Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Taking a shine to number 100
Scientists for the first time literally shed light on the properties of radioactive fermium.
- Physics
Reflections on Art
By dissecting famous paintings in new ways, scientists are testing the veracity of artist David Hockney's controversial theory that some masters of Renaissance art secretly used optical projection devices.
- Physics
Light Switch: Crystal flaws tune the wavelengths
By tweaking the crystal structure of the semiconductor gallium arsenide, researchers may have found a way to make cheaper components for fiberoptic networks.
- Physics
New particles pose puzzle
The discovery of two new subatomic particles with unexpectedly low masses is making physicists reconsider how fundamental particles called quarks interact.
- Materials Science
Melt-Resistant Metals: Carbon coating keeps atoms in order
Shrink-wrapped in carbon, nanoscale metal chunks melt at extraordinarily high temperatures, suggesting carbon coatings as a route to higher heat resistance for materials and devices.
- Materials Science
Zeolites get an organic makeover
Scientists can now incorporate organic groups into the framework of zeolites, a kind of inorganic crystal.
- Materials Science
Nanofluid Flow: Detergents may benefit from new insight
Fluids containing nanoscale particles spread and readily lift oil droplets off a surface.
- Physics
Crystal Bash: Shocking changes to light’s properties
Prized, light-manipulating microstructures known as photonic crystals may transform light in new and technologically tantalizing ways when jolted by shock waves.
- Physics
Seeking the Mother of All Matter
World's mightiest particle collider may transform less-than-nothing into a primordial something.
- 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.
