Applied Physics

Mysteries Linger Over Lemur's Little Finger

A lemur is a monkey-like animal with a long tail and large eyes. Analysis of the first hand bones belonging to an ancient lemur has revealed a mysterious joint structure that has scientists puzzled. Pierre Lemelin, an assistant professor of anatomy at the ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 19 2008 - 5:27pm

Numerical Model Predicts Long-Term Stress And Strain In Michelangelo's David

For statues, hidden stress and fractures result from standing in place for hundreds of years. Researchers have now developed a way to predict such fracturing, applying the procedure to Michelangelo's David in an analysis that proved simpler, faster an ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 20 2008 - 11:01am

This Robot Can Bring You A Beer- Without Being Told

Since robots live in a binary world, it is difficult to program them in a way where they can understand the nuances and inflections of human speech among many different people. A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory Univer ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 23 2008 - 1:28am

Artificial Enzymes Undergo 'Evolution In A Test Tube'

Enzymes are biological catalysts that are made from a string of amino acids, which fold into specific three-dimensional protein structures. Without them, life would not exist. They are a valuable model for understanding the intricate works of nature. These ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 24 2008 - 9:59am

Superdense Capacity In Linear Optics Gets A Bit Denser

Using classical coding, a single photon will convey only one of two messages- one bit of information. In dense coding, a single photon can convey one of four messages- two bits of information. University of Illinois researchers say they have broken the rec ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 24 2008 - 10:40am

Stretchable Silicon Intregrated Circuits Mean Flexible Passive And Active Components

Scientists have developed a new form of stretchable silicon integrated circuit that can wrap around complex shapes such as spheres, body parts and aircraft wings, and can operate during stretching, compressing, folding and other types of extreme mechanical ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 27 2008 - 3:35pm

How Well Do You Understand The Different Types Of Lightning?

When most people think of lightning strikes they picture the kind that go from clouds to ground, but some lightning goes upward, forming blue jets and gigantic jets and, perhaps the most dangerous lightning, appears as "bolts from the blue" – lig ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 28 2008 - 10:22am

Fight Global Warming By Boosting Calcium Silicates In Soil- Theory

Plants, crops and trees naturally absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) during photosynthesis and then pump surplus carbon through their roots into the earth around them. In most soils, this carbon can escape back to the atmosphere or enters groundwater. ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 31 2008 - 2:32pm

Just What You Wanted- Music 1000X Smaller Than MP3s And Just As Bad

Researchers at the University of Rochester have digitally reproduced music in a file nearly 1,000 times smaller than a regular MP3 file- a a 20-second clarinet solo encoded in less than a single kilobyte. The achievement, announced today at the Internation ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 1 2008 - 4:12pm

Forget Money- Grow Gasoline On Trees

One thing that would make the cultural transition to cleaner fuels easier would be gasoline that works with current engine technology. Reporting in Chemistry & Sustainability, Energy & Materials, a group of researchers have made a breakthrough in t ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 7 2008 - 10:21am