Physics

  1. Materials Science

    Materials use nitric oxide to kill bacteria

    A novel coating may offer a new way to fend off microbial buildup on catheters, artificial hips, and replacement cardiac valves.

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  2. Materials Science

    Speed demon gets hooked on silicon

    A method for coating silicon with high-performance semiconductors such as gallium arsenide may make faster, low-power microcircuits both cheaper and more widespread.

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  3. Physics

    Caught in a Flash

    View the tip of a snapped towel (which moves faster than the speed of sound), then take a look at a bursting water balloon, a collapsing water drop, a tennis ball in mid-collision with a racket, and many other amazing images in this gallery of high-speed photos snapped by high school students. Sorry! This Web […]

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  4. Physics

    Window Opens into Strange Nuclei

    By creating peculiar atomic nuclei that contain not just protons and neutrons but also pairs of rare nuclear particles with so-called strange quarks inside, researchers are shedding new light on the fundamental structure of matter and how it behaves under extreme conditions, as in neutron stars.

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  5. Physics

    Accelerators load some new ammo: Crystals

    To make denser accelerator beams that may open new doors in physics, researchers have chilled ions in a miniature test accelerator until the ions coalesced into crystals.

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  6. Materials Science

    Chemical sensors gain true portability

    Researchers have designed simple new films for indicating the presence of worrisome airborne chemicals.

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  7. Physics

    Electrons rock and roll in nanotubes

    New probes of tiny carbon nanotubes reveal that the wavelike, quantum nature of electrons plays a role in tube properties and may even make possible novel electronic components that harness quantum effects.

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  8. Physics

    Insects in the wind lead to less power

    A previously puzzling pattern of power loss in wind turbines results from coatings of insects that were smashed by the blades during low winds.

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  9. Physics

    Turning magnetic resonance inside out

    A new method of manipulating magnetic signals makes it possible to gather useful information about a chemical sample—or perhaps one day a person—without often-claustrophobic confinement inside a magnetic coil.

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  10. Physics

    Quantum queerness gets quick, compact

    New ways to trap and cool atoms may hasten practical uses of strange ultracold atom clouds known as Bose-Einstein condensates.

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  11. Materials Science

    Environment’s stuck with nonstick coatings

    Some nonstick coatings such as Teflon break down at high temperatures into undesirable compounds that persist in the environment.

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  12. Materials Science

    Titanium dioxide hogs the spotlight

    Researchers have created new coatings that break down toxins and keep mirrors from fogging when the materials are exposed to visible light.

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