In this talk, we embark on a remarkable adventure that explores the hottest and most powerful objects in the universe. Our travels take us from the millions of tiny black holes that live in our own galaxy, the Milky Way...
Presented by Debbie Bard. One of the most surprising predictions made by Einstein's theory of relativity is that light doesn't travel through the universe in a straight line. The gravitational field of massive objects will deflect the path of light...
For the past 60 years, progress in information technology has been governed by Moore's law, which states that the number of transistors on a semiconductor chip doubles every 18 months. However, this remarkable trend is drawing to a close...
The masterpieces of Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat and many of their contemporaries are currently undergoing catastrophic changes, including paint discoloration and loss. This damage, which threatens many works of art of our cultural heritage, is associated with...
The ribosome, found in all living cells, is the molecular machine that builds proteins. It faithfully attaches together amino acids – the building blocks of proteins – in the order determined by messenger RNA molecules, which in turn follow the...
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the giant particle accelerator at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, will restart operations in 2015, at higher energies and intensities than ever before.
Presented by Siegfried Glenzer. Normally we think of hydrogen as a gas. But elsewhere in the universe, hydrogen under extreme pressure can exist in more exotic states. In the center of Jupiter, hydrogen becomes liquid or even solid. In the...
In less than two decades, scientists have discovered more than a thousand planets orbiting other stars. Now we know that our solar system is not alone -- but we still do not know if it is rare or unique. Most...
Catalysts are the unsung heroes of chemistry: Widely used in industry, they speed up chemical reactions used to make everything from fertilizers to fuels to consumer products, and they do this by making those reactions much more efficient. Many important...
Making the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner, renewable energy sources for the world’s automobile fleet will require dramatic improvements in rechargeable batteries: They will need to be lighter, less expensive, run 300-plus miles on a single charge and last...
Since it began operation in 2009, SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) has allowed scientists to make new types of X-ray measurements that were once thought unattainable by delivering one trillion X-ray photons – particles of X-ray light – in...
At a first glance, our galaxy appears to be made of stars separated by vast and empty space. However, we now know that this space is filled with things that are more difficult to see – gas, photons and the...
