Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Hogan’s noise
A cosmologist suggests a novel way to uncover the nature of spacetime on the smallest scales.
- Chemistry
Naming an atomic heavyweight
More than a decade after its debut in a German lab, element 112 is officially named copernicium.
- Tech
Leasing car batteries to the power company
Most people, on average, drive their cars only an hour or two a day. The rest of the time, those pricey vehicles sit parked on the street or in some garage. But if those cars had a big bank of batteries – typical of today’s gasoline hybrids or soon-to-hit-the-road plug-in hybrids – they could be earning their owners money while sitting parked. Maybe $5 to $10 a day, just by serving as a back-up energy-storage system for the electric-utility grid.
- Quantum Physics
Higgs and his particle prove elusive
Peter Higgs and colleagues receive particle theory prize; scientists still hunting the proposed boson
- Physics
Hot and heavy matter runs a 4 trillion degree fever
Protons and neutrons melted in collisions of gold atoms have created the hottest matter ever made in a lab
- Materials Science
A charge for freezing water at different temperatures
Experiments use positive and negative forces to control ice formation at temperatures well below the normal freezing point.
- Physics
Algae use quantum trick to harvest light
A new study finds that proteins used in photosynthesis take advantage of electrons’ wavelike properties
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- Physics
Quantum computer simulates hydrogen molecule just right
Team builds device that uses two photons to calculate electron energies.
- Earth
Tsunamis could telegraph their imminent arrival
Telecommunication cables could give early warnings of giant waves.
- Materials Science
Breakup doesn’t keep hydrogel down
Scientists create a new material that is strong, soft and self-healing.
- Physics
Just a stone’s throw forms a supersonic jet
Objects hitting water can move air at the speed of sound.
