Physics
- Physics
Frigid ‘dynamite’ assembles into superatom
Although it's now the fifth element to be made into the strange state of ultracold matter known as Bose-Einstein condensate, helium may prove to be the most revealing so far because of unusually high energies within the newly condensed atoms.
- Physics
Some swell materials give up their secret
The discovery of a previously overlooked crystal structure in the best so-called piezoelectric materials may explain their remarkable amount of swelling when zapped by an electric field.
- Materials Science
Crystals step up to a new surface
Researchers have made crystals that reversibly change their surface shape when hit by light.
- Materials Science
SQUID can catch concealed corrosion
A new technology that can detect corrosion deep within aluminum aircraft parts has revealed that high concentrations of salt don't corrode hidden joints any more than low levels of salt.
- Physics
Jiggling the Cosmic Ooze
Spurred by the first tentative sightings after a decades-old search, physicists seeking the universe's mass-giving particle — the Higgs boson — have fired up the world's highest-energy particle collider to join the pursuit.
- Materials Science
Scientists belt out a novel nanostructure
Researchers have used metal oxides to make microscopic ribbonlike structures that could prove useful for developing future nanoscale devices.
- Physics
When warming up causes cooling down
Under the right circumstances, heating a tiny cluster of sodium atoms makes its temperature fall.
- Physics
Physicists get B in antimatter studies
New observations that subatomic particles called B mesons decay differently from their antimatter versions may help explain why the universe is made almost entirely of matter, not antimatter.
- Physics
Run-of-the-mill compound becomes superstar
The discovery that simple, common magnesium diboride can conduct electric current without resistance and does so at a surprisingly high temperature has sent physicists racing to understand its properties and to try to improve upon them.
- Physics
Lasers nudge into nuclear medicine
Using a tabletop laser, researchers produced a medically useful isotope usually made in warehouse-size particle accelerators called cyclotrons.
- Physics
Muffled shots tell a lot about snow
A snowfield muffles gunshots in a way that can now be used to reveal important traits of the snow.
- Physics
Seeming sedate, some solid surfaces seethe
Although they're as orderly as bathroom-floor tiles, surface atoms of copper--and perhaps other solids--actually roam randomly and widely within their grid.
