Students Learn Research Skills Through Summer Program
June 07, 2013How does suspense affect heart rate? Or what can be learned from modeling and analyzing bacteria’s movements or examining the differences in coordination due to hand dominance with and without visual feedback?
Professor Alain Karma and Collaborators Publish Latest Findings Concerning the Process of Directional Solidification Aboard the International Space Station in Physical Review Letters
June 07, 2013New research into how materials act in space could lead to improvements in the design of everyday objects.
An Innovation Ecosystem Drives Future for Nanomedicine
June 03, 2013From targeted drug delivery mechanisms to supersensitive imaging techniques, nanotechnology holds many promises for medicine.
Professor Mark Williams Awarded $950K NSF Grant
May 30, 2013The Williams lab was awarded a 5-year $950,000 NSF grant beginning March 1, 2013 to probe single molecule DNA-ligand interactions.
Rocket Competition
May 23, 2013On Friday, May 17th, students from Northeastern’s chapter of Society of Physics Students (SPS) went up to Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH for a rocket launch competition, organized by NU Physics and Dartmouth Faculty.
3Qs: What to Know About the New Bird Flu Virus
May 13, 2013Earlier this month, the U.S. government declared that the emerging H7N9 bird flu “poses a significant potential for a public health emergency.”
The World’s Leading Science Cities
May 13, 2013Science and technology are key drivers of economic growth. But where are the world’s leading science cities? A new study published in Nature’s Scientific Reports ranks the top cities for physics research around the world.
Developing Nanotechnologies to Improve Medical Care
May 07, 2013Imagine having the ability to take a single pill, or have one injection, and be ready for an MRI, CT scan, and PET scan at the same time? Or have medication go directly to killing a tumor rather than traveling throughout the body first?
The One Billion Map
May 01, 2013For a network scientist few things can be more exciting that when the US government commits $100 million a year for its most massive network mapping initiative ever: obtain a map of the connectome, a complete circuitry of the brain. The effort’s scale and complexity only compares to Google’s mighty operation to map out the WWW and Facebook’s ambition to map out the world’s social circuitry.
Person of the Week: Dr. Alessandro Vespignani
April 30, 2013Sternberg Distinguished Professor of Physics, Computer Science and Health Sciences, Alessandro Vespignani has been selected as MPHPProgramsList.com’s Person of the Week.
Prepare for Takeoff
April 26, 2013A little over a year ago, Justin Dowd’s boss bought a pack of colored chalk to write the day’s specials on the wall. Little did he know, that chalk would change Dowd’s life forever. The Northeastern undergraduate, then a third-year studying physics, told me he’d always had a penchant for doodling and a minor love affair with Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Professors Srinivas Sridhar and Swastik Kar’s Graphene Bolometer Project Highlighted in Photonics Spectra
April 22, 2013Short-, long- and mid-wave IR imaging helps defense agencies find targets and even
determine intent.
Large Hadron Collider and Dark Matter Brings Gregory Peim to Northeastern University
April 04, 2013Gregory Peim is a graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in physics, conducting research under the direction of Professor Pran Nath.
Physics Graduate Student Gregory Peim Wins this Year’s Outstanding Graduate Student Award
April 04, 2013Congratulations to Gregory Peim for for winning this year’s Outstanding Graduate Student award! Gregory will be will be recognized at the upcoming Northeastern University Academic Honors Convocation on April 18.
Apps, Co-ops, Startups, and Global Solutions: It’s RISE:2013
March 28, 2013Ever walk by a construction project in the city and wonder what the site will look like one day? Well, a team of seven seniors at Northeastern has created a new app for that.
Under the Hood of the Ribosome
March 26, 2013We all know—generally speaking—how a car works: The gas pedal makes it go, the break pedal makes it stop, and the steering wheel determines its course. But pop open the hood and you’ll find there’s a lot more nuance to those maneuvers.
Beauty, Simplicity, and Symmetry
March 26, 2013If Einstein’s theory of relativity is wrong, then this whole thing we call the universe is either a dream or it works a lot differently than we suspected.
TEDx Talk: the Art of the Higgs Boson
March 26, 2013Assistant Professor Toyoko Orimoto recently gave a TEDx talk at the University of Geneva.
A Burst for Bursts
February 21, 2013The other day I starred the following headline in my RSS feed: “Any Two Pages on the Web Are Connected By 19 Clicks or Less.”
AAAS 2013: Predicting Human Behavior
February 21, 2013If you’ve driven on the highway, you’ve seen it: The traffic jam appears out of nowhere and disappears just as mysteriously.
Complex Systems Made Simple
February 19, 2013Just as the name implies, complex systems are difficult to tease apart.
Justin Dowd: A True Story of Dark Matter
February 19, 2013The university is more than galaxies, stars, planets, and empty space.
Okinawa Institute of Science & Technology is Coming to Visit Campus February 13, 2013
February 11, 2013The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology is coming to visit campus on Wednesday, February 13. Come hear about their graduate programs at 3:30 in 114 Richards.
Justin Dowd: A Way to be Happier
February 04, 2013Get ready to find out new, scientifically fortified ways to increase happiness and productivity.
Justin Dowd: Astronaut Training in a Military Jet
January 25, 2013Justin Dowd (BS Physics/Math ’13) won the Metro’s Race to Space contest last spring. See his astronaut training in a jet flight!
Justin Dowd: A True Story of Black Holes
January 25, 2013Black holes are real. New discoveries show some influence entire galaxies.
Justin Dowd: A True Story of Love
January 07, 2013MRIs are shedding light on romance.
3Qs: Doomsday Predictions Debunked
December 21, 2012Assistant Professor Toyoko Orimoto says that we should be more concerned with climate change than judgement day.
Professor Alessandro Vespignani Elected President of the Complex Systems Society
December 21, 2012The science of complex systems was born in the mid-20th century, but it has only recently begun to mature into a research field with real-world relevance.
Justin Dowd: The True Story of Whale Brains
December 18, 2012Humans may not be the first life forms on Earth to evolve love and language. Researchers recently discovered an abundance of rare neurons in several ocean mammals’ brains thought to exist only in primates.
New BS/PhD Program Offers Cheaper, Faster and Better Track to Research Career
December 14, 2012A new Physics BS/PhD program allows Northeastern undergraduate physics majors to continue on to a PhD in physics.
A Better Brainwave Monitor
December 05, 2012The electrical outputs of the brain contain massive amounts of information that could be a powerful resource if we could fully tap into it.
Student and Advisor Team Up For Co-op Success
December 05, 2012Mathew Chamberlain, a fifth year senior, chose to attend Northeastern University because of its co-op program, and he’s participated in two exciting opportunities because of it.
Laser Reveals the Hidden Lives of Biomolecules
December 05, 2012All around and inside us, an elaborate dance of molecular vibrations is constantly taking place.
Professor Paul Champion Elected as a 2012 Fellow of AAAS
December 03, 2012Congratulations to Professor Paul Champion who was elected as a 2012 Fellow of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science).
Justin Dowd: The True Story of Darkness
December 04, 2012Darkness is an illusion produced by the mind. Your eyes detect a sliver of light shining in the surrounding world, like Alice viewing Wonderland through a keyhole.
Justin Dowd: The True Story of Extraterrestrial Life
November 19, 2012SETI is a research project dedicated to finding proof of intelligent life in our galaxy.
Undergraduate Susie Nimitpattana Wins Provost Undergrad Research Award
November 19, 2012Congratulations to Undergraduate Susie Nimitpattana who will receive a 2012/13 Provost Undergraduate Research Award.
J. Phys. A: Mathematical and Theoretical Publishes Special Issue in Honor of Emeritus Professor F Y Wu
November 14, 2012J. Phys. A: Mathematical and Theoretical has published a special issue dedicated to the latest research in lattice models and integrability in celebration of the 80th birthday of Emeritus Professor of Physics Fa Yueh (Fred) Wu.
Professor Mark Williams Elected as a 2012 Fellow of the American Physical Society
November 13, 2012Congratulations to Professor Mark Williams who has been elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society this year.
Justin Dowd: Race to Space – The True Story of Your Future
November 13, 2012Do you know where you will be in three years? The material of living things, including you, originates from a surprising place.
Justin Dowd: Weird Science – Ironic Einstein
November 13, 2012Fact: Time passes faster on the moon than on Earth. For every minute you experience, slightly more than a minute goes by on the moon.
Titania Nanotubes Go Commercial
November 13, 2012Seven years ago, physics professor Latika Mennon’s first graduate student said he wanted to “change the world.”
Undergraduate Sean Malley Wins Provost Undergrad Research Award
November 13, 2012Congratulations to Undergraduate Sean Malley who will receive a 2012/13 Provost Undergraduate Research Award.
Justin Dowd: The True Story of Today’s Sunlight
October 22, 2012Ever feel like the sun is far away? Right now, no matter where you are or what time it is, trillions of particles are passing through your body that were in the center of the sun less than ten minutes ago.
Hunting for the Platypus Particle
October 12, 2012Members of the Experimental Physics Group (Professors Emanuela Barberis and Darien Wood and graduate students Darin Baumgartel and David Nash) worked on a search for leptoquarks.
Network Science: Luck or Reason
September 26, 2012Professor Albert-László Barabási’s network science commentary published in Nature.
Dynamics of Ranking Processes in Complex Systems – Paper Published in Physical Review Letters
September 26, 2012The Barabasi group’s article, “Dynamics of Ranking Processes in Complex Systems” has been printed in Physics Review Letters.
Justin Dowd: The True Story of Gecko Feet
September 24, 2012Your day-to-day life will soon be affected by the bottom of a gecko foot. When you hear atomic physics one of the last images in your mind would be a reptile.
Professor Meni Wanunu Receives $825K Award from the National Human Genome Research Institute
September 17, 2012Northeastern University physics Prof. Meni Wanunu has received an $825,000 award from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)—an organization that supports the development of technologies to dramatically reduce the cost of DNA sequencing in an effort to broaden the applications of genomic information in medical research and health care.
Justin Dowd: True Story of Nature’s Chaos
September 10, 2012What does your future have in common with your morning coffee, hurricanes, gambling, sports and the galaxy? All are intertwined by a mysterious property of nature called chaos.
In Memoriam – Eugene Saletan
September 07, 2012Gene Saletan Physicist, teacher, writer, poet, translator, artist, linguist, drummer, trombonist, folk dancer, skier, airman, Gene Saletan lived many lives. Until his last days, he envisioned more work to do and new paths to follow, but he ran out of time. He died on July 3rd of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Undergraduate Justin Dowd Published his Next Column in the Boston Metro
August 27, 2012Justin Dowd (Math/Physics ’13), winner of the the Metro newspaper’s Race to Space, has created another chalk animation to go with his latest column in the newspaper.
New Technologies Beget New Science
August 03, 2012Digital Epidemiology is an emerging field that has been developing over the last five years as a result of the data influx coming from new media and digital electronic devices.
Congratuations to Dr. Tarek Ibrahim who was Awarded the Doctor of Science Degree (D.Sc.) by the University of Alexandria
July 31, 2012Tarek Ibrahim who received his PhD in particle theory at NU in 1998 was awarded the Doctor of Science degree (DSc) by the University of Alexandria on the recommendation of three Fellows of the Royal Society.
What is a Topological Insulator?
July 19, 2012Professor Arun Bansil publishes two new articles about topological insulators in Nature Magazine.
Crystal and Graphene 2012 Meeting
July 16, 2012The 2012 Crystal & Graphene Science Symposium 2012 is scheduled for September 5-6, 2012.
Observations of a New Particle Compatible with the Long-Sought Higgs Boson
July 05, 2012The Higgs boson is a fundamental particle introduced by several physicists in the 1960s in the context of developing a theoretical model, the Standard Model Higgs field, which would explain why certain fundamental particles have mass and others do not. The Higgs boson itself is the only particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics that eluded experimental detection till now. Without a Higgs boson, or a similar particle, fundamental particles would not have mass and the world as we know would not exist. Physicists have been looking for the Higgs boson for more than two decades; starting with the LEP experiments at CERN in the 1990s; and then continuing with the Tevatron experiments at Fermilab and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments at CERN.
Forecasting the Spread of Emerging Diseases
July 03, 2012In this new video, Alessandro Vespignani, Sternberg Distinguished Professor of Physics, Computer Science and Health Sciences, explains how network science can not only predict the path of virus before it spreads around the world, but can potentially prevent it.
Professor Arun Bansil and Researcher Dr. Hsin Lin Publishes a Paper in Nature Physics
June 28, 2012Professor Arun Bansil and Research Associate Dr. Hsin Lin are authors to an article published in Nature Physics on spin degrees and phenomena on surfaces of topological materials.
Visiting Research Professor Oleg Batishchev Awarded $800,000 Grant from US Department of Defense
Congratulations to Visiting Research Professor Oleg Batishchev who has been awarded an $800,000 grant by the US Department of Defense to simulate space and ionospheric plasmas.
A New Model for our ‘Bursty Behavior’
It’s a rather unsurprising idea: Humans do things in bursts of activity. “We do not do things uniformly,” said Albert-László Barabási, a Distinguished Professor of Physics with joint appointments in the College of Science and the College of Computer and Information Science and founding director of Northeastern’s world-leading Center for Complex Network Research.
Magnetic Breakthrough May Have Signficant Pull
Northeastern University researchers have designed a super-strong magnetic material that may revolutionize the production of magnets found in computers, mobile phones, electric cars and wind-powered generators.
Nanotubes and Silicon: Unexpected Ingredients in a New Optical Device
“A lot of discoveries in laboratory are purely accidental,” said Swastik Kar, an assistant professor of physics in the College of Science.
Art + Science = Career
Senior physics major Emily Batt learned an important lesson by conducting research on melancholy 17th-century monks for a directed study as an undeclared freshman.
Chemotherapy From the Inside Out
Physics Professor Sri Sridhar is joining forces with Dana Farber Cancer Institute to develop nanotechnology that will improve the way prostate cancer is treated.
Congratulations to Physics Undergrad Justin Dowd
Justin Dowd (Physics ’13) wins the Metro’s Race for Space contest.
Physics Undergrad Justin Dowd US Finalist in Metro’s Race to Space
Congratulations to fourth-year Justin Down who was selected as the US finalist in the Metro’s Race to Space.
Professor Swastik Kar Awarded $308K NSF Grant
Prof. Swastik Kar has been awarded a grant of $308,907 by the National Science Foundation to support a program to investigate and develop high performance photoswitches using carbon nanotube – Si heterojunctions for optoelectronic logic devices,. This is a 3-year award starting May, 2012. Prof. Young J. Jung of MIE department is the Co-PI on this award.
Physics Undergrad Selected as this Year’s Student Commencement Speaker and One of NU’s Most Influential Seniors
Congratulations to Undergraduate Senior Emily Batt (Physics ’12) who has been selected as this year’s commencement speaker.
Paper by Physics Faculty Listed Among Hottest Articles 2011 in Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials
Congratulations to Professors Don Heiman and Sri Sridhar and Research Associate Dattatri Nagesha.
Gene Sequencing at Warp Speed
One million vocalists singing the same song will sound cacophonous to an audience member if the singers belt out the tune at different tempos.
“But if you’re listening to one person sing, and he changes his tempo, you’re still going to stay in tune with him,” said Assistant Professor Meni Wanunu.
Mapping the Depths of the Earth
As they drove through the Okavengo Delta in Botswana, a team of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) scientists and three Northeastern physics students encountered a wild elephant attempting to protect his home from the unlikely intruders.
What is Network Science?
Distinguished Professor of Physics Albert-László Barabási discusses Network Science…
Laser Show—for a Cure
The naturally occurring antibiotic Actinomycin D (ActD) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a chemotherapy drug in 1964 and has been widely used for nearly 50 years to treat a variety of tumor types. Since then, scientists have discovered that ActD works by blocking DNA transcription, the process that transcribes DNA into RNA, a macromolecule that codes for the proteins necessary for cell survival.
3Qs: Physicists Push for Underground Testing Facility
Pran Nath, the Matthews Distinguished Professor of Physics at Northeastern University, is among a group of leading theoretical physicists who have asked the Department of Energy to develop a large underground neutrino facility to maintain U.S. leadership in the frontier of particle physics.
Forecasting the Spread of Emerging Diseases
If we can forecast the path of a hurricane or even the trajectory of a subatomic particle, why shouldn’t we also be able to forecast the spread of an emerging disease? That is the question Alessandro Vespignani, who was installed as Northeastern University’s Sternberg Family Distinguished University Professor of Physics on Tuesday in the Raytheon Amphitheater, began asking 10 years ago.
Adding the Flavor to Food Science
North American and Western European cuisines tend to use ingredients that share flavor compounds, while East Asian and Southern European cuisines tend to avoid ingredients that share flavor compounds, according to a study by Northeastern University network scientists.
3Qs: Searching for the “Holy Grail” of Physics
Researchers at CERN report they are closer to discovering the Higgs boson. The research team at CERN, includes NU graduate student David Nash, undergraduate co-op student Edward Vaisman, post-doctoral research Daniele Trocino, and physics professors George Alverson, Emanuela Barberis, and Darien Wood.
Undergraduates Mathew Chamberlain and Leo Byun Take the Bronze Medal in this Year’s University Physics Competition
Congratulations to Mathew Chamberlaina nd Leo Byun who were awarded the bronze medal in the second annual University Physics Competition.
Magnetic Breakthrough May Have Significant Pull
Northeastern University researchers have designed a super-strong magnetic material that may revolutionize the production of magnets found in computers, mobile phones, electric cars and wind-powered generators.
Research Partnership to Focus on Infrared Imaging
The Electronic Materials Reserach Institute (eMRI) at Northeastern University has signed a three-year cooperative research agreement with the United States Army Research Laboratory at Adelphi, Md., to design graphene-based technology for use in low-cost infrared imaging applications for the military.