News
Jean Francois Joanny awarded the 2012 Gentner-Kastler prize
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- Published on 10 August 2012
The German Physical Society (DPG) and the French Physical Society (SFP) will present the 2012 Gentner-Kastler award to Professor Jean Francois Joanny of the Institut Curie, France. The former Editor in Chief and current External Advisor of EPJ E is nominated for his extraordinary contributions to the theory of soft matter, particularly for his work in polymer physics and biological physics. The prize will be presented March 29, 2012, during the Meeting of the German Physical Society in Berlin.
The Gentner-Kastler prize is awarded jointly by the German Physical Society for works in physics done alternatively in Germany or France.
EPJ Special Topics - The indiscretions of a champagne bubble paparazzi
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- Published on 10 August 2012
The physics and chemistry behind the fizz in bubbly.
The innermost secrets of champagne bubbles have just been unveiled in the Springer journal EPJ ST. This fascinating work is the brainchild of Gérard Liger-Belair, a scientist tackling champagne bubbles from both a physics and a chemistry perspective. Based at the University of Reims, in the heart of the region that gave champagne its name, the author is appropriately affiliated with the ‘effervescence team of the molecular and atmospheric spectrometry group’ and the ‘oenology and applied chemistry’ laboratory.
EPJ B - Market exchange rules responsible for wealth concentration
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- Published on 10 August 2012
Next year’s Davos meeting could benefit from physicists’ insights on how new market rules help avoid wealth concentration.
Two Brazilian physicists have shown that wealth concentration invariably stems from a particular type of market exchange rules – where agents cannot receive more income than their own capital. The authors concluded that maximum inequalities ensue from free markets, which are governed by such seemingly fair rules. This study, published in EPJB was conducted by J. Roberto Iglesias and Rita de Almeida from the Brazilian National Institute of Science and Technology of Complex Systems, based in Porto Alegre. This Brazilian city is famous for hosting the World Social Forum, which is designed to find alternatives to economic liberalism.
EPJ B - Tiling pattern governs quasicrystals’ magnetism
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- Published on 10 August 2012
Review sheds light on the underlying magnetic qualities stemming from quasicrystals’ complex structure.
Few material classes have generated as much interest as quasicrystals. In a review published in EPJB quasicrystal expert Anuradha Jagannathan, from Paris-Sud University in Orsay, France, outlines the progress to date in the theory explaining the magnetic properties of these quasicrystals.
EPJ B - Brain capacity limits exponential online data growth
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- Published on 10 August 2012
Study of internet file sizes shows that information growth is self-limited by the human mind.
Scientists have found that the capacity of the human brain to process and record information - and not economic constraints - may constitute the dominant limiting factor for the overall growth of globally stored information. These findings have just been published in an article in EPJB by Claudius Gros and colleagues from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany.
EPJ E - Cosmology in a petri dish
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- Published on 10 August 2012
To understand long-range interactions between particles at the micrometric scale, researchers utilize methods which are used to study the formation of our universe.
Scientists have found that micron-size particles which are trapped at fluid interfaces exhibit a collective dynamic that is subject to seemingly unrelated governing laws. These laws show a smooth transitioning from long-ranged cosmological-style gravitational attraction down to short-range attractive and repulsive forces. The study by Johannes Bleibel from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, and his colleagues has just been published in the journal EPJE.
EPJ B - Harnessing the predictive power of virtual communities
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- Published on 10 August 2012
Reducing the disconnect between virtual network models and real-life communities.
Scientists have created a new algorithm to detect virtual communities, designed to match the needs of real-life social, biological or information networks detection better than with current attempts. The results of this study by Lovro Šubelj and his colleague Marko Bajec from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia have just been published in EPJB.
EPJ C - "Spooky action at distance" in particle physics?!
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- Published on 10 August 2012
Physicists have developed the first conclusive test to better understand high-energy particles correlations.
Researchers have devised a proposal for the first conclusive experimental test of a phenomenon known as "Bell’s nonlocality". This test is designed to reveal correlations that are stronger than any classical correlations, and do so between high-energy particles that do not consist of ordinary matter and light. These results are relevant to the so-called "CP violation" principle, which is used to explain the dominance of matter over antimatter. These findings by Beatrix Hiesmayr, a theoretical physicist at the University of Vienna, and her colleagues, a team of quantum information theory specialists, particle physicists and nuclear physicists, have been published in EPJC.
EPJ E - How to build doughnuts with Lego blocks
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- Published on 10 August 2012
Controlling forces between oppositely charged polymers opens a new route towards creating vectors for gene therapy
Scientists have uncovered how nature minimises energy costs in rings of liquids with an internal nanostructure made of two chemically discordant polymers joined with strong bonds, or di-blocks, deposited on a silicon surface, in an article published in EPJE.
EPJ B - New model for epidemic contagion
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- Published on 10 August 2012
Improved estimates on the geographical spread of infectious diseases are achieved by studying human mobility networks
Humans are considered the hosts for spreading epidemics. The speed at which an epidemic spreads is now better understood thanks to a new model accounting for the provincial nature of human mobility, according to a study published in EPJB. The research was conducted by a team lead by Vitaly Belik from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, who is also affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Germany.
