All Stories by Peter Weiss
- Physics
New supergas debuts
A cloud of ultracold potassium atoms, manipulated by means of a magnetic field, has coalesced into a new super form of matter called a fermionic condensate.
- Tech
The rat in the hat
A compact positron-emission tomography (PET) brain scanner may make possible studies of awake rats that link brain functions and behaviors.
- Physics
Candy Science: M&Ms pack more tightly than spheres
Squashed or stretched versions of spheres snuggle together more tightly than randomly packed spheres do.
- Physics
Two New Elements Made: Atom smashups yield 113 and 115
Two new elements—115 and 113—have joined the periodic table.
- Physics
Goo’s melting could keep battery cool
Using the sometimes dangerous heat of lithium batteries to melt wax or similar materials may keep the potent cells cool enough for safe use in electric vehicles while also boosting the batteries' performance.
- Physics
Electron cloud mirrors fossil life-form
Remarkable molecules whose electron clouds would resemble now-extinct marine creatures called trilobites could appear in experiments on ultracold atom clouds known as Bose-Einstein condensates, theorists predict.
- Materials Science
Pumping Carbon: Researchers watch nanofibers grow
The first atomic-scale movies of carbon nanofiber growth show particles of a metal catalyst pulsating wildly while carbon and metal atoms scuttle across the particle’s surface.
- Physics
Skipping stones 101
Using their own stone-skipping machine, physicists have found what may be the best angle for a rock to hit the water in order to achieve the most skips.
- Physics
New signs of shadow particles
The influence of as-yet-undiscovered heavy particles outside of today's prevailing theory of particle physics may have accelerated the rate at which subatomic muons wobbled in a recent experiment.
- Physics
Wet ‘n’ Wild
Scientists have tracked the weirdness of water to microscopic arrangements of molecules and perhaps to the existence of a second, low-temperature form of the familiar substance.
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- Physics
A Solid Like No Other: Frigid, solid helium streams like a liquid
Frozen helium prepared in a laboratory has apparently transformed into a superfluid solid, or supersolid—a never-before-seen phase of matter that theorists predicted more than 30 years ago.
