Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Materials Science
A new carbon nanotool springs to life
Physicists have pulled out the inside cylinders of multiwall carbon nanotubes, as if expanding a telescope, indicating how the devices may serve as tiny bearings and springs in future nanomachines.
- Physics
Device Sees More inside Live Cells
A new type of optical microscope, which can discern objects smaller than a supposedly fundamental limit for visible-light viewing, may make it possible to see finer details of the insides of living cells.
- Physics
Gecko toes tap intermolecular bonds
For scurrying upside down on smooth ceilings and other gravity-defying feats, lizards known as geckos may exploit intermolecular forces between the surface and billions of tiny stalks under their toes.
- Physics
New equation fits nitrogen to a T
An elaborate, new equation that yields more accurate values for nitrogen's properties might have a multimillion-dollar impact in the cryogenic fluids industry.
- Materials Science
Ancient seal technology shows its age
Modern technologies reveal than an ancient method of engraving tough quartz in Mesopotamia was adopted some 1,500 years later than scholars had thought.
- Materials Science
Conch yields clues for future materials
A conch's tough, calcium carbonate shell resists fractures because a protein surrounds the mineral crystals throughout the shell.
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- Physics
Stretched matter goes to unusual extremes
Researchers have discovered that several unusual forms of matter with extremely high or low densities can expand laterally in one direction and contract in another when extended.
- Physics
Atom microchips get off the ground
Becoming smaller and more versatile, microchips using atoms instead of electrons promise both to improve atomic physics experiments and to pave the way for new technologies such as quantum computers.
- Physics
Light chips find a place to take root
The fabrication of an artificial, inside-out opal of silicon promises to make all-optical microchips possible
- Physics
Light pulses flout sacrosanct speed limit
Faster-than-light firsts: Restless laser pulse leaves before it arrives, while merging microwaves send out a superluminal scout.
- Physics
Quantum quirks quicken thorny searches
A researcher has come up with a quantum algorithm for identifying one or more items in a large, unsorted database when complete information about the search target is unavailable.
