In the News

Tanja Horn's PhD thesis, entitled "Exploring the Universal Glue" is currently on the Jefferson Lab home page. Horn finished her PhD in April 2006. To view the article, visit www.jlab.org or www.jlab.org/news/releases/2007/glue.html

Richard Berg, Professor, was mentioned in the Washington Post article regarding homespun proverbs. Berg's physics expertise was used to determine the reality of popular proverbs. The article appeared in the November 12th issue.

Robert Park, Professor, was quoted in the December 9^th issue of New Scientist. Park discussed the numerous self-published books and articles he receives from people claiming to have discovered a breakthrough or conspiracy theory in science.

IceCube is featured in Science Magazine's special Particle Astrophysics issue. Several images accompany the articles written by Francis Halzen and staff writers. The issue is now available to Science subscribers at:
www.sciencemag.org

Hung-Chih Kan, Assistant Research Scientist and Raymond J. Phaneuf, Associate Professor, have co-written and published a paper in the IOP Publishing Journal, Nanotechnology. The paper entitled, "Transient Roughening Behavior and Spontaneous Pattern Formation During Plasma Etching of Nanoporous Silica," will be featured in the February 2007 print version. To read the paper online, visit:
www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/-ffissn=all/0957-4

Betsy Beise, professor, and Maryland alumna, Kristin Kiriluk, participated in an experiment at NIST which resulted in the first experimental observation of a rare neutron decay process in which quanta of light are emitted along with the other, more well-known decay products (a proton, electron and anti-neutrino). A key element of the experiment was the development of a photon detector that could operate well at low temperatures inside the bore of the superconducting magnet that was part of the apparatus.  While Kristin was an undergraduate physics major, she worked with the NIST group to help develop the photon detector. Her work culminated in a senior thesis project, for which she was a co-recipient of both the best honor’s thesis award and IPST's Monroe Martin Undergraduate thesis prize for outstanding research in 2005.  Kristin is now in graduate school in experimental nuclear physics at Colorado University in Boulder. The results of the NIST experiment are reported in the December 21 issue of Nature. Additional background information and the press release by NIST can be found at www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/neutron_light.html.