All Stories by James R. Riordon
- Physics
Physicists explain how to execute a nearly splashless dive
A pocket of air lets elite divers pull off the rip entry, breaking through the water without sending it flying.
- Physics
How physics can improve the urinal
Urinals built with curves like those in nautilus shells eliminate the splash-back common with conventional commodes.
- Plants
Why dandelion seeds are so good at spreading widely
Individual seeds on a dandelion flower are programmed to let go for a specific wind direction, allowing them to spread widely as the wind shifts.
- Physics
Zapping tiny metal drops with sound creates wires for soft electronics
Wearable medical devices and stretchable displays could benefit from a way to use high-frequency sound to create liquid metal wires.
- Physics
Crowdsourced cell phone data could keep bridges safe and strong
Accelerometers and GPS sensors in smartphones could provide frequent, real-time data on bridge vibrations, and alert engineers to changes in integrity
- Climate
Wind turbines could help capture carbon dioxide while providing power
Turbulent wakes from wind turbines can concentrate CO2 from cities and factories, making it easier to remove the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.
- Earth
Particles from space provide a new look inside cyclones
Cosmic rays that smash into the atmosphere make muons that are sensitive to changing air pressure inside storms.
- Physics
Protons may be stretchier than physics predicts
Studying how quarks inside protons move in response to electric fields shows that protons seem to stretch more than theory says they should.
- Astronomy
For the first time, astronomers saw dust in space being pushed by starlight
Images collected over 16 years reveal that dust expelled from a well-known binary star system is hurried on its way by light from those stars.
- Health & Medicine
Cooperative sperm outrun loners in the mating race
Sperm that swim in clusters travel more directly toward the uterus, while overcoming fluid currents in the reproductive tract.
- Physics
Quantum experiments with entangled photons win the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics
Three pioneers in quantum information science share this year’s Nobel Prize in physics.
- Physics
Despite a retraction, a room-temperature superconductor claim isn’t dead yet
A high-profile retraction called a superconductivity result into question. But a new experiment appears to support it.
