Applied Physics

The Fukushima Disaster Was Preventable

The worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown never should have happened, according to a new study. In Philosophical Transactions A of the Royal Society, researchers Costas Synolakis of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and Utku Kâno� ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 28 2015 - 10:00am

Birdsnap Revisited: Goose and Gull

In my previous article about Birdsnap, the app was unable to identify my hawk because I did not get a full profile of the bird. Now that it's autumn and Canada geese have begun migrating, I’ve had some opportunities to photograph birds and get close ...

Blog Post - Steve Schuler - Sep 25 2015 - 10:34am

Celebrate Science Indiana

If you live in Indiana, or at least near Indianapolis, you should go to the Celebrate Science Indiana science festival in the Blue Ribbon Pavilion at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Saturday 3 October 2015 from 9:30am-5:30pm—it’s free. ...

Article - Steve Schuler - Oct 1 2015 - 7:00am

Artificial 'Skin' Provides Prosthetics With Sensation

Using flexible organic circuits and specialized pressure sensors, researchers have created an artificial "skin" that can sense the force of static objects. Furthermore, they were able to transfer these sensory signals to the brain cells of mice ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 26 2015 - 7:17am

Sing To Your Data And It Will Move Faster

Nothing is more frustrating that watching that hourglass in the center of your screen while you wait for your computer to load a program or access the data you need.   Well, maybe status bars are worse. Those used to be a culture war in the political scie ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 5 2015 - 4:19pm

Fundamental Physics Measurements with LEGO

In the late 1800's, a small, well-formed cylinder composed of platinum and a little iridium (the same alloy used in fine platinum jewelry today) was defined by the international scientific community to have a mass of exactly one kilogram. This was not ...

Blog Post - Matthew T. Dearing - Nov 8 2015 - 8:28am

Hitler's Supergun: V-3 And The Plot To Destroy London

The V-3 “supergun” was meant to win the war for Germany. In 1943, for the first time since World War II began, Hitler was on the back foot. Allied bombs were devastating German cities and the Fuhrer was rattled. His proposed V-3 cannon would be the bigges ...

Article - The Conversation - Nov 22 2015 - 9:28am

Electric Fields Remove Nanoparticles From Blood

Engineers have developed a new technology that uses an oscillating electric field to easily and quickly isolate drug-delivery nanoparticles from blood.  Nanoparticles are generally one thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair and are difficul ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 23 2015 - 10:35am

New Power Paper Can Store Electricity

Researchers have developed power paper; a new material with an outstanding ability to store energy. The material consists of nanocellulose and a conductive polymer and one sheet, 15 centimeters in diameter and a few tenths of a millimeter thick can store ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 3 2015 - 12:55pm

Biologically Powered Chip Built, Runs Using Cellular ATP

Engineers have harnessed the molecular machinery of living systems to power an integrated circuit from adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy currency of life, and they did it by integrating a conventional solid-state complementary metal-oxide-semicondu ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 14 2015 - 7:48am