Physics

  1. Physics

    Some swell materials give up their secret

    The discovery of a previously overlooked crystal structure in the best so-called piezoelectric materials may explain their remarkable amount of swelling when zapped by an electric field.

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  2. Materials Science

    Crystals step up to a new surface

    Researchers have made crystals that reversibly change their surface shape when hit by light.

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  3. Materials Science

    SQUID can catch concealed corrosion

    A new technology that can detect corrosion deep within aluminum aircraft parts has revealed that high concentrations of salt don't corrode hidden joints any more than low levels of salt.

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  4. Physics

    Jiggling the Cosmic Ooze

    Spurred by the first tentative sightings after a decades-old search, physicists seeking the universe's mass-giving particle — the Higgs boson — have fired up the world's highest-energy particle collider to join the pursuit.

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  5. Materials Science

    Scientists belt out a novel nanostructure

    Researchers have used metal oxides to make microscopic ribbonlike structures that could prove useful for developing future nanoscale devices.

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  6. Physics

    When warming up causes cooling down

    Under the right circumstances, heating a tiny cluster of sodium atoms makes its temperature fall.

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  7. Physics

    Physicists get B in antimatter studies

    New observations that subatomic particles called B mesons decay differently from their antimatter versions may help explain why the universe is made almost entirely of matter, not antimatter.

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  8. Physics

    Run-of-the-mill compound becomes superstar

    The discovery that simple, common magnesium diboride can conduct electric current without resistance and does so at a surprisingly high temperature has sent physicists racing to understand its properties and to try to improve upon them.

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  9. Physics

    Lasers nudge into nuclear medicine

    Using a tabletop laser, researchers produced a medically useful isotope usually made in warehouse-size particle accelerators called cyclotrons.

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  10. Physics

    Muffled shots tell a lot about snow

    A snowfield muffles gunshots in a way that can now be used to reveal important traits of the snow.

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  11. Physics

    Seeming sedate, some solid surfaces seethe

    Although they're as orderly as bathroom-floor tiles, surface atoms of copper--and perhaps other solids--actually roam randomly and widely within their grid.

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  12. Physics

    The Atoms Family

    Dracula doesn’t want to suck your blood. He wants you to enter his online library and learn about the properties of light, waves, and particles. Here at “The Atoms Family” Web pages, created by the Miami Museum of Science, Dracula and four other silver-screen ghouls invite Web surfers into their laboratories to try out physics […]

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