geekman writes “NASA is paying Rice University $11 million to build a prototype quantum wire that can conduct electricity 10 times better than traditional copper cables at one-sixth the weight. Rice has four years to build a one-meter-long quantum wire, which will be made out of carbon nanotubes. Seems like a lot of money for a little wire, but then again, all the rocket scientists at Los Alamos have only ever been able to put together a four-centimeter nanotube.”

Slashdot | Rice Contracted to Provide NASA’s Quantum Wire

New research suggests that the early universe was a hot, dense liquid made of basic atomic particles, overturning the widely held belief that fiery gas existed immediately after the “big bang” that created the cosmos.

Related:
* CNN: Scientists: Early universe didn’t blow so much as flow
* USAToday.com: Picking apart the ‘Big Bang’ brings a big mystery
* Slashdot.org: Data Suggests Early Universe was Superfluid

Science News : Early universe may have been fluid

[/.] SpaceAdmiral writes “Nature reports that, according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, ‘It’s a near certainty that black holes don’t exist.’

George Chapline argues that the collapse of massive stars is more likely to lead to dark energy stars. These dark energy stars behave somewhat like a black hole outside of the surface, but the negative gravity inside could cause matter to ‘bounce back out again.’”

Slashdot | Black Holes ‘Do Not Exist,’ Contends Physicist

Italian, US cosmologists present alternate explanation for accelerating expansion of the universe: Was Einstein right when he said he was wrong?

[/.] “A Fermilab press release reports that the expansion of the universe may be explainable without the need for dark energy or a cosmological constant. Apparently, ripples from inflation in the early universe may account for the observed expansion rate of the universe.”

Slashdot | Fermilab Reports Dark Energy Not Needed

[/.] TheMatt writes “Thomas Young’s double-slit experiment is a classic experiment that helped establish the wave-like nature of light. Since then, it has been done with atoms, buckyballs, and biomolecules. It has even been seen in a single molecule, and the single electron version was voted the most beautiful experiment by Physics World readers (covered previously on Slashdot). Now, PhysicsWeb is reporting that Gerhard Paulus and coworkers have conducted the double-slit experiment using a double-slit in time, not space. The “slit” was a crafted femtosecond pulse consisting of one-and-a-half cycles–say, two maxima and one minima–passed through an argon gas. Each maxima has a probability of ionizing an argon atom and producing an electron. The electrons were accelerated to a detector which observed an interference pattern since the detector had no idea which maximum produced the electron.”

Slashdot | Double-Slit Experiment in Time, Not Space