Physics

  1. 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.

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  2. Physics

    A well-spun egg also jumps

    Physicists have demonstrated that spinning a hard-boiled egg horizontally makes it jump into the air.

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  3. Materials Science

    Feeling cagey

    Researchers have discovered that gold can take the shape of nanoscale, hollow cages.

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  4. Physics

    Confined gas rejects compromise

    Pairs of tiny gas clouds of unequal energies mixing inside narrow tubes retain their original energy differences.

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  5. 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.

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  6. Physics

    Abuzz about uranium

    A type of atomic vibration never before seen in ordinary solid materials has been observed in uranium.

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  7. Materials Science

    Microbe holds fast

    A common aquatic microbe makes a sticky substance that produces the strongest biological adhesion ever discovered.

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  8. Materials Science

    Wired Viruses: New electrodes could make better batteries

    With the aid of a bacteria-infecting virus, researchers have engineered cobalt oxide-and-gold nanowires that can be used as electrodes for lithium-ion batteries.

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  9. 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.

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  10. Materials Science

    Spin City

    Researchers are using a technique called electrospinning to create fibrous mats that have potential applications in drug delivery, wound care, and tissue engineering.

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  11. Physics

    Tiny wires trigger electric reversal

    Ultrathin zinc nanowires exhibit a puzzling conductivity reversal that flies in the face of known wire behavior.

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  12. Physics

    Tipsy Superfluids: Glimpsing off-kilter quantum clouds

    A new type of superfluid atom cloud that's been thrown off-balance by having more atoms with their quantum spins pointing up than down, or vice versa, seems to defy theoretical expectations.

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