Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Materials Science
Lead becomes stronger than steel under extreme pressures
Lead is a soft metal, easily scratched with a fingernail. But that changes dramatically when the metal is compressed under high pressures.
- Tech
A tiny switch could redirect light between computer chips in mere nanoseconds
Microscopic switches that ferry information using light, not electric current, could help create better, faster electronics.
- Physics
Trapping atoms in a laser beam offers a new way to measure gravity
A new type of experiment to measure the strength of Earth’s gravity uses atoms suspended in light rather than free-falling atoms.
- Tech
The first artificial material that follows sunlight may upgrade solar panels
Rows of tiny stemlike rods called SunBOTs orient themselves toward light, optimizing the solar energy that they can harvest.
- Chemistry
Molecular jiggling may explain why some solids shrink when heated
Scientists may have figured out how scandium fluoride crystals shrink as temperature rises, possibly leading to new insights into superconductors.
- Chemistry
American whiskeys leave unique ‘webs’ when evaporated
If you don’t have a sophisticated palate, it turns out you can distinguish among bourbons with a microscope.
- Life
Saharan silver ants are the world’s fastest despite relatively short legs
Saharan silver ants can hit speeds of 108 times their body length per second.
- Quantum Physics
Google officially lays claim to quantum supremacy
The quantum computer Sycamore reportedly performed a calculation that even the most powerful supercomputers available can’t reproduce.
- Physics
Physicists have found quasiparticles that mimic hypothetical dark matter axions
These subatomic particles could make up dark matter in the cosmos. A mathematically similar phenomenon occurs in a solid material.
- Materials Science
A new cooling technique relies on untwisting coiled fibers
A “twist fridge” operates via twistocaloric cooling, a technique that generates cooling by unraveling twisted strands.
- Physics
Physics Nobel awarded for discoveries about the universe’s evolution and exoplanets
Three scientists share the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics for revealing what makes up our cosmos and for finding the first planet orbiting a sunlike star.
- Space
A new image reveals the structure of the cosmic web
Newly spotted tendrils of gas within a forming cluster of galaxies support scientists’ theory of the cosmos.
