Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Materials Science
Apollo attire needs care
Advanced spacesuits protected astronauts far from Earth just 30 years ago, but the materials have already deteriorated.
- Physics
Soap Bubbles in Space
While aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Don Pettit took some time off to experiment with soap bubbles and films. This NASA Web page presents the surprising and startling results of his soapy ventures in a zero-g environment. Go to: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/25feb_nosoap.htm
- Physics
Not even bismuth-209 lasts forever
Touted in textbooks as the heaviest stable, naturally occurring isotope, bismuth-209 actually does decay but with an astonishingly long half-life of 19 billion billion years.
- Physics
To pack a strand tight, make it a helix
The optimal way to pack long strings into small spaces is to coil them into helices—particularly the types of helices found in proteins and perhaps DNA.
- Materials Science
Blunt Answer: Cracking the puzzle of elastic solids’ toughness
Rubbery materials prove tougher than theory predicts because cracks trying to penetrate those stretchy materials grow blunt at their tips.
- Materials Science
Bone Fix: New material responds to growing tissue
A new scaffolding material stimulates bone regeneration.
- Physics
Answer blows in wind, swirls in soap
A swirling soap film gives new clues to how turbulent flows, such as the circulation of Earth's atmosphere, squander their energy.
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- Materials Science
Between the Sheets: In reactors and nanotubes, errant atoms get a grip
A new computer simulation predicts that neutron irradiation of graphite displaces atoms and bonds in unexpected ways.
- Materials Science
Invent by Number: Researchers predict, then produce superior titanium alloys
Researchers have developed a new method or making titanium-based alloys with many qualities far superior to those in any alloy previously known.
- Physics
Fusion device crosses threshold
By sparking thermonuclear reactions, a machine called Z has joined the big leagues among potential technologies for producing power from controlled nuclear fusion.
- Physics
Light rambles through room-temperature ruby
Researchers have dramatically slowed light within a solid at room temperature.
