All Stories by Peter Weiss
- Physics
Motor design flouts physical law
A proposed silicon device the size of a red blood cell would transform random thermal motion into useful mechanical power in violation of the second law of thermodynamics, its designers claim.
- Physics
Putting the brakes on antihydrogen
By mixing ultracold antiprotons and antielectrons, physicists have created the first atoms of antihydrogen that move at a leisurely enough pace for direct measurements of their properties.
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- Physics
Neptunium Nukes? Little-studied metal goes critical
Researchers have measured with far greater accuracy than ever before how much neptunium it would take to make a bomb.
- Humans
Flame Out: Fishy findings sustain, then snuff, stellar career
Investigators have concluded that a young, up-and-coming physicist repeatedly faked data and committed other types of scientific misconduct.
- Tech
Beads and glue defeat forgers
Researchers have devised a cheap, translucent material that, when embedded in credit cards and other items, would endow the items with unique identifiers that are almost impossible to tamper with or copy.
- Tech
Liquid Logic: Tiny plumbing networks concoct and compute
By incorporating thousands of simple valves into microscopic networks of rubbery pipes and chambers, scientists have created fluid-manipulating microchips of unprecedented power.
- Materials Science
Better-Built Diamonds: Fast growth, purity may multiply uses
A research group has fabricated the purest diamonds ever made or found, and another has devised a way to grow high-quality diamonds up to 100 times faster than typical growth rates.
- Physics
Bitty Beacon: Wee disks probe materials at microscales
Illuminated by lasers, disks no larger than red blood cells can project rotating beams bright enough to create a light show in a darkened room.
- Physics
Superconductor has odd electron pairing
Although electrons pair up in many superconductors, there's one in which they join together in two different ways, new calculations confirm.
- Physics
Clues to exotic particles found again
Although a correction to theory last year watered down its results, further analysis of a muon experiment still provides hints of new subatomic particles.
- Tech
Pocket Sockets
Keenly aware of user frustration with the short-lived batteries in cell phones and other portable electronics, researchers are rushing to work out the bugs in tiny fuel-cell power plants that will be as small as batteries—but last a lot longer and be refuelable.
