Uzi Landman honored with Humboldt Award
Uzi Landman, professor of physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is the recipient of a Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S. Scientists. He will accept the award in June 2009 at the annual meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, to be held in Berlin.

Landman received the Humboldt Award in recognition of his past accomplishments in research and teaching. Humboldt Awards are given to researchers whose fundamental discoveries have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing significant achievements in the future.

View the entire article here.
(Georgia Tech Press Release December 23, 2008)

Physicists Set New Record for Quantum Memory Storage and Retrieval
Physicists have taken a significant step toward creation of quantum networks by establishing a new record for the length of time that quantum information can be stored in and retrieved from an ensemble of very cold atoms. Though the information remains usable for just milliseconds, even that short lifetime should be enough to allow transmission of data from one quantum repeater to another on an optical network.
(Georgia Tech Press Release December 7, 2008)

Georgia Tech Awarded New Center to Study Potential Silicon Successor
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded funding to the Georgia Institute of Technology to create a new Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC)- The Georgia Tech Laboratory for New Electronic Materials.

Click on link to view entire article: NSF awards funding for MRSEC

(Georgia Tech Press Release October 13, 2008)

Beyond The Light...
In the Antartic ice, Ignacio Taboada, from the University of Simón Bolívar, works on the construction of a colossal telescope that "sees" subatomic particles.
Click on link below to view article: (Spanish)
http://www.eluniversal.com/aniversario/99/99a9_art_
ignacio-taboada_28A1532199.shtml

Fast as a Femtosecond: New Technique Measures Ultrashort Laser Pulses at Focus
Lasers that emit ultrashort pulses of light are used for numerous applications including micromachining, microscopy, laser eye surgery, spectroscopy and controlling chemical reactions. But the quality of the results is limited by distortions caused by lenses and other optical components that are part of the experimental instrumentation.

(Press Release May 8, 2008)

Shaken Up: Atomic Force Microscopy Shows Liquids Adjust Viscosity when Confined, Shanken
Getting ketchup out of the bottle isn’t always easy. However, shaking the bottle before trying to pour allows the thick, gooey ketchup to flow more freely because it becomes more fluid when agitated. The opposite is not typically true – a liquid such as water does not become a gel when shaken.
Click on link below to view article:
http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/confined-fluids.htm
(Press Release April 29, 2008)

And the lizard is the winner
Online publisher, Naturenews reported that Professor Dan Goldman and his group has discovered a way to predict, from the size and mass of an animal’s foot, how much speed it will lose as the material over which the animal is moving changes, e.g., from hard packed to loose sand.  These findings may help design better robots for planetary exploration and other purposes. To read the article, go to Finding_the_best_foot_forward___Nature_News
To see short videos, www.nature.com/nature/newsvideo/sandbot.wmv.
gecko-movie
(Nature, March 12, 2008)

Technology Review
Technology Review, a MIT publication, presented the ten most exciting, world-changing technology of the year and Walt de Heer's idea of using graphene for electronics was recognized as one of these technologies. 

They reported "This year, as every year, we present our list of the 10 technologies we find most exciting and most likely to alter industries, fields of research,and even the way we live.

The list comprises projects in a broad range."
The selected 10 emerging technologies are picked from very different areas –  biology, medicine, psychology, material science, physics, and so forth.  It is quite an achievement to be selected as one of the ten technologies that the Review thinks "…are most likely to change the way we live."
See – Link taken from 2008, Technology Review Inc. http://www.technologyreview.com/specialreports/
specialreport.aspx?id=25

Physicists Discover Gold Can Be Magnetic on the Nanoscale
Physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have made two important findings regarding gold on the nanoscale. They found that applying an electrical field on a surface-supported gold nanocluster changes its structure from a three-dimensional one to a planar flat structure. In another paper, they relate their discovery that gold in this size regime can be made magnetic through oxygenation of gold nanowires.
(Press Release February 28, 2008)