all material sciences stories

'Armored' bubbles can exist in stable nonspherical shapes

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:43:01 -0400

Researchers at Harvard University have demonstrated that gas bubbles can exist in stable non-spherical shapes without the application of external force. The micron- to millimeter-scale peapod-, doughnut-, and sausage-shaped bubbles, created by coating ordinary gas bubbles with a tightly packed layer of tiny particles and then fusing them, are described on the Web site of the journal Nature.

Scientists look inside antimatter

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:25:53 -0400

"We have obtained the first glimpse inside an antihydrogen atom, and this is a significant step on the way to precision measurements that will allow matter/antimatter comparisons to be made," says Gerald Gabrielse, professor of physics at Harvard and leader of the research team. Such comparisons could show why antimatter and matter have not destroyed each other; in other words, why there's a universe at all. They also might cause physicists to scrap all their theories of how the universe operates. Although no one is making any claims at this point, practical applications might come from the research.

New type of matter may have been found

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:19:57 -0400

In orbit around Earth, a satellite called the Chandra X-ray Observatory surveys the universe for sources of X-rays. Using Chandra, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has observed a star in the constellation Corona Australis that emits X-ray signals that some astronomers think come from an object made not out of atoms, or even the protons and neutrons that make up atoms, but a strange combination of quarks. Called "strange quark matter," all existing knowledge points to it as the most stable form of matter that can possibly exist. If so, then all other materials must be relatively unstable. "If strange quark matter really exists, it implies that normal matter is not ultimately stable," says Jeremy Drake of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Why antimatter matters so much

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:15:21 -0400

In 1995, experimenters made nine or 10 atoms of antihydrogen at the Center for European Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland. Since then, researchers have sought a method for making more antimatter, which would allow them to test fundamental theories of the universe. A team led by Gerald Gabrielse, Harvard professor of physics, is close to making a mass of antihydrogen atoms. These atoms would be trapped in a special apparatus where they can be held long enough to accurately measure their properties. How close is the team to achieving its goal?