Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Broadband vision
Cells that act like optical fibers could explain why vertebrate retinas have sharp vision despite being mounted backwards.
- Physics
Spinning into Control
High-speed flywheels could replace batteries in hybrid vehicles and help make the electrical grid more reliable.
- Physics
Invisible Trail: Analyzing the vortices in the wake of a bat
Flying bat generate lift and thrust with their wings much differently than birds do.
- Physics
Degrees of Quantumness: Shades of gray in particle-wave duality
Light can be made to act as if it's composed of particles, waves, or something in between.
- Physics
The Hunt for Antihelium
Scientists have been searching about 30 years for a single nucleus of helium made from antimatter, and although the discovery would imply that whole antimatter galaxies exist, the researchers' time could be running out.
- Physics
Quantum Loophole: Some quirks of physics can be good for science
Physicists have found a way to almost double measurement precision when using photons to gauge distances.
- Physics
Exploring Time
This new educational site offers time-lapse and high-speed video clips, 3D scientific animations, and other visually stunning features that reveal how events unfold on different timescales—from billionths of seconds to billions of years—and take place too quickly or too slowly for the human senses to perceive. Go to: http://www.exploringtime.org
- Physics
Putting Einstein to the test
A NASA mission has found new evidence for Einstein's theory of gravity, but its final results have been delayed by unexpected problems.
- Physics
Fermilab could beat CERN to the punch
A new particle accelerator starting up next year in Switzerland should finally discover the origin of mass, unless an older U.S. machine does it first.
- Physics
Liquid origami
A French team has created the first mini-origami figures that fold themselves around droplets of water.
- Physics
Tiny particles baffle physicists, again
An experiment failed to confirm the existence of a new elementary particle called the sterile neutrino, but its results could still point to some new physics.
- Physics
Toward imaging single biomolecules
Experiments have given additional evidence that a future generation of X-ray sources called free-electron lasers may be able to image single biomolecules.
