Recent Comments

    Research Team discovers New Property of Light

    May 9, 2024, Categories  Physics

    Research team discovers new property of light
    Dmitry Fishman (right) and Eric Potma, both professors of chemistry at UC Irvine, made a breakthrough discovery regarding the way light interacts with solid matter in silicon. Their work could lead to improved efficiency in solar electric systems, semiconductor lasers and other advanced optoelectronic technologies. Credit: Lucas Van Wyk Joel / UC Irvine

    A research team headed by chemists at the University of California, Irvine has discovered a previously unknown way in which light interacts with matter, a finding that could lead to improved solar power systems, light-emitting diodes, semiconductor lasers and other technological advancements.

    In a paper published recently in the journal ACS Nano, the scientists, joined by colleagues at Russia’s Kazan Federal University, explain how t...

    Read More

    Iron Fingerprints in Nearby Active Galaxy

    May 9, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A XRISM spectrum of NGC 4151 with a multiwavelength snapshot of the galaxy in the background.
    The Resolve instrument aboard XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) captured data from the center of galaxy NGC 4151, where a supermassive black hole is slowly consuming material from the surrounding accretion disk. The resulting spectrum reveals the presence of iron in the peak around 6.5 keV and the dips around 7 keV, light thousands of times more energetic that what our eyes can see. Background: An image of NGC 4151 constructed from a combination of X-ray, optical, and radio light.
    Spectrum: JAXA/NASA/XRISM Resolve. Background: X-rays, NASA/CXC/CfA/J.Wang et al.; optical, Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, La Palma/Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope; radio, NSF/NRAO/VLA

    After starting science operations in February, Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) studied the ...

    Read More

    Computer scientists discover Vulnerability in Cloud Server Hardware used by AMD and Intel Chips

    May 8, 2024, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    cloud computing
    Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

    Public cloud services employ special security technologies. Computer scientists at ETH Zurich have now discovered a gap in the latest security mechanisms used by AMD and Intel chips. This affects major cloud providers.

    Over the past few years, hardware manufacturers have developed technologies that ought to make it possible for companies and governmental organizations to process sensitive data securely using shared cloud computing resources.

    Known as confidential computing, this approach protects sensitive data while it is being processed by isolating it in an area that is impenetrable to other users and even to the cloud provider...

    Read More

    How NASA’s Roman Mission will Hunt for Primordial Black Holes

    May 8, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Stephen Hawking theorized that black holes can slowly shrink as radiation escapes. The slow leak of what’s now known as Hawking radiation would, over time, cause the black hole to simply evaporate. This infographic shows the estimated lifetimes and event horizon –– the point past which infalling objects can’t escape a black hole’s gravitational grip –– diameters for black holes of various small masses.
    NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

    Astronomers have discovered black holes ranging from a few times the sun’s mass to tens of billions. Now a group of scientists has predicted that NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could find a class of “featherweight” black holes that has so far eluded detection.

    Today, black holes form either when a massive star collapses or wh...

    Read More