Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Materials Science
Worm’s teeth conceal odd mineral material
A worm's teeth contain a copper mineral that could serve as a model for new materials.
- Physics
Laser links segue to chemical bonds
Light can knit matter together until other bonds take over, providing a potentially useful approach to building nanometer-scale structures and materials.
- Physics
Electron cycling in quantum confines
A lone electron zips around in the tightest circle allowed by quantum mechanics in an extraordinarily small, frigid cyclotron, potentially allowing scientists to nail down some fundamental constants of physics more precisely than ever before.
- Physics
Motor design flouts physical law
A proposed silicon device the size of a red blood cell would transform random thermal motion into useful mechanical power in violation of the second law of thermodynamics, its designers claim.
- Materials Science
Knitting with nanotubes
Researchers can draw fine yarns of carbon nanotubes from a reservoir of the microscopic cylinders.
- Physics
Putting the brakes on antihydrogen
By mixing ultracold antiprotons and antielectrons, physicists have created the first atoms of antihydrogen that move at a leisurely enough pace for direct measurements of their properties.
- Materials Science
Metal Manipulation: Technique yields hard but stretchy materials
Researchers have combined a standard metalworking technology—rolling—with a programmed sequence of cooling and heating steps to process copper into a form that contains both nanoscale and microscale crystal grains.
- Physics
Gravity gets measured to greater certainty
Important but imprecisely measured, the gravitational constant, G, is given its most exact experimental value yet, while a pioneering investigation into gravity finds that extra dimensions, if they do exist, occupy spaces of less than a couple tenths of a millimeter.
- Physics
Neptunium Nukes? Little-studied metal goes critical
Researchers have measured with far greater accuracy than ever before how much neptunium it would take to make a bomb.
- Physics
Magnetic snap gives ions extra pop
Magnetic fields pump heat into ions when field lines of opposite orientation snap and reconnect.
- Physics
Groovy ’70s sound keeps X rays tight
Cast aside as a way to reproduce music, LP phonograph records reveal another, unsuspected talent that scientists plan to exploit-focusing X rays.
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