Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Hurrying a nuclear identity switch
Radioactive beryllium-7 atoms locked inside molecular cages decay extraordinarily quickly.
- Physics
Wake Up, Little Surfers: Riding waves toward tabletop accelerators
Prospects that today's giant particle accelerators could shrink to the size of rooms look better than ever, now that new experiments have produced electron pulses of uniform energy from laser-powered accelerators that act over millimeter distances.
- Physics
Marrying matter and light
Physicists have created circuit components that, in a manner analogous to atoms, meld with light, opening new ways to study fundamental light-matter interactions.
- Physics
Spooky Timing: Quantum-linked photons coordinate clock ticks
Physicists have demonstrated a new technique for bringing distant clocks into closer synchronization by means of entangled photons whose quantum properties are mysteriously correlated.
- Physics
Orbiting relativity test gets slow start
Unexpected but necessary adjustments to a satelliteborne test of relativity theory have slashed the time available to collect data.
- Materials Science
Heat-controlled implant delivers insulin on demand
The field of drug delivery is literally heating up, with the development of a new polymer implant that releases insulin in response to changes in temperature.
- Physics
Information, Please
Understanding whether the information swallowed by black holes is destroyed forever may provide physicists with new clues for unifying gravity and quantum theories.
- Materials Science
Nanotech Goes to New Lengths: Scientists create ultralong carbon nanotubes
In an advance toward making superstrong fibers, chemists have synthesized a 4-centimeter-long carbon nanotube, the longest nanotube reported to date.
- Physics
Extreme Impersonations
By creating tiny clouds of remarkable new kinds of ultracold gases, physicists are, in essence, bringing to their lab benches chunks of some of the most extraordinary and hard-to-study matter in the universe.
- Materials Science
Falling into Place: Atom mist yields nanobricks and mortar
Researchers have induced tiny particles of nickel to spontaneously assemble into exceptionally uniform, three-dimensional arrays of macroscopic size.
- Materials Science
Model Growth: Simulations expose branching nature of polymer crystals
Using computer models, scientists have uncovered previously unknown facets of the physics underlying polymer crystal growth.
- Physics
Gold quantum dots
Scientists have created a new type of quantum dot that could find applications in everything from biological imaging to computer displays.
