Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Terrific Timekeeper: Optical atomic clock beats world standard
An innovative atomic clock is more precise than the breed of clocks that's been the best for 50 years.
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- Materials Science
Seeing the light
Researchers have developed a smart petri dish that signals cell death with intense light.
- Materials Science
Greenhouse Glass: Squeezing and heating carbon dioxide yields exotic, see-through solid
Researchers have forged solid glass from carbon dioxide.
- Physics
String Trio: Novel instrument strums like guitar, rings like bell
A new type of musical instrument, equipped with Y-shaped strings, may be the first of a family of string instruments with unusual overtones typically heard in bells or gongs.
- Physics
As waters part, polygons appear
When rapidly swirled inside a stationary bucket, liquids can form whirlpools of surprising shapes, such as triangles and hexagons.
- Materials Science
Gripping Tale: Metal oozes in nanotubes’ grasp
Carbon nanotubes can squeeze substances inside them with such high pressures that even hard metals squish like putty.
- Physics
A well-spun egg also jumps
Physicists have demonstrated that spinning a hard-boiled egg horizontally makes it jump into the air.
- Materials Science
Feeling cagey
Researchers have discovered that gold can take the shape of nanoscale, hollow cages.
- Physics
Confined gas rejects compromise
Pairs of tiny gas clouds of unequal energies mixing inside narrow tubes retain their original energy differences.
- Physics
Universe in Flux: Constant of nature might have changed
Researchers have found signs that one of the constants of nature has undergone a subtle shift since the universe's infancy.
- Physics
Abuzz about uranium
A type of atomic vibration never before seen in ordinary solid materials has been observed in uranium.
