news 2016

In an international first, a research team of experimental physicists led by Francesca Ferlaino and theoretical physicists led by Peter Zoller has measured long-range magnetic interactions between ultracold particles confined in an optical lattice. Their work, published in Science, introduces a new control knob to quantum simulation.

Completely ordinary photos are being transformed into clean, high-resolution 3D worlds thanks to algorithms from TU Wien.

Scientists from TU Wien (Vienna) are proposing a new method for creating extremely strong spin currents. They are essential for spintronics, a technology that could replace today's electronics. A laser pulse hits nickel (green). Spin-up-electrons (red) change into silicon (yellow). Electrons with both spin-orientations change back from silicon into nickel.

When current comes in discrete packages: Viennese scientists unravel the quantum properties of the carbon material graphene. In 2010 the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for the discovery of the exceptional material graphene, which consists of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice.

Scientists from Austria, Finland and Hungary are using laser scanners to study the day-night rhythm of trees. As it turns out, trees go to sleep too. Most living organisms adapt their behavior to the rhythm of day and night. Plants are no exception: flowers open in the morning, some tree leaves close during the night.

The genetic information we receive from our parents in the form of chromosomes are mosaics assembled from the two copies of chromosomes each parent has. This reshuffling of chromosome pieces happens via a cut and paste mechanism. How such cuts - or breaks - in our genetic material are repaired is the research interest of Verena Jantsch and her group at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna.

Elemental carbon appears in many different forms, including diamond and graphite. Their unique structural, electrical and optical properties have a broad range of potential applications in composite materials and nanoelectronics. Within the "carbon family", only carbyne, the truly one-dimensional form of carbon, has not yet been synthesized; although studied for the last 50 years, its extreme instability in ambient conditions has rendered the final experimental proof of its existence elusive.

The new concrete tower construction method, which has been developed by TU Wien, offers significant benefits specifically for wind turbines. More and more wind power plants are producing electricity - but what is the best method for building them? The team led by Prof. Johann Kollegger at the Institute of Structural Engineering at TU Wien has developed a new tower construction method which combines the key benefits of the existing methods.

Despite prevalent myths in public about autism about their lack of empathic concern for others and propensity for condoning harmful behavior, so far the relation between their empathic capacity and moral evaluations remains sparsely studied. New research shows that the seemingly callous attitudes in autism are not a feature of autism per se but are due to an understudied aspect of their personality called alexithymia, which is characterized by emotional processing difficulties.

From the coating of electronic or pharmaceutical products to thin plastic films - a new technique developed by TU Wien enables coating processes to be quality controlled in real time. When covering large areas with very thin layers of exactly the right thickness in the micrometre or nanometre range, it is easy to make mistakes.

What is it that walnut leaves, mushrooms and Coreopsis have in common? An enzyme that is also responsible for the browning reaction in bananas or apples is present in all of them in large amounts. For the first time, chemists from the University of Vienna around Annette Rompel have analysed the structure of the enzyme in the leaves of Coreopsis.

TUGSAT-1/BRITE-Austria and UniBRITE, Austria's first satellites in space, celebrate their third birthday. "Astronomy & Astrophysics" publishes three papers with the ESA-missions latest results. Photographic material available for download at the end of the text. . "BRITE stands for BRIght Target Explorer.

Physicists around Anton Zeilinger have, for the first time, evaluated the almost 100-year long history of quantum delayed-choice experiments - from the theoretical beginnings with Albert Einstein to the latest research works in the present. The extensive study now appeared in the renowned journal "Reviews of Modern Physics".

Our immune system constantly fights off bacteria and viruses and while doing so needs to find a critical balance between overand under-reaction, similar to Daedalus and Icarus in Greek mythology who must neither fly too high nor too low to escape their captivity. How this balancing act is regulated at the molecular levels was so far poorly understood.

From powder to solid metal pieces - with a bit of technical trickery, processes that are already used successfully for other materials can now also be used for aluminium.

Researchers at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), the University of Vienna, and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona have achieved a new milestone in quantum physics: they were able to entangle three particles of light in a high-dimensional quantum property related to the "twist" of their wavefront structure.

Quantum physics is counterintuitive. Many of the phenomena in the quantum world do not have a classical analog: In the quantum world, a coin is not either heads or tails - but can have both properties at the same time. For a better understanding of such phenomena, laboratory experiments are indispensable.

Stars do not accumulate their final mass steadily, but in a series of violent events manifesting themselves as sharp stellar brightening. According to this theory of Eduard Vorobyov from the University of Vienna, stellar brightening can be caused by fragmentation due to gravitational instabilities in massive gaseous disks surrounding young stars, followed by migration of dense gaseous clumps onto the star.

Ravens anticipate what other ravens can see, cognitive biologists Thomas Bugnyar and Stephan Reber of the University Vienna found out in collaboration with the philosopher Cameron Buckner (University of Houston, Texas). Bugnyar and his team show for the first time unequivocally that animals do not rely on behavioural cues to pass an attribution task.