31/07/2011

Backup plan for the International Space Station

The space shuttle flew to the International Space Station 37 times, but its retirement leaves NASA reliant on the Russian Soyuz for future trips, raising the question of what would happen if the Soyuz is grounded for an ...

Discovery of a new magnetic order

Physicists at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the universities of Kiel and Hamburg are the first to discover a regular lattice of stable magnetic skyrmions – radial spiral structures made up of atomic-scale spins – ...

Yosemite to thin out young trees

National parks tend to be a tree hugger's paradise. Layers of federal laws, strict park service rules and even the disapproving scowls from some visitors prohibit so much as driving a nail into a tree, much less cutting one ...