All Stories by Peter Weiss
- Tech
Quantum-Dot Leap
Multiple electrons from photons in quantum dots could be a boon to solar cells and other technologies.
- Materials Science
Gripping Tale: Metal oozes in nanotubes’ grasp
Carbon nanotubes can squeeze substances inside them with such high pressures that even hard metals squish like putty.
- Physics
A well-spun egg also jumps
Physicists have demonstrated that spinning a hard-boiled egg horizontally makes it jump into the air.
- Tech
Rounding out an insect-eye view
A new humanmade version of an insect's compound eye could perform like the real thing.
- Tech
Speed Bump: Tip’s tricks sort DNA, write at nanoscale
An atomic-force microscope tip has been transformed into a microinstrument for sorting DNA and depositing nanostructures by means of cleverly applied voltages that propel molecules along the tip's surface.
- Physics
Confined gas rejects compromise
Pairs of tiny gas clouds of unequal energies mixing inside narrow tubes retain their original energy differences.
- Physics
Universe in Flux: Constant of nature might have changed
Researchers have found signs that one of the constants of nature has undergone a subtle shift since the universe's infancy.
- Physics
Abuzz about uranium
A type of atomic vibration never before seen in ordinary solid materials has been observed in uranium.
- Tech
Switch-a-Vision: Electric spectacles could aid aging eyes
A new type of eyeglasses that change their focus in response to electric signals may one day replace bifocals and other types of reading glasses.
- Physics
Revealing Covert Actions
The recent merger of high-speed video technology and centuries-old techniques for seeing ordinarily invisible fluctuations of the air is enabling engineers to visualize and study the previously unseen, large-scale behavior of shock waves in explosions and aerodynamics research.
- Tech
Cool Wire: Nanostructure boosts superconductor
The extraordinary performance of a prototype superconductive wire is encouraging superconductivity specialists, even though the prototype is unlikely to be mass-produced.
- Tech
Corralling Brownian motion
A new microscope system uses electrically controlled fluid motions to counteract Brownian motion, preventing those random jitters from driving proteins, viruses, and other tiny objects out of the field of view.
