Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Materials Science
Microstructures make a beetle brilliant
Engineers looking to make a variety of surfaces whiter and brighter could learn a few things from a lowly beetle.
- Materials Science
Savvy Skins
Researchers are developing new coatings that incorporate multiple functions, offer chemical reactivity, or act in response to stimuli in the environment.
- Physics
Solving a 400-year-old supernova riddle
Astronomers have determined that Kepler's supernova, the last stellar explosion witnessed in our galaxy, belongs to the class known as type 1a.
- Physics
Global Number Cruncher
With a colorful, animated slide show, this Web site introduces visitors to the way vast streams of physics data will flow, starting later this year, from the world’s most powerful particle accelerator to 7,000 physicists around the world. Potentially packed with revelations about matter, energy, and the universe, some 15 million-billion bytes of information per […]
- Materials Science
Electrode Enhancements: New materials may boost fuel cell performance
Two teams have independently discovered ways to dramatically improve the materials used in the electrodes of fuel cells.
- Physics
Cellular Contortionist
Mounting, but controversial, evidence suggests that DNA flexes more easily than previously thought, with potentially important implications for genetics, cell biology, and nanotechnology.
- Physics
Snow Crystals
This Web site, created by Caltech physicist Kenneth G. Libbrecht, is all about snow crystals and snowflakes. With many beautiful images, it provides a guide to snowflakes, information on growing snowflakes, an introduction to the physics of snowflake formation, and ideas for snow and ice activities. Go to: http://www.snowcrystals.com/
- Physics
Super Silicon: Top semiconductor turns into a superconductor
A heavy dose of boron transforms silicon, the superhero material of electronics, into a superconductor.
- Physics
Heavy finding
Physicists have discovered never-before-seen subatomic particles related to protons and neutrons but laden with exotic, heavy subparticles called bottom quarks.
- Materials Science
Dribble Quibble: Experiments find that new basketball gets slick
According to preliminary results from a study at a physics lab, a new basketball for professional players bounces less elastically, veers more when it bounces, and becomes more slippery when damp than does a leather ball.
- Physics
First teleportation between light and matter
Physicists have for the first time transmitted quantum states between atoms and light.
- Physics
Electromagnetism could ease the flow in oil pipelines
A few minutes of exposure to a magnetic or electric field sharply reduces crude oil's viscosity for hours at a time.
