Stereo Sun

NASA has released the first 3-D images of the Sun, obtained using the STEREO satellites. This will help predict the onset of solar ejections in the future and aid in the protection of earth based electronics systems.

See NASA Website.

White Matter Matters in Schizophrenia

Scientists have suspected for more than two decades that schizophrenia is linked to defects in the brain's white matter. They could not tell, however, whether changes in the information-transmitting region of the brain detected by brain scans or autopsies were the cause or the symptoms of the illness. "[The report] provides evidence that alterations in myelin [the lipid layers that sheath and insulate nerve fibers and are the main constituent of white matter] can cause defects in neurons and the central nervous system in general that are related to neuropsychiatric disease," says the study's senior author Gabriel Corfas, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital Boston. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, could help physicians detect schizophrenia earlier and lead to new treatments for sufferers.

See PNAS

Mathematics Point the Way to a Perfect Head of Beer

Researchers may have cracked the code for the perfect head on a glass of beer. The finding extends a formula that specifies how the area of two-dimensional shapes will change, discovered in part by famed mathematician John von Neumann in 1952. David Srolovitz of Yeshiva University in New York City, along with mathematician Robert MacPherson of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., published the finding online today in Nature.

See Nature Website

Thin Water Acts Like a Solid

A Georgia Tech research team has discovered that water exhibits very different properties when it is confined to channels less than two nanometers wide – behaving much like a viscous fluid with a viscosity approaching that of molasses. Determining the properties of water on the nanoscale may prove important for biological and pharmaceutical research as well as nanotechnology. The research appears in Physical Review B.

See GA Tech News.

Astronomers Find First Earth-like Planet in Habitable Zone

Astronomers have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, an exoplanet with a radius only 50% larger than the Earth and capable of having liquid water. Using the ESO 3.6-m telescope, a team of Swiss, French and Portuguese scientists discovered a super-Earth about 5 times the mass of the Earth that orbits a red dwarf, already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet. The astronomers have also strong evidence for the presence of a third planet with a mass about 8 Earth masses.

See ESO Website.

Quantum physics says goodbye to reality

Some physicists are uncomfortable with the idea that all individual quantum events are innately random. This is why many have proposed more complete theories, which suggest that events are at least partially governed by extra "hidden variables". Now physicists from Austria claim to have performed an experiment that rules out a broad class of hidden-variables theories that focus on realism -- giving the uneasy consequence that reality does not exist when we are not observing it (Nature 446 871).

See Physicsweb.org

Blood-brain barrier bypassed

Using a combination of gene therapy and receptor targeting, scientists have successfully enabled a protein to cross the blood-brain barrier into the central nervous system, a crucial step in delivering drugs to diseased brains, according to a study in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

See The Scientist

World class research at DIT

Quoting Dr Matt Hussey, Director
"Congratulations to Dr Pat Goodman from the School of Physics, his research students Michelle Agnew and Marie McCaffrey, and their collaborator Prof Luke Clancy, on the publication of the results of their research into the health effects of the workplace smoking ban in Ireland. While many of our colleagues successfully publish their research in leading journals, I am specifically drawing attention to this particular paper by Dr Goodman because of the great significance of its findings and the unprecedented, worldwide media impact it has already had, a short few days after its publication.

"This paper was published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the world's highest ranked journal of respiratory medicine. To highlight the significance of the work the journal commissioned a special editorial on the paper, and also issued a worldwide press release to over 1000 journalists around the globe to coincide with the publication. The paper reports on the largest study in the world to date on a workplace smoking ban. It shows that the health of non-smoking bar staff improved significantly following the introduction of the ban in Ireland in 2007. It also provides strong evidence on the harmful effects of second-hand smoke and will be a key publication for all others working in this area.

"The paper has been featured by news and media organisations from the UK to India, and from Eastern Europe to the US.
Irish research can have a global impact."

Revamped DT212 and new DT207 approved

Following the DT212 review event April 18th, the panel have approved the continued validation of DT212 Science, and the validation of the new DT207 Industrial and Environmental Physics (and also DT206 Biosciences and DT208 Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences), all with no conditions attached.