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Newswise — Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have discovered never-before-seen polymorphic crystalline structures of triacetone-triperoxide (TATP), the easy-to-make but difficult to detect explosive increasingly used by terrorists worldwide. The findings, which were published online yesterday in ACS Crystal Growth & Design, will make it easier to detect TATP, even when it is concealed.

ARLINGTON, VA - Dr. William Phillips, an Office of Naval Research (ONR) funded Nobel Prize-winning physicist, delivered the final lecture at ONR's spring distinguished lecture series May 19. Phillips' compelling presentation, titled "Time, Einstein and the Coolest Stuff," highlighted the importance of basic research and ONR's legacy of support for innovative scientists.

Among the attendees at Phillips' lecture were Dr. Delores M. Etter, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, and Rear Admiral Nevin P. Carr, Jr., Chief of Naval Research.

If you own a computer, chances are you have experienced the aftermath of a nasty virus at some point. In contrast, there have been no major outbreaks of mobile phone viral infection, despite the fact that over 80 percent of Americans now use these devices. A team headed by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, director of the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University, set out to explain why this is true.

Ultrafast laser research at Kansas State University has allowed physicists to build on Nobel Prize-winning work in photo-electronics by none other than Albert Einstein.

Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921 for his theoretical explanation in 1905 of the so-called photo-effect -- that is, the emission of electrons from a metal surface by incident light.

NEWPORT, Ore. – Using a system of underwater hydrophones that can record sounds from hundreds of miles away, a team of scientists from Oregon State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has documented the presence of endangered North Atlantic right whales in an area they were thought to be extinct.

The discovery is particularly important, researchers say, because it is in an area that may be opened to shipping if the melting of polar ice continues, as expected.

Current radiation therapy treatment damages a patient's healthy tissue as well as eradicating the tumour it is intended to destroy, making the treatment especially invasive and often causing nasty side effects.

A new development in radiotherapy will enable a far more precise and accurate treatment for cancerous tumours by using real-time images to guide the radiation beam.

Graphene is an atomically thin sheet of carbon that has attracted significant attention due to its potential use in high-performance electronics, sensors and alternative energy devices such as solar cells. While the physics of graphene has been thoroughly explored, chemical functionalization of graphene has proven to be elusive.

Now researchers at Northwestern University have identified conditions for chemically functionalizing graphene with the organic semiconductor perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic-dianhydride (PTCDA).