Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Materials Science
Silk bone screws may mend better than metal ones
The silk-made screw and plates are less stiff than metal ones and dissolve in the body, making them a safer, less invasive alternative for setting broken bones.
- Physics
Superfast laser pulses could pave way for beam weapons
Short light bursts turn columns of air into energy conduits.
- Physics
Flying snakes get lift from surrounding air vortices
When a paradise flying snake leaps into and glides through the air, it’s getting lift from small, swirling vortices in the air around it.
- Physics
Key to free will may be stripping reality naked
If reality emerges from an unseen foundation, human free will could influence the future.
- Physics
Laser tweezers manipulate objects just 50 nanometers wide
Technique could allow scientists to move proteins, viruses and nanomaterials.
- Physics
Metamaterials give sound a twist
The design allows researchers rotate a wave at precise angles so that it originates from the opposite direction, which could have implications for improving ultrasound imaging.
- Quantum Physics
Finding a quantum way to make free will possible
Maybe quantum influences from the Big Bang make humans unpredictable, permitting the possibility of free will.
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- Particle Physics
Catching Particle Fever
Interspersed with the plot of Particle Fever are artful explanatory animations and commentary by six articulate physicists. Through these characters, we learn that the Higgs is a stepping stone toward a deeper understanding of the universe.
- Physics
Graphene film blocks wireless signals
A transparent film made of graphene layered with quartz absorbed 90 percent of radio waves.
- Quantum Physics
Quantum timekeeping
Recent advances in controlling the quantum behavior of particles have inspired physicists to dream of a global clock that would tell the same time everywhere. It would be hundreds of times as accurate as current atomic clocks.
- Materials Science
Making artificial muscles with a spin
Scientists have given ordinary fishing line and sewing thread a new twist. When coiled into tight corkscrews, the fibers can lift loads more than 100 times as heavy as those hefted by human muscles.
