Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Swift Lift: Birds may get a rise out of swirling air
The wings of airborne birds may generate whirlpools of air to produce lift for flying, just as insects do.
- Materials Science
Transparent Transistor: See-through component for flexible displays
Transparent transistors deposited on flexible sheets of plastic could find their way into computer displays embedded in car windshields and other curved surfaces.
- Physics
Letters from the November 27, 2004, issue of Science News
Dark Secrets Astronomers and physicists seem to speak of black holes as though they took matter completely out of the universe (“Information, Please,” SN: 9/25/04, p. 202: Information, Please). An evaporating black hole would not fizz away into nothingness. It would lose energy and reappear in normal space as a very dense object (complete with […]
- Physics
Spinning Earth drags space
Slight deviations of two Earth-circling satellites from their expected orbits appear to confirm a curious prediction from Einstein's relativity theory.
- Physics
CERN at 50
This year, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) celebrates its 50th anniversary with a variety of special events. CERN’s Web pages commemorating the anniversary include a timeline showing historical milestones in the development of the laboratory, archival photos, and other materials. Go to: http://www.cern.ch/CERN50/
- Physics
Piddly Puddle Peril: Little water pools foil road friction
Physicists have proposed an explanation for how even slight wetness can cut road-to-rubber friction.
- Physics
Light step toward quantum networks
During the transfer of a quantum data bit from matter to light, a cloud of extremely cold atoms emitted a photon carrying a version of the cloud's quantum state.
- Materials Science
Electronics Detox: Leadfree material for ecofriendly gadgetry
Responding to growing concern over the disposal of electronic devices, scientists in Japan have created a lead-free piezoceramic that could replace the toxic components in many of these gadgets.
- Materials Science
Metal Makeover
Metallic glasses with extraordinary strength and corrosion resistance have been known for decades, but only recently have researchers been able to make such alloys on a large scale from inexpensive iron.
- Physics
Graphite in Flatland: Carbon sheets may rival nanotubes
Researchers have created freestanding carbon films as thin as one atom.
- Physics
Dancing the heat away
By laser-zapping nanocapsules of water, scientists find that the specific molecular motions caused by the excitation, not just simple heat diffusion, determine how energy and heat flow through such minuscule structures.
- Physics
Tiny tubes tune in colors
At the right length and conductivity, ultrathin filaments of carbon known as carbon nanotubes can receive visible light waves in the same the way as larger antennas receive radio signals.
