Researchers in the US and UK say they have invented a new microscopy technique for imaging live tissue with unprecedented speed and resolution. The technique involves using the tiny tip of an atomic force microscope to tap on a living cell and analysing the resulting vibrations to reveal the mechanical properties of cell tissue. The team says that the technique could have widespread applications in medicine. However, another expert in the field suggests that the group has not demonstrated the superiority of the technique to those already available.

A fifth giant planet was kicked out of the early solar system, according to computer simulations by a US-based planetary scientist. The sacrifice of this gas giant paved the way for the stable configuration of planets seen today, says David Nesvorný, who believes that the expulsion prevented Jupiter from migrating inwards and scattering the Earth and its fellow inner planets.

While humans have been writing for at least 5000 years, we have surprisingly little understanding of the physics underlying how ink moves from pen to paper. Now, physicists in South Korea and the US have worked out a theory - backed by experiment - that suggests the ink's flow rate depends on a tug-of-war that is played out between the capillary properties of pen and paper.

The famous paradox of Schrödinger's cat starts from principles of quantum physics and ends with the bizarre conclusion that a cat can be simultaneously in two physical states - one in which the cat is alive and the other in which it is dead. In real life, however, large objects such as cats clearly don't exist in a superposition of two or more states and this paradox is usually resolved in terms of quantum decoherence. But now physicists in Canada and Switzerland argue that even if decoherence could be prevented, the difficulty of making perfect measurements would stop us from confirming the cat's superposition.

A vast bubble of hot, rarefied gas has been revealed as a source of cosmic rays - the mysterious particles that batter the Earth continuously. The observation of the so-called superbubble, measuring more than 100 light-years across, was made using gamma rays collected by NASA's Fermi satellite and sheds light on the origin of cosmic rays in regions of massive-star formation.

A new type of structure for converting red light into blue has been unveiled by researchers in the US. Known as frequency doubling or second-harmonic generation (SHG), the conversion involves "nanocups", which are tiny, artificially designed 3D structures. SHG is used in light sources and in metrology applications - and the researchers believe that the new structures could be adapted to achieve frequency doubling in parts of the electromagnetic spectrum where it is currently not possible.

Quantum states are the key mathematical objects in quantum theory. It is therefore surprising that physicists have been unable to agree on what a quantum state represents. There are at least two opposing schools of thought, each almost as old as quantum theory itself. One is that a pure state is a physical property of system, much like position and momentum in classical mechanics. Another is that even a pure state has only a statistical significance, akin to a probability distribution in statistical mechanics. Here we show that, given only very mild assumptions, the statistical interpretation of the quantum state is inconsistent with the predictions of quantum theory....

A new class of 2D semiconductor has been developed by researchers in the US. The free-standing quantum membranes, which are made of indium arsenide (InAs) and are just a few layers thick, have properties that are in stark contrast to the semiconductor layers used in conventional transistors.

Physicists working on the LHCb experiment at the CERN particle-physics lab have released the best evidence yet for direct charge-parity (CP) violation in charm mesons....While more data must be analysed to confirm the result, the work could point to new physics beyond the Standard Model and help physicists understand why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.

For the first time, astronomers have discovered two distant clouds of gas that seem to be pure relics from the Big Bang.

A "four-wheel drive car" less than one billionth the length of an average SUV has been built and operated by researchers in the Netherlands and Switzerland.

An international team of researchers have developed a new type of gyroscope that is the first to measure the "wobble" in the rotational axis of the Earth from a ground-based laboratory. Astronomers normally track this wobble by continuously monitoring the position of distant objects, such as quasars. But this new method will provide a much simpler and cheaper alternative to these large-scale astronomical readings, the scientists claim.

Physicists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are analysing the results of their first attempt at colliding protons and lead ions. Further attempts at proton-lead collisions are expected over the next few weeks. If these trials are successful, a full-blown experimental programme could run in 2012.

Researchers in South Korea are the first to make a bendable digital memory that can store data without constant power. Such memories could find applications in electronic paper for more comfortable reading and in wearable computers, which could be used in medical monitoring and treatment.

For the astronomy lovers...visually very impressive...

The innermost planet around 55 Cancri A is almost certainly an exotic waterworld with a radius about twice Earth's, say astronomers

a group of scientists in the US has formulated a set of basic rules that could help understanding how particles interact at the nanoscale

The most trivial application is to triple the bandwidth capability of an antenna.... working on some more exotic stuff...

Researchers have created a new material that can produce three or more free electrons every time it absorbs a single photon. This is unlike conventional semiconductors, which produce just one free electron per photon. Based on tiny semiconductor structures called quantum dots, the new material - developed by researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Toyota Europe in Belgium - could someday be used to make more efficient solar cells.