Astronomy and Physics News

University of Texas at Austin astronomer Steven Finkelstein has led a team that has discovered and measured the distance to the most distant galaxy yet found. The galaxy is seen as it was at a time just 700 million years after the Big Bang. While observations with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have identified many other candidates for galaxies in the early uni-verse, including some that might perhaps be even more distant, this galaxy is the farthest and earliest whose distance is definitively confirmed with follow-up observations from the Keck I telescope, one of a pair of the world’s largest earth-bound telescopes. The result are pub-lished in the Oct. 24 issue of the jour-nal Nature. “We want to study very distant galaxies to learn how galaxies change with time, which helps us understand how the Milky Way came to be,” Finkelstein said. That’s what makes this confirmed galaxy distance so exciting, because “we get a glimpse of conditions when the universe was only about 5 percent of its current age of 13.8 billion years,” said Casey Papovich of Texas A&M University, second author of the study.

Astronomers can study how galaxies evolve because light travels at a certain speed, about 186,000 miles per second. Thus when we look at distant objects, we see them as they appeared in the past. The more distant astronomers can push their observations, the farther into the past they can see. The devil is in the details, however, when it comes to making conclu-sions about galaxy evolution, Finkel-stein points out. “Before you can make strong … Read more...

The most distant galaxy yet

Breast cancer is one of the most

common forms of cancer and

cancer deaths among women

worldwide. Routine screening can

increase breast cancer survival by

detecting the disease early and

allowing doctors to address it at

this critical stage. A team of re-

searchers at the Univ. of Twente

in the Netherlands have developed

a prototype of a new imaging tool

that may one day help to detect

breast cancer early, when it is most

treatable.

If effective, the new device,

called a photoacoustic mammo-

scope, would represent an entire-

ly new way of imaging the breast

and detecting cancer. Instead of

x-rays, which are used in tradi-

tional mammography, the photo-

acoustic breast mammoscope

uses a combination of infrared

light and ultrasound to create a

3-D map of the breast. The re-

searchers describe their device in

a paper published in The Opti-

cal Society’s (OSA) open-access

journal Biomedical Optics Ex-

press.

In the new technique, infrared

light is delivered in billionth-of-

a-second pulses to tissue,

where it is scattered and ab-

sorbed. The high absorption

of blood increases the tem-

perature of blood vessels

slightly, and this causes

...Read more...

Imaging breast cancer with light

Department of Physics—United Arab Emirates University Oct. 26, 2013 Volume 3, Issue 43

The most distant galaxy yet

1

Imaging breast cancer with light 1

Titan’s North Pole is Loaded With Lakes

2

Team 'gets the edge' on photon transport in silicon

2

Team uses forest waste to develop cheaper, greener supercapacitors

2

Using sound waves for bomb detection

3

Topological insulators: Persuading light to mix it up with matter

3

Physicists decode decision circuit of

cancer metastasis

3

North Celestial Tree 4

World's most powerful MRI gets

set to come online

4

Inside this issue:

Weekly news from around the world compiled by Dr. Ilias Fernini

Top: A top

and side view of a 3-D-reconstructed phantom object made of gels and

other materials that mimic human tissue. The background of this

phantom mimics normal breast tissue, while several objects embedded

within the material mimic blood vessels and tumors. Bottom: Two

slices of images of a reconstructed phantom taken with the new device.

The location of five objects are indicated with arrows: objects 1 and 2

mimic blood vessels, while objects 3 through 5 mimic tumors. Image:

Wenfeng Xia, Biomedical Photonic Imaging group, Univ. of Twente

This image from the Hubble

Space Telescope CANDELS

survey highlights the most distant

galaxy in the universe with a

measured distance, dubbed

z8_GND_5296. The galaxy’s

red color alerted astronomers

that it was likely extremely far

away and, thus, seen at an early

time after the Big Bang. A team

of astronomers measured the

exact distance using the Keck I

telescope with the new

MOSFIRE spectrograph. They

found that this galaxy is seen at

about 700 million years after the

Big Bang, when the universe was

just 5% of its current age of

13.8 billion years. (Image credit:

V. Tilvi, Texas A&M Uni-

versity; S.L. Finkelstein, Uni-

versity of Texas at Austin; C.

Papovich, Texas A&M Uni-

versity; CANDELS Team and

Hubble Space Tele-

scope/NASA.)

A combination of exceptionally clear weather,

the steady approach of northern summer, and

a poleward orbital path has given Cassini —

and Cassini scientists — unprecedented views

of countless lakes scattered across Titan’s

north polar region. In the near-infrared mosa-

ic above they can be seen as dark splotches

and speckles scattered around the moon’s

north pole. Previously observed mainly via

radar, these are the best visual and infrared

wavelength images ever obtained of Titan’s

northern “land o’ lakes!”

Titan is currently the only other world besides

Earth known to have stable bodies of liquid

on its surface, but unlike Earth, Titan’s lakes

aren’t filled with water — instead they’re full

of liquid methane and ethane, organic com-

pounds which are gases on Earth but

liquids in Titan’s incredibly chilly -

290º F (-180º C) environment.

While one large lake and a few small-

er ones have been previously identi-

fied at Titan’s south pole, curiously

almost all of Titan’s lakes appear

near the moon’s north pole.

Read more…..

rely on chemical reactions to pro-duce sustained electrical energy, supercapacitors collect charged ions on their electrodes (in this case, the biochar), and quickly release those ions during dis-charge. This allows them to supply energy in short, powerful bursts – during a camera flash, for exam-ple, or in response to peak de-mand on the energy grid, Jiang said. "Supercapacitors are ideal for applications needing instant power

Researchers report that wood-biochar supercapacitors can produce as much power as today's activated-carbon supercapacitors at a fraction of the cost – and with environmen-tally friendly byproducts. The report appears in the jour-nal Electrochimica Acta. "Supercapacitors are power devices very similar to our batteries," said study leader Junhua Jiang, a senior research engineer at the Illinois Sus-tainable Technology Center at the University of Illinois. While batteries

and can even provide constant power – like batteries, but at lower cost," he said. They are useful in transportation, elec-tronics and solar- and wind-power energy storage and distri-bution. Many of today's supercapacitors use activated carbon – usually from a fossil-fuel source, Jiang said. "Costly and complicated proce-dures are normally used to de-velop the microstructures of the carbon – … Read more...

Titan’s North Pole is Loaded With Lakes

Page 2 Astronomy and Phys ics News Volume 3, I ssue 43

The quantum Hall effect is observed when

there is a magnetic field perpendicular to a

flat wire that has electrons flowing through

it. The field pushes the electrons over to

one side of the wire, so their flow is con-

centrated along its edge. Although a fairly

exotic piece of physics, the quantum Hall

effect already has been applied to make

better standards for electrical conductance.

But the effect is hard to study because

measuring it requires stringent lab condi-

tions, including extremely low tempera-

tures and samples of exceptional purity.

Read more...

Mosaic of near-infrared images from Cassini showing lakes on

Titan’s north pole (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

Team uses forest waste to develop cheaper, greener supercapacitors

Team 'gets the edge' on photon transport in silicon

Scientists have a new way to edge around a

difficult problem in quantum physics, now

that a research team from the National

Institute of Standards and Technology

(NIST) and University of Maryland's Joint

Quantum Institute (JQI) have proved their

recent theory about how particles of light

flow within a novel device they built.

While the problem itself—how to find an

easier way to study the quantum Hall ef-

fect—may be unfamiliar to many, the

team's solution could help computer de-

signers use light instead of electricity to

carry information in computer circuits,

potentially leading to vast improvements in

efficiency.

In this false-color scanning electron microscope image, the

arrow shows the path light takes as it hops between silicon

rings along the edge of the chip, successfully avoiding defects --

in this case a missing ring. Credit: NIST

Any kind of wood can be made into biochar by

heating in a low-oxygen chamber. Some types of

wood work better than others. Pictured (left to

right) are white birch, white pine and red cedar.

Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

Using sound waves for bomb detection

A remote acoustic detection sys-

tem designed to identify home-

made bombs can determine the

difference between those that

contain low-yield and high-yield

explosives.

That capability – never before

reported in a remote bomb detec-

tion system – was described in a

paper by Vanderbilt engineer

Douglas Adams presented at the

American Society of Mechanical

Engineers Dynamic Systems and

Control Conference on Oct. 23 in

Stanford, CA.

A number of different tools are

currently used for explosives de-

tection. These range from dogs

and honeybees to mass spectrome-

try, gas chromatography and spe-

cially designed X-ray machines.

"Existing methods require you to

get quite close to the suspicious

object," said Adams, Distinguished

Professor of Civil and Environ-

mental Engineering. "The idea

behind our project is to develop a

system that will work from a dis-

tance to provide an additional

degree of safety."

Adams is developing the acous-

tic detection system with Christo-

pher Watson and Jeffrey Rhoads

at Purdue University and John

Scales at the Colorado School of

Mines as part of a major

Office of Naval Research

grant.

The new system consists of

a phased acoustic array that

focuses an intense sonic

beam at a suspected impro-

vised explosive device. At

the same time, an instru-

ment called a laser vibrome-

ter is aimed at the object's

casing and records how the casing

is vibrating in response. The na-

ture of the vibrations can reveal a

great deal about what is inside the

container. Read more….

manipulation of quantum states of matter,"

says Nuh Gedik, the Lawrence C. (1944) and

Sarah W. Biedenharn Associate Professor of

Physics and senior author of a paper published

this week in Science.

Gedik, postdoc Yihua Wang (now at Stanford

University), and two other MIT researchers

carried out the experiments using a technique

Gedik's lab has been developing for several

years. Their method involves shooting femto-

second (millionths of a billionth of a second)

pulses of mid-infrared light at a sample of

material … Read more...

Researchers at MIT have succeeded in

producing and measuring a coupling of

photons and electrons on the surface of

an unusual type of material called a topo-

logical insulator. This type of coupling

had been predicted by theorists, but never

observed.

The researchers suggest that this finding

could lead to the creation

of materials whose electronic properties

could be "tuned" in real time simply by

shining precise laser beams at them. The

work "opens up a new avenue for optical

“Cancer cells behave in complex

ways, and this work shows how

such complexity can arise from the

operation of a relatively simple

decision-making circuit,” said

study co-author Eshel Ben-Jacob,

a senior investigator at Rice’s Cen-

ter for Theoretical Biological

Physics (CTBP) and adjunct prof.

of biochemistry and cell biology at

Rice. “By stripping away the com-

plexity and starting with first prin-

ciples, we get a glimpse of the

‘logic of cancer’—the driver of the

disease’s decision to spread.”

In the PNAS study, Ben-Jacob and

Cancer researchers from Rice

Univ. have deciphered the operat-

ing principles of a genetic switch

that cancer cells use to decide

when to metastasize and invade

other parts of the body. The study

found that the on-off switch’s

dynamics also allows a third choice

that lies somewhere between “on”

and “off.” The extra setting both

explains previously confusing

experimental results and opens the

door to new avenues of cancer

treatment.

The study appears online in the

Early Edition of theProceedings of

the National Academy of Sciences.

CTBP colleagues José Onuchic,

Herbert Levine, Mingyang Lu and

Mohit Kumar Jolly describe a new

theoretical framework that allowed

them to model the behavior of

microRNAs in decision-making

circuits. To test the framework,

they modeled the behavior of a

decision-making genetic circuit that

cells use to regulate the forward and

backward transitions between two

different cell states, the epithelial

and mesenchymal. Read more….

Page 3 Astronomy and Phys ics News Volume 3, I ssue 43

Topological insulators: Persuading light to mix it up with matter

A sample of bismuth selenide, a topological insulator, is seen inside

the test apparatus in Nuh Gedik's lab, ready to be studied using the

team's femtosecond laser system and electron spectrometer. Credit:

BRYCE VICKMARK

Physicists decode decision circuit of cancer metastasis

Schematic of the experiment setup. Credit: Douglas Adams / Vanderbilt

This is an artist's depiction of the dangers

of metastasis, the process by which cancer

cells migrate and establish tumors

throughout the body. A new study from

Rice Univ. cancer researchers details the

workings of key genetic circuits involved in

metastasis. Image: Rice Univ.

College of Science - United Arab Emirates University

POB 15551

Al-Ain

United Arab Emirates

http://fos.uaeu.ac.ae/department/physics

potassium, the ions that are also among the most mobile in carrying the charge associat-ed with spikes in neurons. An area of 0.1mm still might have over 1000 neurons so this technology is not going to be imag-ing neuron activity individually. It may however, provide recent efforts to decode the private imagery associated with our inner thoughts and dreams with much greater accuracy than current methods. While a recent paper in Nature contains an air of optimism regarding the progress of the decoding algorithms used in these kinds of studies, cautionary tales regarding the interpretations of the results still abound.

The 270 million dollar scanner project, know as INUMAC (Imaging of Neuro dis-ease Using high-field MR And Contrasto-phores), has been in development for the last seven years. Delivery was taken this summer of some 200 km of superconducting niobi-um-titanium wire. When cooled with super-fluid helium to 1.8 Kelvins, this wire will be able to carry 1500 amps. The key to making a magnet that won't melt or vibrate itself apart, is a new winding design that permits the helium to get where it needs to for cooling,

The most powerful MRI machine in the world is nearing completion. The new in-strument will be able to generate 11.75 Tes-la, a field strong enough to lift 60 metric tons. Squeezing out those last few Tesla (the previous record for field strength was around 9.4) requires extraordinary precision in the design and manufacture of the super-conductor magnets at its core. As a recent article in IEEE Spectrum reports, fields of this magnitude are stronger than those used in the Large Hadron Collider which fa-mously discovered the Higgs boson. As a research tool, a machine like this would allow the brain to be imaged in unprece-dented detail—a voxel size of .1mm as com-pared to 1 mm previously. But as medical device makers struggle to design implants that won't move, heat up or otherwise fail in fields of that strength, the opportunity for new discovery in the brain, will by guided also by a few new challenges to be over-come.

MRI machines normally image the relatively strong signals associated with the nuclei of hydrogen. With higher field strengths it is possible to image signals from sodium or

and also provides for winding alignment to micrometer precision.

Today electromagnetic devices, like precision servomotors, are no longer wound willy-nilly like a random spool of yarn, but rather put to-gether so that each turn is in the proper place. The idea is that entire electromagnet hums co-herently as a whole and creates a uniform field. A more expensive wire material, niobium-tin, would in theory carry … Read more….

World's most powerful MRI gets set to come online

Phone: 00-971-3-7136336

Fax: 00-971-3-767-1291

E-mail: physics@uaeu.ac.ae

Physics Department

North Celestial Tree

Image Credit & Copyright: Jerónimo Losada

Explanation: If you climbed this magnificent tree, it looks like you could reach out and touch the North Celestial Pole at the center of all the star trail arcs. The well-composed image was recorded over a period of nearly 2 hours as a series of 30 second long, consecutive exposures on the night of October 5. The exposures were made with a digital camera fixed to a tripod near Almaden de la Plata, province of Seville, in southern Spain, planet Earth. Of course, the graceful star trails reflect the Earth's daily rotation around its axis. By extension, the axis of rotation leads to the center of the concentric arcs in the night sky. Convenient for northern hemisphere night sky photographers and celestial navigators alike, the bright star Polaris is very close to the North Celestial Pole and so makes the short bright trail in the central gap between the leafy branches.

Image: Ralf Kaehler and Tom Abel (visualization);

John Wise and Tom Abel