Physics
- 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.
- Materials Science
Light whips platinum into shape
Scientists are exploiting the molecular machinery behind photosynthesis to create unique nanostructures out of platinum.
- 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.
- Physics
Solid-state insights yield physics Nobel
The 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three scientists and inventors whose work laid the foundation of modern information technology, particularly through their invention of rapid transistors, laser diodes, and integrated circuits.
- 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.
- Materials Science
Flexible E-Paper: Plastic circuits drive paperlike displays
In a major step toward electronic paper, researchers have made electronic-ink displays on flexible plastic sheets.
- 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.
- Materials Science
Nanotube implants could aid brain research
Electrically conducting carbon nanotubes could be the ideal material for probing the brain and treating neural disorders.
- 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.
