Ive been waiting for this one for a few years now: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics to the two scientists who discovered the so-called giant magnetoresistive effect, a phenomenon that made the iPod (or, more specifically, the really tiny hard drive inside the iPod) possible.

Giant magnetoresistance (GMR) occurs in thin films composed of alternating magnetic and non-magnetic metal layers; hit the layers with a magnetic field, and the electrical resistivity within the layers drops by an unusually large degree (GMR shows 50% drop in electrical resistance, where regular magnetoresistance drop is around 5%). This property is useful when trying to read bits off of a magnetic hard disk—as the sensitivity of the head increases, one can make the bits much smaller on the disk, resulting in higher storage densities and consequently smaller drives.

Albert Fert of the University Paris-Sud and Peter Grünberg of Jülich
Research Centre independently discovered giant magnetoresistance in
1988.I admit, Im biased. But I love it when the non-particle physicists carry the day.—Martha Harbison

Just finished a great article from today's New York Times science section on the race to find evidence of the Higgs Boson, or "God particle" as it is often called. PPX players will want to take note—it's mandatory reading if you're following our BOSON proposition (check it out here for the current market price) which seeks to predict who will win the race to find the elusive particle.

In (incredibly) simplified terms, some physicists believe the Higgs boson is the key to understanding several mysteries of the universe's formation that current theoretical models have failed to define—namely, the origin of matter. Heavy stuff, for sure, requiring some equally heavy machinery to study—the likes of which can only be found at the world's top physics labs such as Fermilab in Illinois and CERN's Large Hadron Collider, a powerful particle accelerator currently under construction at CERN's laboratory facilities near Geneva, Switzerland (check out more amazing VR photos like the one at the top of this post).

The article also does a great job in illustrating just how competitive these physicists can get, and the role of their personal blogs, where rumors of findings are posted, re-posted and commented on—taking data previously familiar to only a few dozen hardcore particle physicists in a laboratory lunch room and hurling it into whirlwind of science blogs accessibly to anyone, scientist or not. The article points to Cosmic Variance, a blog maintained by several leading physicists that lives in many a PopSci staffer's favorites list, as well as countless others. Check them out for some delightfully geeky gossip. Oh, and watch that PPX prop! —John Mahoney

NYTimes: "At Fermilab, the Race Is on For the God Particle"PPX: BOSON

Simulated dark energy. Courtesy of Andrey Kravtsov

Physics has a big problem: 75 percent of the universe is in the form of what is called dark energy. As the name implies, scientists have no idea what dark energy is. They do know, however, that its working as a giant cosmic antigravitational force, pushing the universe apart at the seams. Since its discovery in 1998 by two competing research teams, cosmologists and particle physicists have struggled to come up with an explanation of what could possibly be creating this force, to little avail (the most common estimate, which involves the existence of as-yet-undetected exotic particles, is off by a factor of 10120).

A new paper by three Italian physicists proclaims, rather boldly, to have solved the dark-energy problem, perhaps the most perplexing question in modern physics. Their solution? Neutrinos, ephemeral but numerous particles left over from the big bang. There are three types, or flavors, of neutrinos, and the flavor of a neutrino can change through a process called mixing. According to the researchers, this mixing of neutrinos throughout the universe creates just enough energy to explain away dark energy. As they put it:

. . . the neutrino mixing phenomenon appears to provide an explanation, till now unsuspected, of the vacuum dark energy component. Our discussion leads to the conclusion that there is no further need to search for exotic candidates (e.g. scalar particles) for the dark energy component . . . [emphasis mine]

In other words: Dont worry, everyone, weve solved the biggest problem in physics; no need to continue looking for alternative explanations. Clearly, whether or not they have solved the dark-energy problem—and the jury on this one has barely started to convene—telling everyone that they can quit looking for other explanations seems wildly brazen and premature. Perhaps we should wait for some experimental confirmation of your calculations first, eh, gentlemen? —Michael Moyer