New VLT Discovery Pushes Back the Beginnings

Using the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT), a team of astronomers from The Netherlands, Germany and the USA [1] have discovered the most distant group of galaxies ever seen, about 13.5 billion light-years away. The Photo shows the sky region near the power

A new type of optical material has been developed by physicists that could replace the electronics used to route the light signals through optical fibre telecommunications networks. It could even provide the basis for future `optical computers` working on light pulses instead of electric signals. At the Condensed Matter conference on Monday 8 April, part of the Institute of Physics Congress in Brighton, Dr David Sharp, a member of Dr Andrew Turberfield`s research team from the University of Oxford, w

When it was announced last month that the Mars Odyssey satellite had found water ice beneath the planet`s frozen carbon dioxide south polar ice cap, “I felt excited!” says Dr Lidija Siller, a physicist from the University of Newcastle. “I believe that the data I have explains how this water got trapped underneath the surface”. Dr Siller will be presenting the results of her research – which involves studying photochemical reactions in ice – at the Condensed Matter physics conference on Monday 8 April

Physicists at Glasgow University are using the world`s most powerful laser beam as an atom smasher to simulate conditions inside the Sun and to produce radioisotopes vital in medicine. Professor Ken Ledingham from the Department of Physics at Glasgow and his colleagues from Imperial College and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) are using the world`s most intense laser beam, produced by the VULCAN laser at the RAL near Oxford, to initiate nuclear reactions for a variety of exciting application

Archaeologists of the University of Bonn have just begun the first of three series of excavation programmes in Xkipché on the Mexican peninsula of Yucatán. They are investigating the living conditions of the population shortly before the city was finally abandoned towards the end of the 10th century as well as the city?s role as the residence of local princes during the turbulent period of its decline.

The location of the find is in the vicinity of the world famous ruined city of Uxmal (rece

Time is running out for the clocks that make our computers tick. Scientists have developed a new generation of hardware and software based on the simpler designs of the 1950s.

Asynchronous, or clock-free systems, promise extra speed, safety, security and miniaturisation. The new designs work well in the laboratory and are only awaiting the development of software tools so that they can be produced commercially, says Professor Alex Yakovlev and fellow researchers in the Department of Computin