The familiar lighter-than-air gas filling birthday balloons has a rare isotope: a nucleus consisting of two protons and a single neutron called helium-3. But instead of using this gas for fanciful decorations, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory made use of its interesting triangular shape in a new series of…
A single sensor for the world’s largest digital camera detected light making its way through wind, air turbulence, and Earth’s atmosphere, successfully converting the light into a glimpse of the galactic wonders that this delicate instrument will eventually capture as it scans the night sky. When installed in the camera of the Large Synoptic Survey…
When gold ions collide inside the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to replicate the conditions that existed just after the Big Bang, temperatures can reach 4 trillion degrees Celsius, the initial energy can soar up to 200 billion electron volts per nucleon, and it all takes place within a billionth of a trillionth of a second. Naturally,…
Microwaving popcorn never quite turns out right. Inevitably, some kernels remain unpopped while others burn. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory were experiencing a similar phenomenon with their ion source, the device that feeds singly ionized atoms into the particle accelerators that supply beams to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the…
UPTON, NY — The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has awarded the Technical Communities Globalization Medal to Upendra S. Rohatgi, a senior mechanical engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory. He received the award for work helping to steer scientists formerly engaged in designing weapons of mass destruction toward more…
Kiera Berger has a major in genetics and cell biology, a solid GPA and a score on the Medical College Admission Test that’s about average for science undergraduates. She applied to 10 medical schools, and every one turned her down.
Minnesota has reached the tail end of a moderate flu season — welcome relief after 2012-13, one of the deadliest flu outbreaks in years. The state has recorded 1,484 hospitalizations from influenza so far this year, compared to more than 3,000 last year, according to the Minnesota Department of Health’s weekly update. No one under…
State health officials have confirmed a case of measles in a 19-month-old Hennepin County child, prompting them to notify other Twin Cities families that they could be at risk amid an unusual measles outbreak that is crisscrossing the country. The case is the first in Minnesota so far this year. Nationally, 129 cases and 13…
HASTINGS, Minn. — Greg Brick coughed years of cave dust from his lungs, his breath condensing in the cold winter morning.
All Vice President for Research Tim Mulcahy can do is watch, wait and hope for good news. With time running out for Congress and President Barack Obama to reach a compromise before looming automatic tax increases and spending cuts send the federal budget over a fiscal cliff, Mulcahy says the University of Minnesota’s research budget…
Rebecca Harrington 