Applied Physics

Small Is Ugly

The small is weird. No – I do not mean supposed "quantum weirdness", which is not * about small stuff. The non-quantum behavior of the small is counterintuitive enough. Many misconceptions could be avoided with some awareness about how the surfa ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - Sep 26 2014 - 3:12am

Plasma: How Some Disorder Improves Your Television Picture

Can researchers improve the quality of matter akin to that found in plasma screens? A new study improves the understanding of plasma sources, where a certain portion of the particles are ionized.  Under certain circumstances, plasma tends to form structure ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 11 2012 - 8:30pm

'Mechanically Active' DNA- Bring On The Self-Propelled Goo

A dynamic gel made of DNA mechanically responds to stimuli in much the same way that cells do.  This DNA gel, at only 10 microns in width, is roughly the size of a eukaryotic cell, the type of cell of which humans are made. The miniscule gel contains withi ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 23 2012 - 9:33am

The LED Turns 50: An Interview With Inventor Nick Holonyak

One morning last March, engineers at General Electric’s Nela Park research lab in Cleveland, Ohio, opened a century-old time capsule hidden in a corner stone of Building 307. Inside the cavity and beneath a layer of sand was a standard 40-watt Mazda incan ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 23 2012 - 4:30pm

Has A Fish ‘Broken’ A Law Of Physics?

How a fish ‘broke’ a law of physics... says a press release from Bristol University. ...

Article - Robert H Olley - Nov 5 2012 - 11:43am

How Rocket Fuel Can Lead To Better Automobile Efficiency

Hydrogen is the smallest molecule in the Universe, which makes keeping it in one place difficult. To tap its tremendous potential as a fuel, spacecraft must be able to store liquid hydrogen at extremely low temperatures and then feed it smoothly to rocket ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 5 2012 - 9:48pm

Not Optics: Invisibility From Incident Surface Waves Of Water

A new approach to invisibility cloaking goes beyond transformation optics and those tiresome Harry Potter analogies. It is instead for us at sea to shield floating objects, like oil rigs and ships, from rough waves and is based on the influence of the ocea ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 19 2012 - 4:30pm

Shape-Shifting Self-Assembly Using Janus Spheres

A new class of materials has shown to be able to form dynamic, moving structures. Researchers have demonstrated tiny spheres that synchronize their movements as they self-assemble into a spinning microtube. The researchers used tiny particles called Janus ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 22 2012 - 12:00pm

Quantum Tornadoes Dance In Fluids

Tornado-like vortexes can be produced in bizarre fluids which are controlled by quantum mechanics, completely unlike normal liquids. There massed ranks of quantum twisters even  line up in rows on a semiconductor chip. By controlling where electrons move ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 4 2012 - 1:30pm

Copper-Doped Bismuth Selenide Could Be The Silcon Of Quantum Computers

Physicists have found elusive Dirac electrons in a superconducting material called copper-doped bismuth selenide- and say it could serve as the silicon of the quantum era.  Quantum computers use atoms to perform processing and memory tasks and for a gener ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 5 2012 - 5:30am