Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Materials Science
Tissue Tether: Improved conducting plastic could boost nerve-regeneration success
Biomedical engineers aim to repair damaged nerves with a chemically modified conducting polymer that stimulates the growth of nerve cells.
- Physics
Molecular Anatomy Revealed
Using ever-faster lasers to zap the electron clouds in atoms and molecules, scientists are making major strides toward observing and controlling the elementary quantum transformations that underlie all of chemistry.
- Physics
Quantum Bull’s-Eye: Particle-mass prediction hits the mark
By precisely predicting the mass of a subatomic meson, physicists have demonstrated they have the computational know-how to calculate real-world details from quark basics.
- Physics
Galactic data shore up a constant
Alpha, a constant of nature found to vary in some astrophysical studies, actually holds steady, according to the first survey of galaxies used to evaluate alpha's constancy.
- Physics
Scales tilt against five-quark particles
Studies that fail to find purported five-quark particles, or pentaquarks, are stacking up quicker than studies that claim to have found such particles, suggesting that they might not really exist.
- Physics
Test puts pedal to heavy metal
Stellar explosions forge heavy elements such as gold more quickly than scientists had predicted, as indicated by the first measurement of the half-life of a rare form of nickel that's a key link in the chain of element formation.
- Materials Science
Something to Chew On
Researchers are closer than ever to making synthetic enamel to improve dental implants and perhaps to grow a whole tooth from scratch.
- Materials Science
Shape shifter
Scientists have created a polymer that, after being deformed, will revert to its original shape when exposed to ultraviolet light.
- Physics
Einstein at Home
The Einstein@Home program offers participants a chance to use idle time on their computers to search for spinning pulsars in data collected by gravitational-wave detectors in the United States and Europe. This Web site describes the program and lets you sign up your computer for cutting-edge astrophysics research. Go to: http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/
- Physics
Extreme Matter: Mother of all material flows into view
By making an extremely hot and dense state of matter that, surprisingly, is a liquid, physicists say they may have finally created a sample of matter much like the primordial stuff that permeated the newborn universe and gave rise to all other matter.
- Physics
Built for Speed: Novel transistor design spurns limits
The novel design of what's now the world's fastest transistor opens the possibility of even speedier devices that could operate as fast as a trillion cycles per second.
- Physics
Lone protein molecule could tip this scale
A scale-on-a-chip capable of weighing individual, biologically active proteins took a step closer to reality as a minuscule, vibrating bridge detected the mass of a mere 30 xenon atoms.
