Physics
- Physics
Not-So-Neutral Neutron: Clearer view of neutron reveals charged locales
A sharp, new picture of the neutron reveals that rather than being uniformly electrically neutral, the particle contains regions of positive and negative charge.
- Materials Science
Self-Sutures: New material knots up on its own
Researchers have used a new biodegradable material to make surgical sutures that knot and tighten themselves as they warm to body temperature.
- Materials Science
Membrane Mastery: Nanosize silica speeds up sieve
A novel modification to polymer membranes gives researchers a means to tune certain filters so they separate molecules more quickly and more selectively.
- Physics
Molding Atoms: Using a tiny template to make tinier structures
With the help of a molecular mold composed of exactly 188 atoms, researchers have been able to impose textures at an even smaller atomic scale on a metal surface.
- Materials Science
Steely Glaze: Layered electrolytes control corrosion
Experiments with ultrathin organic coatings applied to steel suggest a new technique for slowing corrosion.
- Materials Science
A Field of Diminutive Daisies
Researchers have created tiny daisies as a demonstration of a new technique that creates three-dimensional structures from carbon nanotubes.
- Materials Science
Osmium is Forever: Rare metal’s strength humbles mighty diamond’s
A new route to materials harder than diamond may have opened with the surprising finding that the rare metal osmium resists compression better than diamond does.
- Physics
The Black Hole Next Door
Microscopic black holes—fleeting replicas of the huge, matter-gobbling ones in space—may be detected soon in our atmosphere and at a big particle collider now being built.
- Physics
Signatures of the Invisible
Contemporary artists worked with CERN particle physicists to create pieces of art that respond to (rather than simply illustrate) the preoccupations of modern physics. This quirky Web site, hosted by the London Institute, provides glimpses of the artworks that resulted from this collaboration. Go to: http://www.signatures.linst.ac.uk/
- Physics
Computer simulates full nuclear blast
In a classified nuclear-weapon experiment, the world's fastest computer simulated a thermonuclear blast in three dimensions.
- Physics
Magnetism piece fits no-resistance puzzle
Experimenters have found evidence that a type of magnetic behavior correlated with the onset of zero electrical resistance in some so-called high-temperature superconductors is generic to the whole class of those materials, yielding a possible clue to how the substances lose their resistance.
- Physics
Star in a Jar? Hints of nuclear fusion found—maybe
In a bench-top experiment, atomic nuclei may have fused inside rapidly imploding bubbles of vapor in a liquid bombarded by sound waves, but many scientists find the evidence for bubble fusion unconvincing.
