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04.16.09 News
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Duke Physicists See the Cosmos in a Coffee Cup
A Duke University professor and his graduate student have discovered a universal principle that unites the curious interplay of light and shadow on the surface of your morning coffee with the way gravity magnifies and distorts light from distant galaxies. They think scientists will be able to use violations of this principle to map unseen clumps of dark matter in the universe. Light rays naturally reflect off a curve like the inside surface of a coffee cup in a curving, ivy leaf pattern that comes to a point in the center and is brightest along its edge. Caustics also show up in gravitational lensing, a phenomenon caused by galaxies so massive that their gravity bends and distorts light from more distant galaxies.
New in the Journals & Magazines
Nature
Obama's Nuclear-weapons-free Vision
Science
Science Gold Mine, Ethical Minefield
Discover
Chevy Volt's Battery Running Longer Than a Laptop's?
Nature
China to Spearhead Anti-tuberculosis Drive
Science
Tropical Parents More Likely to Hear, "It's a Girl!"
Today's Video
Science of Speed: Car Safety
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Latest News
"Two-handed" Marine Microbes Point to New Method for Isolating Harmful Forms of Chemicals
This two-handed quality is called chirality, and in a molecule, it can make the difference between healing and harming the human body.
Decline in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Would Reduce Sea-level Rise, Save Arctic Sea Ice
The researchers used supercomputer simulations to compare a business-as-usual scenario to one with dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions beginning in about a decade.
People's Misperceptions Cloud Their Understanding of Rainy Weather Forecasts
Progress made in identifying causes and subsequent treatments of honey bee colony collapse.
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