Physics
- Physics
Not even bismuth-209 lasts forever
Touted in textbooks as the heaviest stable, naturally occurring isotope, bismuth-209 actually does decay but with an astonishingly long half-life of 19 billion billion years.
- Physics
To pack a strand tight, make it a helix
The optimal way to pack long strings into small spaces is to coil them into helices—particularly the types of helices found in proteins and perhaps DNA.
- Materials Science
Blunt Answer: Cracking the puzzle of elastic solids’ toughness
Rubbery materials prove tougher than theory predicts because cracks trying to penetrate those stretchy materials grow blunt at their tips.
- Materials Science
Bone Fix: New material responds to growing tissue
A new scaffolding material stimulates bone regeneration.
- Physics
Answer blows in wind, swirls in soap
A swirling soap film gives new clues to how turbulent flows, such as the circulation of Earth's atmosphere, squander their energy.
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- Materials Science
Between the Sheets: In reactors and nanotubes, errant atoms get a grip
A new computer simulation predicts that neutron irradiation of graphite displaces atoms and bonds in unexpected ways.
- Materials Science
Invent by Number: Researchers predict, then produce superior titanium alloys
Researchers have developed a new method or making titanium-based alloys with many qualities far superior to those in any alloy previously known.
- Physics
Fusion device crosses threshold
By sparking thermonuclear reactions, a machine called Z has joined the big leagues among potential technologies for producing power from controlled nuclear fusion.
- Physics
Light rambles through room-temperature ruby
Researchers have dramatically slowed light within a solid at room temperature.
- Physics
Attractive atoms pick up repulsive habits
Rubidium atoms intrinsically attract each other, but new experiments near absolute zero have induced the atoms to repel each another instead.
- Physics
Rare Events: Exotic processes probe the heart of matter
Physicists have for the first time unambiguously detected and measured the rates of certain reactions among protons, neutrons, and simple atomic nuclei.
