Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Candy Science: M&Ms pack more tightly than spheres
Squashed or stretched versions of spheres snuggle together more tightly than randomly packed spheres do.
- Physics
Two New Elements Made: Atom smashups yield 113 and 115
Two new elements—115 and 113—have joined the periodic table.
- Materials Science
Light whips platinum into shape
Scientists are exploiting the molecular machinery behind photosynthesis to create unique nanostructures out of platinum.
- Materials Science
Pumping Carbon: Researchers watch nanofibers grow
The first atomic-scale movies of carbon nanofiber growth show particles of a metal catalyst pulsating wildly while carbon and metal atoms scuttle across the particle’s surface.
- Materials Science
Flexible E-Paper: Plastic circuits drive paperlike displays
In a major step toward electronic paper, researchers have made electronic-ink displays on flexible plastic sheets.
- Physics
Skipping stones 101
Using their own stone-skipping machine, physicists have found what may be the best angle for a rock to hit the water in order to achieve the most skips.
- Physics
New signs of shadow particles
The influence of as-yet-undiscovered heavy particles outside of today's prevailing theory of particle physics may have accelerated the rate at which subatomic muons wobbled in a recent experiment.
- Materials Science
Nanotube implants could aid brain research
Electrically conducting carbon nanotubes could be the ideal material for probing the brain and treating neural disorders.
- Physics
Wet ‘n’ Wild
Scientists have tracked the weirdness of water to microscopic arrangements of molecules and perhaps to the existence of a second, low-temperature form of the familiar substance.
- Materials Science
Marine Superglue: Mussels get stickiness from iron in seawater
The secret behind the binding power of mussel glue lies in iron extracted from seawater.
- Physics
A Solid Like No Other: Frigid, solid helium streams like a liquid
Frozen helium prepared in a laboratory has apparently transformed into a superfluid solid, or supersolid—a never-before-seen phase of matter that theorists predicted more than 30 years ago.
- Materials Science
Nanowires grow on viral templates
Researchers are using viruses to assemble semiconducting nanowires—the building blocks of future electronic circuits.
