Applied Physics

Keeping Quantum Secrets In An NSA World

Revelations of the extent of American government surveillance into the private lives of both the American public and foreign leaders worldwide has shone a spotlight on the lack of security in digital communications. Even today's encrypted data is vul ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 26 2014 - 4:00pm

Silicon Is So 20th Century: Let's Compute With Slime

Silicon has been very good to us. It has given us Angry Birds and virtual protests we can participate in from the comfort of our home, but it may be time to enter the Age of the Biological Computer. Writing in the journal Materials Today,researchers revea ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 30 2014 - 10:00am

CockroachBot Tries To Run When You Switch On Light

In honor of the upcoming National Robotics Week (April 5-13, 2014), I’ve created “CockroachBot” based on my Snap Circuits programmable robot I designed for last year’s robotics week. CockroachBot will try to run away when it detects a particular level of l ...

Article - Steve Schuler - Mar 27 2014 - 1:43pm

Snap Circuits Science: Infrared Detector

Occasionally I’ll come across a web page that shows you how to make an infrared (IR) filter for your iPhone (in my case the iPod Touch) out of an old floppy disk. I had an old floppy disk so I decided to see if it would actually work. The process is actual ...

Article - Steve Schuler - Apr 3 2014 - 8:12pm

Quantum Cryptography for Cell Phones

In a previous article I demonstrated an unbreakable code for secure communication through the United States Postal Service using One Time Pads created with Scrabble tiles (or Boggle cubes). It seems some clever folks at the University of Bristol have devel ...

Blog Post - Steve Schuler - Apr 3 2014 - 1:02pm

Could A Fire Have Caused The Loss Of MH370?

Could A Fire Have Caused The Loss Of MH370? Ever since Malaysia Airlines MH370 disappeared there has been much speculation in the media and across the web about what may have happened.  Unfortunately, the somewhat spasmodic release of official information ...

Article - Patrick Lockerby - Apr 6 2014 - 11:08pm

Underwater Acoustics- Searching For The MH370 Flight Recorder

Underwater Acoustics- Searching For The MH370 Flight Recorder Australian and Chinese vessels have both picked up acoustic "pings" that could be from the black box of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, search officials have announced. Guardi ...

Blog Post - Patrick Lockerby - Apr 6 2014 - 2:25pm

Science Play and Research Kit Winners

The Science Play and Research Kit (SPARK) competition winners were announced today. The SPARK competition was a challenge to “reimagine the chemistry set for the 21st Century,” according to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Society for Science& ...

Blog Post - Steve Schuler - Apr 8 2014 - 9:41am

BLOODHOUND And The Aerodynamics Of A 1,000 MPH Car

In Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" and in 1940s engineering, there was a demon in the air at 750 miles per hour, a line some said could not be crossed. It was called the Sound Barrier for that reason. If that demon could cause a plane to brea ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 11 2014 - 10:17am

Hemihelix: Engineers Discover Perversion Of Nature Using Rubber Bands

While creating new springs to support a cephalopod-inspired imaging project, a group of Harvard researchers stumbled upon a surprising discovery: the hemihelix, a shape rarely seen in nature. ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 24 2014 - 9:36am