013

The heart of quantum theory – some would say the heart of physics itself – is the wavefunction. But is it really some sort of wave? A new theorem has put the doubters in their place, as Jon Cartwright reports

PWMay13cover-iop-200x264On publishing his wave equation in 1926, Erwin Schrödinger was showered with praise. “Your work springs from true genius!” wrote Albert Einstein. A month later, Schrödinger’s fellow Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest was still in awe. “Every day for the past two weeks our little group has been standing for hours at a time in front of the blackboard in order to train itself in all the splendid ramifications,” he admitted.

More than 80 years later, physicists are still try ing to grasp those ramifications. The Schrödinger equation is one of the most famous equations in history, describing how the quantum state of any system changes with time. It underpins quantum mechanics, a theory that has provided us with computers, lasers, solar cells and nuclear reactors. Yet the heart of the Schrödinger equation – its solution – is a mysterious term, known as the wavefunction. Most physicists will have heard of the term, but what does it really mean? And does it correspond to some sort of real wave?

These questions may seem trivial, but they are not. For anything, in principle, has a wavefunction – electrons, atoms, people, planets, even the entire universe. To picture all of these as waves – actual, physical waves – is challenging at best. It is for this reason that many physicists have suspected that the wavefunction only reflects our limited understanding of nature. Perhaps in the future we will uncover a deeper underlying reality – one that explains all the mystery of the quantum world, and one that leaves the wavefunction redundant.

Now it seems this hope could be misplaced. According to a theorem devised by a UK group of physicists, the wavefunction is no approximation – it really does correspond to something physical. The result has sent ripples through the quantum-physics community, much of which has been left wondering if we will ever have an intuitive grasp of reality. […]

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International Baccalaureate: is it any good?

The TelegraphJon Cartwright

Published in The Daily Telegraph, 29 Apr 2013

The International Baccalaureate is increasing in popularity. But does it carry sufficient clout with universities? Jon Cartwright reports

The International Baccalaureate goes down well with sixth formers at Finham Park School in Coventry, who have opted to take its diploma programme. But ask them whether they think their friends studying for regular A-levels are jealous, and they laugh. Harriet Carrington, 18, explains, “I think you have to take the IB to appreciate what it actually gives you.”

If Harriet and her friends are in on some sort of prized secret, then it is becoming a less exclusive one. Little by little, students are turning away from A-levels and taking up IB diplomas instead, to the extent that last year IBs made up about 1.2 per cent of pending qualifications for university applications – up from 0.8 per cent in 2008, according to Ucas figures. […]

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