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Written By Filip Slavchev Credit to authors of articles

Science News Of 2015

1. Planetary System Twice The Age Of The Sun Discovered February 2nd2. Monster black hole from early cosmos challenges physics- February 26th 3. Has the Sound of the Stars been Discovered by Researchers?- March 17th 4. New Form of Ice Forms in Graphene "Sandwich" - March 26th5. Dark matter is ghostly and non-interactive -March 27th6. Big Bang theory could be debunked by Large Hadron Collider- April 5th7. Aluminum battery charges smartphones in 60 seconds- April 7th8. Artificial blood vessel breakthrough as natural cells take over- April 28th

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AstronomyThe branch of science that deals with celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole. Found on page 2

Articles 1 and 3

BiologyThe study of living organisms, divided into many specialized fields that cover their morphology, physiology, anatomy, behav-ior, origin, and distribution. Found on page 9

Article 8 PhysicsThe branch of science concerned with the nature and proper-ties of matter and energy. The subject matter of physics, distin-guished from that of chemistry and biology, includes mechan-ics, heat, light and other radiation, sound, electricity, magnet-ism, and the structure of atoms. Found on page 12

Articles 2, 4, 5, 6, 7

Table of Contents

1 For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. Glaucoma, the older brother of Plato, in Plato's The Republic, c. 380 BCEAstronomy

3Planetary System Twice The Age Of The Sun DiscoveredThe Kepler-444 star is 11.2 billion years old and orbited by five planets about the size of Mercury and Venus.

AsianScientist (Feb. 2, 2015) - An international team of as-tronomers has discovered a sun-like star with orbit-

ing planets dating back to the dawn of the Gal-axy.

The discovery, published in The Astro-physical Journal, used observations

made by NASA's Kepler satellite. The scientific collaboration was led by the University of Birming-ham and contributed to by the University of Sydney.

The star, named Kepler-444, hosts five planets smaller than

Earth, with sizes varying between those of Mercury and Venus. At

11.2 billion years old it is the oldest

star with earth-sized planets ever found and proves that such planets have formed throughout the history of the Universe.

"We've never seen anything like thisit is such an old star and the large number of small planets make it very special," said Dr. Daniel Huber an author on the paper from the University of Sydney.

"It is extraordinary that such an ancient system of terrestrial-sized planets formed when the universe was just starting out, at a fifth its current age. Kepler-444 is two and a half times older than our solar system, which is only a youthful 4.5 billion years old."

"This tells us that planets this size have formed for most of the his-tory of the uni-verse and we are much better placed to under-stand exactly when this began happening."

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4Dr. Tiago Campante, the research leader from the University of Birmingham said, "We now know that Earth-sized planets have formed throughout most of the Universe's 13.8-billion-year history, which could provide scope for the existence of ancient life in the Galaxy."

The team used astro-seismology to deter-mine the age of the star and planets. This technique measures oscilla-tionsthe natural resonances of the host star caused by sound waves trapped within it.

They lead to minuscule changes or pulses in the star's brightness and allow researchers to meas-ure its diameter, mass and age. The presence and size of the planets is detected by the dim-ming that occurs when the plan-ets pass across the face of the star. This fading in the intensity of the light received from the star en-ables scientists to accurately measure the sizes of the planets relative to the size of the star.

"When astro-seismology emerged about two decades

ago we could only use it on the Sun and a few bright stars, but thanks to Kepler we can now apply the technique to literally

thousands of stars. Astro-seismology allows us to precisely measure the radius of

Kepler-444 and hence the sizes of its planets. For the smallest

planet in the Kepler-444 sys-tem, which is slightly larger

than Mercury, we meas-ured its size with an un-certainty of only 100km," Huber said.

"It was clear early on that we had discov-ered something very unusual because we had five planets orbiting a very bright

starone of the bright-est Kepler has ob-

served. It is fantastic that we can use astro-

seismology to date the star and determine just how old it is.

"In the case of Kepler-444 the planets

5orbit their parent star in less than ten days, at less than one-tenth the Earth's distance from the Sun. Their closeness to their host star means they are uninhabitable because of the lack of liquid water and high levels of radiation. Nevertheless, discov-eries like Kepler-444 provide important clues on whether a planet that is more truly comparable to Earth may exist.

"We're another step closer towards finding the astronomers' holy grailn Earth-sized planet with a one year orbit around a star similar to our Sun."

Synopsis: An international team of researchers have recently discovered a sun-like star system orbited by five planets and he name of this star system is Kepler-444 which is 11.2 billion years old. In that solar system, it contains 5 planets of varying size similar to the likes of mercury, Venus and even Earth. This is is the oldest star with earth-sized planets and proves that such systems could have existed. This find could provide scope for ancient life in the gal-axy said, Dr. Tiago Campante, the research leader from the University of Bir-mingham. The international team used astro-seismology to determine the age of the residing stars and planets. This technique essentially studies the inter-nal structure of pulsating stars by the interpretation of their frequency spectra. Different oscillation modes penetrate to different depths inside the star and pro-vides information about the interior of the star similar to the seismologists on Earth who study the interior of Earth. The slight changes of the pulses in the stars brightness allowed the scientists to determine its size, diameter, mass and age. The presence of the other planets is detected by the dimming that occurs when the planets pass across the face of the star. This fading in the in-tensity of the light received from the star enables scientists to accurately meas-ure the sizes of the planets relative to the size of the star. The scientists are

one step closer to finding an Earth-sized planet with a one year orbit around a star similar to our Sun.

6Has the Sound of the Stars been Dis-covered by Researchers?

A fluke discovery by a team of researchers has provided experi-mental evidence that stars may give off sound.

The study of fluids in motion, now known as hydrodynamics, ac-tually goes back to the Egyptians, so it is not often that new dis-coveries are made. However when examining the interaction of an ultra-intense laser with a plasma target, the team observed something unexpected.

Scientists including Dr John Pasley, of the York Plasma Institute in the Department of Physics at York, realized that in the tril-lionth of a second after the laser strikes, plasma flowed rapidly from areas of high density to more stagnant regions of low den-sity, in such a way that it created something like a traffic jam.

Trillion Hertz FrequencyHowever, the sound generated was at such a high frequency that it would have left even bats and dolphins struggling!

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7With a frequency of nearly a trillion hertz, the sound generated was not only unexpected, but was also at close to the highest frequency possible in such a material. That is six million times higher than that which can be heard by any mammal.

Plasma piled up at the interface between the high and low den-sity regions, generating a series of pressure pulses: a sound wave.

Dr Pasley, who worked with scientists from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, and the Science and Technology Facilities Councils Central Laser Facility in Oxford-shire, said:

One of the few locations in nature where we believe this effect would occur is at the surface of stars. When they are accumulat-ing new material stars could generate sound in a very similar manner to that which we observed in the laboratory so the stars might be singing but, since sound cannot propagate through the vacuum of space, no one can hear them.

The technique used to observe the sound waves in the lab works very much like a police speed camera. It allows the scien-tists to accurately measure how fluid is moving at the point that is struck by the laser on timescales of less than a trillionth of a second.

Dr Alex Robinson from the Plasma Physics Group at STFCs Central Laser Facility developed a numerical model to generate acoustic waves for the experiment. He said:

It was initially hard to determine the origin of the acoustic sig-nals, but our model produced results that compared favorably with the wavelength shifts observed in the experiment. This showed that we had discovered a new way of generating sound from fluid flows. Similar situations could occur in plasma flowing around stars

Synopsis: A recent groundbreaking discovery was made by a team of re-searchers. This incredible find provided experimental evidence that stars pro-duce a sound. The mechanics behind the discovery is hydrodynamics or

8the study of fluids in motion. This study goes back to the ancient Egyp-tians but however, when the team examined the interaction of an ultra-intense laser with a plasma target, the team observed something com-pletely unexpected.The scientists at York plasma institute realized that one-trillionth of a second after the laser stroke, the plasma flowed from areas of high density to areas of low density in such a way that created pressure pulses or sound waves. The sound produced was a fre-quency close to a trillion hertz, which was the highest frequency produced in such a material. Another interest-ing factor is that this frequency is six million times higher that any mam-mal is able to hear. Scientists postu-lated that this phenomenon would would naturally occur on the surface of stars but because sound cannot travel through the vacuum of space nothing can hear the sound waves. The technique that was used works similarly to a police speed camera. This technique allowed the scientists to accurately measure how fluid moves when struck by a laser on a timescale a trillionth of a second.

2 You can't even begin to understand biology, you can't understand life, unless you understand what it's all there for, how it arose - and that means evolution.Richard DawkinsBiology

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Artificial blood vessel breakthrough as natural cells take overBiodegradable artificial blood vessels that remain free from blockages and are replaced by the body have been developed by medical researchers in Austria. The breakthrough could lead to the increased use of artificial blood vessels in bypass opera-tions.

The blood vessels are made from an elastomer material, which is created by spinning polymer solutions in an electrical field to

form very fine threads. These threads are then wound onto a spool for use in surgical procedures.

During bypass procedures blocked blood vessels are normally replaced by vessels taken from elsewhere on the body, with cur-rent prosthetic alternatives often not suitable. Such vessels have rougher surfaces than their natural counterparts and are prone to becoming blocked. The biocompatible polymers were spun in an electrical field. To solve this problem researchers at Vienna University of Technology and Vienna Medical University developed new polymers known as thermoplastic polyure-

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thanes. The findings were published in the journalActa Biomate-rialia.

"By selecting very specific molecular building blocks we have succeeded in synthesizing a polymer with the desired proper-ties," explained Robert Liska from Vienna University of Technol-ogy's synthetic chemistry institute.

Researchers around the world have been working for years to create artificial blood vessels that work as well as the real thing. This latest breakthrough could allow surgeons to carry out more bypass operations and reduce the risk of blockages associated with smaller artificial blood vessels. The polymer created by the team in Austria is slightly porous and initially allows a small amount of blood to seep through, encouraging nearby tissue to thrive. Over time the artificial blood vessel is replaced by natu-ral, endogenous cells.

Experiments with rats have already proven successful and re-searchers are confident the technique could be carried over to humans.

"The rats' blood vessels were examined six months after inser-tion of the vascular prostheses," explained Helga Bergmeister from Vienna Medical University We did not find any aneu-rysms, thromboses or inflammation." She noted that natural cells had also turned the artificial vessel into natural body tis-sue. More pre-clinical trials will be carried out before the artifi-cial blood vessels can be used on humans.

Synopsis: Medical researchers in Austria have recently created biodegradable artificial blood vessels which could lead to the increase of their use in bypass opera-tion. These artificial blood vessels are constructed using thermoplastic polymers or elastomers. The the polymer solution is then spun in an electric field to form ex-tremely fine threads which then are woven into a cylindrical device on which film, magnetic tape, thread, or other flexible materials can be wound (spool) such as the elastomer used in this procedure. Traditionally during an operation the surgeons would generally harvest blood vessels from another body part to replace blocked blood vessels during a bypass operation and most artificial vessels created today are unsuitable for the operation. Some issues is that the vessels used in place of the old ones have is that they carry rougher surfaces in comparison to their natural counter-part and these vessels are prone to clogs and blockages. To solve this, a team at Vi-enna University of Technology and Vienna Medical University created thermoplastic-polyurethanes that are biocompatible. This breakthrough would allow surgeons to operate on more patients with needs of bypass operations and reduce the risk of blockages. The way the technology works is that when the polyurethane tubes or vessels are implanted in place of the old blood vessels, it allows some blood to flow through which encourages the surrounding tissue to grow and the artificial blood ves-sels to have their place taken by natural cells.

3 What we usually consider as impossible are simply engineering problems... there's no law of physics preventing them.-Michio KakuPhysics

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Monster black hole from early cosmos challenges physicsSuper big discovery The discovery of a supermassive black hole from the early cosmos is set to rewrite physics, say scien-tists.

An international team of astronomers detected a black hole 12 billion times the mass of our Sun, they report today in the jour-nal Nature .

The black hole, which formed just 900 million years after the Big Bang, is the source of a powerful beam of bright material known as a quasar.

"When we found this supermassive black hole we got very ex-cited because we had found something that we never thought we could find," says Dr Fuyan Bian of the Australian National University.

The team, led by Xue-Bing Wu at Peking University, discovered the black hole and quasar -- known as SDSS JO100+2802 -- using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, then followed up with three other telescopes.

With a luminosity of 420 trillion that of our Sun's, the new qua-sar is seven times brighter than the most distant quasar known.

"This quasar is very unique. Just like the brightest lighthouse in the distant universe, its glowing light will help us probe more about the early Universe," says Wu.

Challenging physics

But the discovery of the supermassive black hole powering the quasar presents a mystery: how can such a monster black hole grow so quickly in the early Universe?

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"It's very hard to make these kinds of supermassive black holes very early in the universe," says Bian.

"We need to find some new theory that can grow the supermas-sive black hole much faster than we thought."

Supermassive black holes are believed to have formed in con-junction with galaxies in the early Universe but according to cur-rent theories there must be a careful balancing of forces to build a black hole.

As material accelerates under the force of gravity towards a black hole, it heats up, emitting an extraordinary amount of en-ergy in the form of a quasar.

But the energy of the quasar actually pushes material away from the black hole so if it is too great it can stop material falling onto to the black hole altogether.

These forces must be balanced, which limits how fast a black hole can grow. This fact, combined with the small amount of matter available in the early Universe in the first place, make it hard for scientists to explain how the supermassive black hole came into existence.

"With this supermassive black hole, very early in the Universe, that theory cannot work," says Bian.

"It's time for a new hypothesis and for some new physics."

Synopsis: An international team of astronomers have discovered a supermas-sive black hole that was created approximately 900 million years after the big bang. The supermassive blackhole that was discovered by this team is about 12 billion times the size of our sun and has a luminosity 420 trillion times our sun. The black-hole is the powerful source of a powerful beam of bright material known as a quasar. The team, led by Xue-Bing Wu at Peking University, discovered the black hole and quasar known as SDSS JO100+2802 using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope. The factor that puzzles scientists most is the fact that a supermassive blackhole of that size is able to grow in such a short period of time proprietary to the current laws laws of physics. According to current theories, there must be a conjunction with galax-ies in the early universe and there must be careful balancing of forces to construct a black hole. In general, as the material accelerates towards a black hole, it heats up and emits an extraordinary amount of energy in the form of a spiral tube shape which is known as a quasar. Surprisingly, the energy of the quasar pushes material away from the black hole and if it is too great it can stop the material from falling onto the black hole. With the limitation of the amount of matter in the early universe it is impos-sibly hard to determine how the supermassive black hole came into existence.

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New Form of Ice Forms in Graphene "Sandwich"In 'square ice', which has been seen between graphene sheets, water molecules lock flat in a right-angled formation. The struc-ture is strikingly different from familiar hexagonal ice (right).

By flattening a droplet of water between two sheets of gra-phene, researchers have created a new form of ice. Just a few molecules thick, its atoms are locked in a square grid pattern.

The discovery of square ice highlights another remarkable property of graphene, which consists of flat, atom-thick sheets of carbon. Not only are graphene sheets remarkably stiff, strong and conductive, but they can also exert immense pressure on molecules trapped between them. This could explain why water seeps through stacks of graphene very quickly a property that suggests the material could be used in desalination mem-branes to purify water.

Back in 2012, a team led by Andre Geim at the Uni-versity of Man-chester, UK who shared the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for iso-lating and study-ing graphene found that water vapor could pass through laminated sheets of gra-phene oxide, something that not even helium gas could man-age. Two years later, they showed that liquid water performed

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the same trick through stacks of graphene oxide, even though those stacks filtered out other molecules.

Computer simulations suggested that water was forming layers of square ice between the graphene sheets. Pushing the ice from one end shunted all the molecules forward in concert, like

carriages in a high-speed train. But you never trust molecular-dynamics simulations, says Geim. Hence the latest experi-ment.

Ice to meet you

Geims team dropped one microliter of water on to a sheet of graphene, and then placed a second graphene wafer on top, all at room temperature. As the water slowly evaporated, the gra-phene sheets were squeezed together until they were less than one nanometre apart, trapping pockets of water in the sand-wich.

Transmission electron microscopy revealed that these pockets contained square ice. Its not totally unexpected, says Alan Soper, a physicist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Har-well, UK, who wrote a News & Views article that accompanies the report of the discovery, which is published in Nature. When water gathers into small clusters of just eight molecules, for ex-ample, it forms a cubic structure. But its never been observed in such an extended layer, he says.

Soper reckons that square ice qualifies as a new crystalline phase of ice, joining 17 others that have already been ob-served.

Flat hunting

Square ice is strikingly different from normal ice. In a single, V-shaped water molecule (H2O), an oxygen atom is connected to two hydrogen atoms by strong bonds. But it also forms weaker attractions to hydrogen atoms in two neighboring water mole-

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cules. In ice, these four bonds are usually arranged in a tetrahe-dral (pyramid) shape.

But in a layer of square ice, all the atoms lie in a flat plane with a right angle between each oxygenhydrogen bond. Geims patches of square ice contained one, two or three of these lay-ers, with oxygen atoms in adjacent layers sitting directly on top of one another.

The team calculated that the graphene sheets must be exerting more than 10,000 times atmospheric pressure to flatten water in this way. It was a surprise the pressure was so high, says Geim. That pressure is generated when the graphenes carbon atoms get close enough to distort each others electron clouds. This causes a mutual attraction, known as the van der Waals force, between carbon atoms in adjacent graphene layers. Its like having millions of little springs holding them together, says Soper.

Geim thinks that square ice could turn up in other tight spaces, such as the interiors of nanotubes. And pinning down its proper-ties should help the development of improved desalination fil-ters based on graphene, he adds. Finding out how the water behaves in a capillary is a big part of what we need to do to make a good filter, says Geim. This is a very important step.

Synopsis: Scientists have recently discovered that by flattening water mole-cules in right angled formation, they are able to create square ice. This discov-

ery also points to a incredible property of graphene, they are stiff, conduction and most importantly that the graphene is able to exert immense pressure on mole-cules between the graphene sheets (Flat, thin sheets of carbon). This property of graphene also explains why water seeps so fast between the two carbon sheets which also suggests that carbon sheets could be used in desalinization mem-branes and water purification processes. Earlier in 2012, a team led by Andre Geim at the University Manchester, UK who also shared a nobel prize in 2010 for his work on graphene sheets. A remarkable discovery that was made demon-strated that water vapor could pass through laminated sheets of graphene oxide, something that not even helium gas could manage. Two years earlier, the results of an experiment showed that liquid water passed through laminated sheets of graphene oxide despite those those stacks filtered out other molecules and com-puter simulations showed that suggested that water was forming layers of square ice between the graphene sheets. Geims team later experimented by dropping one microliter of water onto one sheet of graphene wafer, then a second was placed on top at room temperature. As the water slowly evaporated and the two sheets were pressed together until a nanometer apart trapping pockets of water in the sandwich and transmission electron microscopy revealed that these pock-ets contained square ice. Square ice is astoundingly different from normal ice for example, in a single V-shaped water molecule (H2O), an oxygen atom is con-nected two hydrogen atoms by strong bonds and also forms weaker attractions to hydrogen atoms in two neighboring water molecules. In ice, these four bonds are usually arranged in a tetrahedral shape. Conventionally, in a thin layer of square ice, all the atoms lie in a flat formation with a right angle between each Hydrogen and oxygen bond but Geims square ice contained multiple layers of this type with oxygen atoms sitting in adjacent layers on top of each other. Geims team also calculated that the graphene sheets are exerting more than 10,000 times atmos-pheric pressure to flatten water because the carbons atoms are close enough to distort each other's electron clouds.

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Dark matter is ghostly and non-interactive A new study of colliding galaxy clusters has found that dark matter doesn't even interact with itself.

The findings reported in the journal Science, mean some exist-ing dark matter models - which give the mysterious substance properties similar to normal matter - will need to be revised.

"We have concluded that dark matter is most probably not inter-acting, so it exists in its ghostly state without interacting," says the study's lead author Dr David Harvey of the cole Polytech-nique Fdrale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

"This is surprising because we see in our world that all the parti-cles interact with each other quite highly, whereas dark matter does not seem to do that."

Astronomers first noticed dark matter when they realized that there wasn't sufficient gravitational attraction to keep stars orbit-ing as fast as they do around the centers of galaxies.

Another apparently invisible substance, which scientists now call dark matter, must be providing the additional gravity.

Scientists estimate that dark matter makes up 85 per cent of all the matter in the universe.

All the normal matter - which makes up all the stars, planets, dust and gas clouds (which scientists call baryonic matter) - makes up just 15 per cent of all the matter in the universe.

Gravitational lensing

The new research by Harvey and colleagues, examined 72 gal-axy cluster collisions to see how dark matter interacts.

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Galaxy clusters are huge, gravitationally-bound collections of galaxies - interspersed with immense clouds of gas - which form some of the largest structures in the universe.

The authors compiled optical and X-ray images of galaxy clus-ter collisions using data from the Earth orbiting Chandra X-ray observatory and Hubble Space Telescope.

The X-rays are emitted by gas allowing scientists to pinpoint where the gas clouds are located, while the optical data shows the location of galaxies.

"Hubble allows us to see the galaxies in the galaxy cluster and also look at the galaxies behind galaxy clusters," says Harvey.

"By looking at background galaxies behind the cluster, you can see how light from those galaxies is bent by the mass of the foreground cluster.

The way light is bent provides clues about where the cluster's dark matter is located, and how it interacts during collisions.

The authors found galaxies pass through each other unim-peded during collisions, with their movement controlled by grav-ity.

They also found that the gas of each galaxy cluster interacts with the gas of the colliding cluster as they merge, slowing down and separating from its original galaxy cluster.

The question is; what is the dark matter doing during these colli-sions?

"We found the dark matter doesn't slow down, so as these huge dense lumps of dark matter come together, they go through each other without any interaction, they just follow the galaxies, or more accurately the galaxies are sticking to the dark matter," says Harvey.

"This is telling us that dark matter will most likely not interact the way protons [of normal matter] do, so it's ruling out models of dark matter that try to mirror the universe we have.

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"Various dark matter models predict that dark matter will self in-teract to a certain degree, but what we've shown is that it doesn't."

Time for a rethink

According to Harvey, theorists will now need to tweak their dark matter models of 'mirror universes' and 'dark photons' in order to match his teams observations.

"At the moment there are inconsistencies ... what we are doing is getting us closer to understanding what dark matter is," says Harvey.

The authors work complements the dark matter research about to be undertaken by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

"What CERN and the other ground based detector experiments are looking to do is see how dark matter relates to the standard model of particle physics," says Harvey.

"What I'm looking at is how dark matter interacts with in its own dark sector, its own dark universe side, which you can't do from the ground."

Synopsis: Scientists at CERN have conducted a study of colliding galaxy clusters that claims that it has found that dark matter doesn't even interact with itself. Astronomers have first noticed the presence of dark matter when it came to the realization that there was not a sufficient gravitational attraction to keep stars orbiting as fast as they should at the center of galaxies, so scientists pos-

tulated that there was an invisible property of matter or even another type of matter that influences the gravitational attraction which is what they call dark matter, in addition to this scientists think that based on this premise, 85% of the universe is made up of dark matter and the other 15% is the normal mat-ter. The normal matter in the universe is what makes planets, stars, dust clouds and other materials and the regular matter is called Baryonic matter. New research by Harvey and colleagues intends to study the collisions of 72 galaxy clusters in order to observe how dark matter interacts. Essentially, gal-axy clusters are massive, gravitationally-bound collections of galaxies and are interspersed with immense clouds of gas which form some of the largest struc-tures in the universe. The researchers gathered optical data and X-rays from the Hubble telescope and the Chandra X-ray observatory for the collisions of the galaxies. In order to find these galaxies the scientists use the optical data to track the location of the galaxies and use the X-ray imagery to find the gas clouds. The authors findings are simply astounding, the authors manage to find out that the way light is bent and how it provides clues about where the clusters dark matter is and how it interacts during collisions. Scientist found that when a collision occurs between two galaxies, dark matter does not slow down and does not interact. This demonstrates that dark matter does not inter-act in the way of baryonic (normal) matter which forces scientists to rethink their models of dark matter that try to mirror the universe we have and how they interact.

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Big Bang theory could be debunked by Large Hadron ColliderThe detection of miniature black holes by the Large Hadron Col-lider could prove the existence of parallel universes and show that the Big Bang did not happen, scientists believe.

The particle accelerator, which will be restarted this week, has already found the Higgs boson the God Particle which is thought to give mass to other particles.

Now scientists at Cern in Switzerland believe they might find miniature black holes which would reveal the existence of a par-allel universe.

And if the holes are found at a certain energy, it could prove the controversial theory of rainbow gravity which suggests that the universe stretches back into time infinitely with no singular point where it started, and no Big Bang.

The theory was postulated to reconcile Einsteins theory of gen-eral relativity which deals with very large objects, and quan-tum mechanics which looks at the tiniest building blocks of the universe. It takes its name from a suggestion that gravity's

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effect on the cosmos is felt differently by varying wavelengths of light.

The huge amounts of energy needed to make rainbow gravity

would mean that the early universe was very different. One re-sult would be that if you retrace time backward, the universe

gets denser, approaching an infinite density but never quite reaching it.

The effect of rainbow gravity is small for objects like the Earth but it is significant and measurable for black holes. It could be detected by the Large Hadron Collider if it picks up or creates black holes within the accelerator.

We have calculated the energy at which we expect to detect these mini black holes in gravity's rainbow [a new theory]. If we do detect mini black holes at this energy, then we will know that both gravity's rainbow and extra dimensions are correct, Dr Mir Faizal told Phys.org.

The second run of the LHC will begin this week and the beams are expected to go full circle on Wednesday for the first time since the 27km accelerator was shut down in early 2013 for an upgrade.

When it is fired up it will smash protons together at nearly dou-ble the energy that was used to find the Higgs boson.

Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN, said the switch-on would create a new era for physics which could also shed light on dark matter, dark energy and super-symmetry.

I want to see the first light in the dark universe. If that happens, then nature is kind to me.

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Scientists believe they could find the first proof of alternative re-alities that exist outside out own universe.

The newly revamped Large Hadron Collider

It is even possible that gravity from our own universe may leak into this parallel universe, scientists at the LHC say.

Just as many parallel sheets of paper, which are two dimen-sional objects [breadth and length] can exist in a third dimen-

sion [height], parallel universes can also exist in higher dimen-sions, added Dr Faizal,

We predict that gravity can leak into extra dimensions, and if it does, then miniature black holes can be produced at the LHC.

Normally, when people think of the multiverse, they think of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, where every possibility is actualised.

"This cannot be tested and so it is philosophy and not science.

This is not what we mean by parallel universes. What we mean is real universes in extra dimensions.

As gravity can flow out of our universe into the extra dimen-sions, such a model can be tested by the detection of mini black holes at the LHC.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has undergone important up-grades and repairs over the past two years since the first shut-down.

The particle collider boasts new magnets, superior cryogenics, higher voltage and higher energy beams that will allow the ma-chine to run at nearly double the collision energy of the first run.

The first circulating beams of protons in the LHC are planned for the week beginning 23 March, and by late May to early June the LHC aims to be running at 13 TeV.

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Frances Saunders, president of the IOP, said, This has been a massive effort by all the scientists and engineers at CERN to up-grade the LHC and its detectors and get it ready to operate at almost double the collision energies of the first run.

As well as allowing greater study of the Higgs boson there is much anticipation amongst the physics community as to what else may be found at these higher energies, testing our theories and understanding of concepts such as supersymmetry and po-tentially giving greater insight into the 95 per cent of the uni-verse that is composed of dark matter and dark energy.

Synopsis: Scientists at CERN believe that if they are able to detect miniature black holes in the hadron collider, this would prove the exis-tence of parallel universes . The particle accelerator which discovered the Higgs-boson, which is the invisible particle thought to give mass to other particles. Now, when the collider is restarted, they will attempt to detect miniature black holes which would prove the existence of a paral-lel universe and if they are found at a particular energy, it would also prove the theory of rainbow gravity which theorizes that there was no big bang, the universe stretches back infinitely with no beginning, but this would also mean the early universe was very different at that time. It would have gotten denser, approaching an infinite density but never quite reaching it which also reveal another aspect of the experiment, the energy required to achieve rainbow gravity is what contributes to the den-sity of the early universe . The theory was postulated to reconcile Ein-steins theory of general relativity which deals with very large objects, and quantum mechanics which looks at the tiniest building blocks of the universe. In quantum mechanics, the effects of rainbow gravity were small on planetary bodies like earth but a large impact on objects such as black holes and rainbow gravity could be detected by the Large Had-ron Collider if it picks up or creates black holes within the accelerator, in addition the accelerator will use double the energy it used to find the Higgs-Boson. If this experiment goes according to plan, the scientists at CERN would be the first to find evidence of alternative realities outside of our universe and it is entirely possible that our gravity may leak into the parallel universe which is also evidence of this postulation. Just as many parallel sheets of paper, which are two dimensional objects [breadth and length] can exist in a third dimension [height], parallel universes can also exist in higher dimensions, added Dr Faizal.

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Aluminum battery charges smart-phones in 60 secondsA bendable battery that can fully charge a smartphone in less than one minute could soon be powering popular gadgets. The potentially-revolutionary aluminium battery is also more environ-mentally friendly than current lithium-ion and alkaline batteries and keeps working for "thousands" of cycles.

The "ultrafast rechargeable aluminium-ion battery", developed by chemists at Stanford University, is a "major breakthrough" for portable technology, according to the team that discovered it. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.

In experiments the battery successfully charged a smartphone in one minute, compared to current lithium-ion batteries that take hours to deliver a full charge. The aluminium-ion battery de-livers two volts of electricity and could also potentially replace the millions of 1.5 volt AA and AAA batteries used in gadgets ranging from remote controls to toys.

Researchers have been experimenting with aluminium batteries for decades, but have never found the perfect combination of materials to produce enough voltage via a cell that lasts for thousands of cycles of charging and discharging.

"We have developed a rechargeable aluminium battery that may replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batter-ies, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batter-ies, which occasionally burst into flames," said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford, adding that the battery won't catch fire "even if you drill through it". The experimental battery uses a negatively charged anode made from aluminium, and a positively charged cathode made from graphite. The electrolyte inside is a salt that's liquid at room temperature, making it more stable and better for the environment than conventional

Section 5

Physics

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batteries.The prototype is also reportedly more durable, lasting more than 7,500 cycles without loss of capacity. Previous aluminium-ion batteries lasted around 100 cycles, with lithium-ion batteries running to around 1,000 cycles.

"This was the first time an ultra-fast aluminium-ion battery was constructed with stability over thousands of cycles," the authors wrote.While it currently produces half the voltage required to power a smartphone the researches believe that improvements to the cathode material could increase voltage and energy density.

"Otherwise, our battery has everything else you'd dream that a battery should have: inexpensive electrodes, good safety, high-

speed charging, flexibility and long cycle life. I see this as a new battery in its early days. It's quite exciting," Dai said.

Synopsis: Chemists at Stanford University have produced a bend-able aluminum battery that is able to charge your device in 60 sec-onds. Aluminum used in the battery is also more environmentally friendly than the lithium-ion and alkaline-ion battery used in most of to-days phones and devices. During experiments by the two chemists, they ran successful tests in charging a smartphone to deliver a full charge in less than 60 seconds. Despite delivering only 2-volts of en-ergy to the device, it would replace most 1.5 AA and AAA batteries used in a variety of gadgets. But this is not the first encounter with this incredible tech, researchers have already been experimenting with alu-minum batteries but could never find the perfect combination of materi-als to produce enough voltage through a cell that lasts thousands of cycles. This battery tech found in the aluminum-ion batteries may re-place the existing batteries such as the lithium-ion batteries found in modern devices like iPads and iPhones and not only is this new bat-tery environmentally friendly, it wont burst into flames even when you drill through it. This experimental battery uses a negatively charged anode made from aluminum, and a positively charged cathode made from graphite. The electrolyte inside is a salt that's liquid at room tem-perature, making it more stable and better for the environment than conventional batteries. The prototype is also more durable and is able to charge more than 7,500 cycles, while this prototype is incredible, the first iteration was only able to go through 100 cycles and the modern-day lithium-ion battery is able to last 1000 cycles.