All Stories by Peter Weiss
- Physics
Light Stands Still in Atom Clouds
Ordinarily in continuous motion, light pulses come to a dead stop in specially prepared atom clouds.
- Physics
Magnetic Whispers
Promising new ways to magnetically probe tissues and substances are emerging now that a small research group has proved their once-ridiculed claim of a flaw in the 50-year-old theory behind magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and similar analytic techniques.
- Tech
Technique puts more data into airwaves
A new approach that exploits the orientations of the electric and magnetic fields in radio waves may increase data flows to and from cell phones and other wireless devices by up to a factor of six.
- Chemistry
Cut-ups create soft spots for chemistry
Networks of fabricated, squishy vesicles as tiny as red blood cells and connected by thin tubules may one day serve as microscopic chemical laboratories, sensors, and even chemical computers.
- Tech
Current may flow free and cheap
Wires that carry electricity without resistance at relatively high temperatures--and are inexpensive--moved a large step closer to reality as a 100-fold speed-up in depositing a key material wiped out a major obstacle to making those wires.
- Tech
From silicon seeds, laser might sprout
The achievement of light amplification in a layer of tiny nuggets of silicon called quantum dots raises the possibility that long-desired silicon lasers are on the way.
- Physics
Heating, simulations get the drop on drips
Air can buoy a layer of oil and, perhaps, even water leaking through a ceiling, if the air is relatively warm compared with the liquid.
- Tech
Ink-jet dots form transistor spots
A new technique makes ink-jet printing of transistor circuits possible from conductive polymer inks.
- Physics
Silk and soap settle a century-old flap
The leading explanation for why flags flap in the breeze has run afoul of new experimental findings.
- Materials Science
Anyone want to knit a microscopic sweater?
Microscopic polymer tubes can tangle themselves into a new and possibly useful structure—tiny "yarn balls" that flatten out and partly unravel in an electric field.
- Physics
When all is a spin, calm is dragged in
When laboratory vortices are mixed to create the equivalent of a tornado in a hurricane, the "hurricane" may gobble up spots of calm from the outside world.
- Physics
Hot little levers write beaucoup bits
Arrays of microscopic tips may offer a way to pack digital data more tightly and transfer it more quickly than is possible with magnetic hard disks.
