All Stories by Peter Weiss
- Tech
Microjaws chomp cells to change them
A tiny, new biomedical device operates on such a small scale that it can grab individual red blood corpuscles in its jaws.
- Tech
Nervy chip may open window into brain
Researchers have built a simple circuit that blends living neurons with silicon-based transistors.
- Physics
Constant Changes
Evidence from the early universe that one of the so-called constants of nature, known as alpha, was once slightly smaller than it is today hints that the laws of physics themselves may vary over time and space.
- Physics
Atomic Crowds Tied by Quantum Thread
Quantum states of record numbers of atoms—entire atom clouds—get blended together by physicists wielding a new, relatively simple technique in quantum telecommunications and computing.
- Physics
Model may expose how friction lets loose
Rather than just grinding past each other, sliding surfaces may tremble with minuscule ripples that overcome friction as they move along.
- Tech
Designing planet rovers that tumble
Before the decade is out, towering wind-driven balloons may roam the Martian surface, traveling far more extensively than wheeled rovers do.
- Tech
Futuristic engine proves its mettle
A miniature missile shot from a cannon has demonstrated for the first time in free flight that a futuristic jet engine called a scramjet can propel itself.
- Materials Science
Speed demon gets hooked on silicon
A method for coating silicon with high-performance semiconductors such as gallium arsenide may make faster, low-power microcircuits both cheaper and more widespread.
- Tech
The Seeing Tongue
Blind people can now use their tongues to see, albeit crudely, thanks to prototype technology that involves licking arrays of electrodes attached to video cameras.
- Physics
Window Opens into Strange Nuclei
By creating peculiar atomic nuclei that contain not just protons and neutrons but also pairs of rare nuclear particles with so-called strange quarks inside, researchers are shedding new light on the fundamental structure of matter and how it behaves under extreme conditions, as in neutron stars.
- Physics
Accelerators load some new ammo: Crystals
To make denser accelerator beams that may open new doors in physics, researchers have chilled ions in a miniature test accelerator until the ions coalesced into crystals.
- Physics
Electrons rock and roll in nanotubes
New probes of tiny carbon nanotubes reveal that the wavelike, quantum nature of electrons plays a role in tube properties and may even make possible novel electronic components that harness quantum effects.
