All Stories by Peter Weiss
- Physics
Cellular Contortionist
Mounting, but controversial, evidence suggests that DNA flexes more easily than previously thought, with potentially important implications for genetics, cell biology, and nanotechnology.
- Tech
Loopy Light: Rings that delay photons may advance microchips
Chains of tiny, high-precision, light-conducting loops of silicon may open the door to using optical circuits to carry enormous data flows within computer chips.
- Tech
Ahead of the Curve: Novel morphing wing may reduce aircraft’s fuel use
A prototype aircraft wing has demonstrated in its first flight tests that its morphing might save fuel.
- Tech
Shape shifter shifts twice
Certain plastics known as shape-memory polymers switch to predetermined shapes when triggered by heat or light. Now, researchers have developed more-versatile versions of such polymers. When heated, each of the new triple-shape polymers switches to a second shape. Then, at a higher temperature, the plastic changes to a third form. “For some applications, [these] more-complex […]
- Computing
What a Flake
New ways to simulate ice-crystal growth yield patterns remarkably similar to the beautiful and intricate shapes of snowflakes and may shed light on how those real-life shapes come about.
- Tech
A nano–cheese slicer
Stringing a carbon nanotube between two needles yields a nanoscale cheese knife that could improve slicing of biological samples.
- Tech
Crusty Old Computer: New imaging techniques reveal construction of ancient marvel
Scientists have figured out the arrangement and functions of nearly all the parts of a mysterious astronomical computer that was recovered from a 2,000-year-old shipwreck.
- Physics
Super Silicon: Top semiconductor turns into a superconductor
A heavy dose of boron transforms silicon, the superhero material of electronics, into a superconductor.
- Tech
Ancients made nanotech hair dye
A hair-darkening paste invented thousands of years ago forms lead-and-sulfur nanocrystals remarkably similar to those made in today's nanotechnology labs.
- Physics
Heavy finding
Physicists have discovered never-before-seen subatomic particles related to protons and neutrons but laden with exotic, heavy subparticles called bottom quarks.
- Tech
Unstoppable Bot: Armed with self-scrutiny, a mangled robot moves on
Roboticists have made a walking machine that carries on despite serious damage.
- Tech
The Little Chill: Tiny wind generator to cool microchip hot spots
By generating a tiny cooling wind, a microscale silicon needle armed with a powerful electric field has demonstrated its potential as a new way to cool increasingly hot microchips.
