Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Scientists have broken the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in a lab, achieving a temperature just trillionths of a degree away from absolute zero by dropping freezing, magnetized gas down a tower 120 metres tall.
The exact temperature scientists measured was 38 trillionths of a degree above -273 degrees Celsius — the closest that has ever been measured to absolute zero in a lab.
Absolute zero in Kelvin, a temperature thought to be impossible for anything in the universe to reach, is -273.15 degrees Celsius.
The feat was achieved while German researchers were aiming to study the wave properties of atoms to gain a better understanding of quantum mechanics, a discipline of science that examines how the world functions at the subatomic level, where particles can exist in two places simultaneously.
Researchers at the lab at the Centre for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity at the University of Bremen created one of “the coldest places in the universe” for just a few seconds, according to a German press release on the research.
Although no thermometers can actually measure a temperature that low, scientists were able to calculate the number by looking at the movement of the atoms in the newly-cold gas. Temperature is actually a measurement of the kinetic energy of particles that make up an object or space, which allowed researchers to calculate how cold the gas was.
Extremely low temperatures have the unique property of making atoms and other particles act in extremely strange ways. In fact, extremely low temperatures can create what some call a fifth state of matter: a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), which is when a gas made up of bosons, a fundamental particle, is cooled to close to absolute zero.
At this temperature, these separate particles start to act as one quantum entity, with the same wave function, something that was predicted by Albert Einstein almost a century ago based on the quantum formulations of the physicist Satyendra Nath Bose.
Studying the BEC allow scientists to gain a better picture of how subatomic particles behave.
Researchers utilized the drop tower at the University of Bremen — a microgravity lab where scientists use free fall to study objects at near weightlessness — in order to extend the duration of the BEC longer than would normally be possible.
They flipped a magnetic field off and on as the BEC fell to slow down the atoms, allowing researchers to create the slowest spreading BEC, and also the coldest yet.
According to the release, the slowed expansion of the BEC allowed researchers to observe it for up to two seconds.
The research is described in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters at the end of August.
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
One of the two pilots aboard an airplane carrying fuel reported there was a fire on the airplane shortly before it crashed and burned outside Fairbanks, killing both people on board, a federal aviation official said Wednesday.
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
A Toronto couple are speaking out about their 'extremely dangerous' experience on board a sinking tour boat in the Dominican Republic last week.
The Edmonton Police Service has released a number of surveillance videos related to a series of extortion cases in the city now dubbed 'Project Gaslight.'
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.