Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Chemistry
Polymer power drives tiny reactions
Applying pressure to a building block of plastic in water, researchers generate enough energy to make your Nikes glow and do other chemical work.
- Physics
Lose a memory, use energy
Lab experiment confirms link between erasing information and heat flow.
- Physics
Plants’ reproductive weaponry unfurled
Botanical tricks include adhesion and bubbles to spread their spores into the environment.
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- Physics
Loose cable blamed for speedy neutrinos
In uncovering a technical flaw, physicists now know why an experimental result that couldn’t have been true wasn’t.
- Particle Physics
Higgs running out of hiding places
particle’s mass confirms a final missing piece of physics’ puzzle is right where scientists think it is.
- Physics
Crystals may be possible in time as well as space
A theory proposes that objects in their lowest energy state can loop through the fourth dimension forever, much as atoms arrange themselves periodically in matter.
- Physics
String theorists squeeze nine dimensions into three
A supercomputer simulation of the Big Bang’s immediate aftermath may explain why space has three directions.
- Physics
Neutrino parents call into question faster-than-light results
The particles’ precursor doesn’t have enough energy to produce the speeds reported.
- Physics
Tantalizing hints of long-sought particle
Europe’s LHC collider finds traces of what could be the Higgs boson, a theoretical entity that explains why matter has mass.
- Chemistry
Plastic isn’t over yet
A tough new form of the 20th century’s signature polymer could extend its usefulness and make it more recyclable.
