Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Materials Science
The Buck Starts Here
The U.S. Mint performed some neat tricks to make a golden dollar.
- Materials Science
Materials with Memory
Metal alloys and polymers that can remember a preprogrammed shape may literally reshape technologies ranging from warfare to medicine and car repair.
- Physics
Neon gives healthy glow to reactor
Preferring neon to nicotine, magnetic-fusion reactors called tokamaks get a performance boost from puffs of the noble gas.
- Physics
Photon-in-a-box slings atom into orbit
A single photon confined to a tiny, mirror-lined cavity becomes electrically strong enough to swing an atom in loops.
- Physics
Soft crystal shows off its many new facets
Experiments with a liquid crystal may confirm the 50-year-old prediction that a nearly unlimited number of facets of different orientations can simultaneously decorate a crystal surface.
- Materials Science
Fridge Magnets and Chemistry
Theres a tiger on your fridge! Lurking inside refrigerator magnets of the flat, flexible variety are magnetic-field stripes of alternating polarity. This University of Wisconsin Web site explains how fridge magnets work, shows how you can use such magnets to learn about magnetic force microscopy, and suggests experiments involving fridge magnets to model how metals […]
- Materials Science
Rice hulls could nourish Silicon Valley
Scientists are developing ways to extract and purify the silicon that occurs naturally in rice hulls.
- Materials Science
Better-Built Diamonds: Fast growth, purity may multiply uses
A research group has fabricated the purest diamonds ever made or found, and another has devised a way to grow high-quality diamonds up to 100 times faster than typical growth rates.
- Physics
Electron spins pass imposing frontier
Electron spins crossed from one semiconductor to another with apparent ease and little or no mussing of their direction, suggesting that sandwiches of materials common in microcircuits are no obstacle to creating spin-information channels in future circuits.
- Physics
Glass may magnify ultrasmall-world oddities
A puzzling and unexpected response to magnetic fields suggests that certain glasses may exhibit a type of large-scale quantum mechanical behavior never seen before.
- Materials Science
Foamy polymers hit goal right on the nose
Biodegradable polymer foams made with a new technique can act as scaffolds for regenerating tissues that may someday be used as replacement body parts.
- Physics
Bitty Beacon: Wee disks probe materials at microscales
Illuminated by lasers, disks no larger than red blood cells can project rotating beams bright enough to create a light show in a darkened room.
