News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Important milestone for next-generation acceleration experiment

Dating early human middens becomes uncertain beyond 50,000 years, when radiocarbon dating ceases to be useful. Uranium-series dating of marine shells and bone is uncertain by some 10% because of the structure of these materials. A UC Berkeley and Berkeley Geochronology Center team has now improved the method for a more stable discard: ostrich eggshells. The method extends the accuracy and precision of radiocarbon 10 times into the past, to about 500,000 years ago.

When heavy ions, accelerated to the speed of light, collide with each other in the depths of European or American accelerators, quark-gluon plasma is formed for fractions of a second, or even its "cocktail" seasoned with other particles. According to scientists from the IFJ PAN, experimental data show that there are underestimated actors on the scene: photons. Their collisions lead to the emission of seemingly excess particles, the presence of which could not be explained.

Nuclear physicists have made a new, highly accurate measurement of the thickness of the neutron "skin" that encompasses the lead nucleus in experiments conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and just published in Physical Review Letters. The result, which revealed a neutron skin thickness of .28 millionths of a nanometer, has important implications for the structure and size of neutron stars.

PPPL scientists have developed a type of deception to calm unruly plasma and accelerate the harvesting on Earth of fusion energy.

Two Facility for Rare Isotope Beams researchers have created a computer model to help explain and make nuclear discoveries.

Researchers have developed an inexpensive, safe, and reliable packed eggs surface disinfection technology. This technology helps to kill bacteria, including salmonella, on eggshells. Also, it allows growing broiler chickens with strong immunity to viral diseases.

Power grids counterintuitively thrive on diversity. Heterogeneity among power generators can help grids stabilize.