Latest science news in Physics & Chemistry
Sharpest Measurement Of Ice Crystals In Clouds Ever Will Help In Climate Modeling
Scientists have created an instrument designed to help determine the shapes and sizes of tiny ice crystals typical of those found in high-altitude clouds, down to the micron level (comparable...
Researchers Capture Images that Illuminate One of Cell's Mysteries
(PhysOrg.com) -- Within human cells, tiny membrane-bound compartments called vesicles shepherd biomolecules from place to place.
Ashland To Buy Hercules For $3.3 Billion
Deal will create a specialty chemical firm focused on additives, paper technologies, and specialty resins
Shield of Invisibility Makes Lumpy Surface Smooth [News]
Researchers say they have come up with a new concept for a two-dimensional cloak of invisibility that would be much easier to make than the three-dimensional version demonstrated last year...
New uranium leak discovered at French nuclear site
French nuclear safety authorities said Friday that a broken pipe at a nuclear fuel plant in southeast France had caused a radioactive leak but no damage to the environment.
Shimmering ferroelectric domains
Ferroelectric materials are named after ferromagnetic ones because they behave in a similar way. The main difference: these materials are not magnetic, but permanently electrically polarized. They have great importance...
Beyond Cold: How the World Works at -459 Degrees
Atoms at room temperature move at about 500 feet per second, but after we cool them they move at mere tenths of an inch a second, about 10 times slower...
Promising New Method To Fabricate Ultra-thin Silicon Solar Cells Developed
Researchers are developing a new method to produce ~50µm thin crystalline silicon wafers for use in solar cells. The process involves mechanically initiating and propagating a crack parallel to the...
Colorado School of Mines first to use nuclear energy research partnership
Under a research partnership between the Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility at Idaho National Laboratory and MIT, a Colorado School of Mines nuclear materials irradiation experiment will be...
MIT-led team creates touch-based illusion
A team of scientists from MIT, Harvard and McGill has designed a new illusion involving the sense of touch, which is helping to glean new insights into perception and how...
Sensor detects bad milk, blood coagulation and road stress
Craig Grimes, a professor of Electrical Engineering at Penn State, has created a very practical gadget.
Study: Fuel cell cars still 15 years away at best
Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are still 15 years away from becoming a viable business for automakers even if they overcome remaining technical hurdles and the U.S. government provides massive subsidies, a...
Shaping the Nation's Renewable Energy Future
Traditional economies may suggest that bigger is better, but the Oklahoma State University Biofuels Team has received widespread national recognition for cautioning that is not the case with all forms...
"Nanosculpture" Could Enable New Types of Heat Pumps and Energy Converters
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered a new technique for growing single-crystal nanorods and controlling their shape using biomolecules. The research, published in the journal Advanced Materials, could enable...
First full 3-D view of cracks growing in steel
A team of researchers from the University of Manchester (United Kingdom), the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Lyon (France) and the ESRF has revealed how a growing crack interacts...
Super-resolution X-ray microscopy
A novel super-resolution X-ray microscope developed by a team of researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) and EPFL in Switzerland combines the high penetration power of x-rays with high...
Consortium Established to Develop 'TransferJet' Wireless Technology
Several major telecom giants today announced an agreement to form a consortium to develop specifications for "TransferJet" - a new interoperable wireless transfer technology that enables rapid transfer of high...
Gold Complex Changes Color Reversibly
Grinding and exposure to solvents trigger phase transformations and color changes
Uncovering the hidden nanoworld
A powerful imaging technique now enables tiny buried objects to be investigated
Resorts offer to lock up BlackBerrys, cellphones
Some resort hotels in the Rockies are selling rest and relaxation to BlackBerry addicts and cellphone fanatics by offering to lock up their electronic devices during their stays.
Argonne Scientist to Become ATLAS Physics Coordinator for CERN
U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory scientist Tom LeCompte has been tapped to be the physics coordinator for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at European...
Tree Branching Key To Efficient Flow In Nature And Novel Materials
Nature, in the simple form of a tree canopy, appears to provide keen insights into the best way to design complex systems to move substances from one place to another,...
Hydrogen Vehicles Coming Soon? Two Million Could Be On Roads By 2020
A transition to hydrogen vehicles could greatly reduce US oil dependence and carbon dioxide emissions, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council, but making hydrogen vehicles...
Students who use 'clickers' score better on physics tests
Hand-held electronic devices called clickers are helping college students learn physics, according to a series of research studies.
New kind of MRI enables study of magnets for computer memory
What is there to see inside a magnet that's smaller than the head of a pin? Quite a lot, say physicists who've invented a new kind of MRI technique to...
Molecular Hula Hoop: Spinning motion of a molecular rotor detected
(PhysOrg.com) -- Humans have long been trying to make the dream of nanoscopic robots come true. The dream is, in fact, taking on some aspects of reality. Nanoscience has produced...
Pumped atom laser brings high-precision measurements in sight
Technique uses a second atomic condensate to feed the laser
Japanese lucky charms turn out to be radioactive: police
A Japanese duo who marketed charms said to glow for more than a decade ran out of luck themselves as it came to light that the products were radioactive, police...