On 23 August the Scientific Information Port (PIC), a technological centre located on the campus of the UAB, started work on the first stage of the European project Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest particle accelerator in the world, which has the aim of reproducing conditions similar to those produced during the Big Bang in order to study the origins of matter.

Using European and Japanese/NASA X-ray satellites, astronomers have seen Einstein’s predicted distortion of space-time around three neutron stars, and in doing so they have pioneered a groundbreaking technique for determining the properties of these ultradense objects.

Physicists at the University of Pittsburgh have demonstrated a new form of matter that melds the characteristics of lasers with those of the world's best electrical conductors. The work introduces a new method of moving energy from one point to another as well as a low-energy means of producing a light beam like that from a laser. The Pitt researchers and their collaborators at the Bell Labs of Alcatel-Lucent in New Jersey detail the process in the May 18 issue of the journal Science.