
Rochester scientist discovers new comet
David Cameron, a visiting scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has discovered a new comet – the first to be discovered by an astronomer associated with the University or with the Rochester area in over a century, his colleagues believe.

Rochester team among those awarded $3 million Breakthrough Prize for work with neutrinos
A team led by professors Steven Manly and Kevin McFarland was honored “for the fundamental discovery of neutrino oscillations, revealing a new frontier beyond, and possibly far beyond, the standard model of particle physics.”

First measurements taken of South Africa’s iron age magnetic field history
Combined with the current weakening of Earth’s magnetic field, the data suggest that the region of Earth’s core beneath southern Africa may play a special role in reversals of the planet’s magnetic poles.

Renowned particle physicist Susumu Okubo dies
Okubo, a Rochester alumnus and faculty member since 1964, was internationally known for his groundbreaking investigations into the patterns and decay rates of fundamental particles and symmetries of the universe.

Drawing a line between quantum and classical: Bell’s Inequality fails test as boundary
The best guide to the boundary between our everyday world and the “spooky” features of the quantum world has been a theorem called Bell’s Inequality, but now a new paper shows that we understand the frontiers of that quantum world less well than scientists have thought.

Three Rochester scientists receive prestigious NSF CAREER awards
The National Science Foundation has granted its most prestigious award in support of junior faculty, the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, to three University researchers: Antonio Badolato, Danielle Benoit, and Michael Neidig.

Rochester researchers on team behind new gamma ray observatory
Some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe produce high-energy gamma rays, and a new observatory in Mexico aims to expand the catalog of known gamma ray sources.

A close call of 0.8 light years
A recently discovered dim star likely passed some 70,000 years ago through our solar system’s distant cloud of comets known as the Oort Cloud. No other star is known to have ever approached our solar system this closely.

Gigantic ring system around J1407b much larger, heavier than Saturn’s
Rochester astronomers, along with colleagues at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands have discovered that the ring system that they see eclipse the very young Sun-like star J1407 is of enormous proportions, much larger and heavier than the ring system of Saturn.

Researchers show neutrinos can deliver not only full-on hits but also ‘glancing blows’
In what they call a “weird little corner” of the already weird world of neutrinos, physicists have found evidence that these tiny particles might be involved in a surprising reaction. In an experiment conducted with the international MINERvA collaboration at Fermilab, physics professor Kevin McFarland and his students and colleagues provide evidence that neutrinos can sometimes interact with a nucleus but leave it basically untouched, resulting in a new particle being created out of a vacuum.