Optics

Why Does It Get Dark?

In a comment on You, Andromeda, And The Largest Structure In The Universe, Mike Crow posted a picture of Andromeda, made from 40 hours of his exposure, 5 minutes at time, in his driveway. ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jan 23 2013 - 5:10pm

Light-Emitting Triangles Make Triangles Even Cooler

Scientists have created single layers of a naturally occurring rare mineral called tungstenite, or WS2, and the resulting sheet of stacked sulfur and tungsten atoms forms a honeycomb pattern of triangles that have been shown to have unusual light-emitting ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 5 2013 - 1:00pm

Unromantic Engineers Figure Out How To Catch Rainbows

Engineers from the University at Buffalo engineers have created technology that could lead to breakthroughs in solar energy, stealth technology and other areas- but they had to catch some rainbows first.  Qiaoqiang Gan, PhD, an assistant professor of elec ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 17 2013 - 2:01pm

Mic Stand Telescope Mount (or Camera Mount)

My wife’s cousin, the break-dancing radiologist, broke the microphone clip off my mic stand while singing karaoke on Thanksgiving (my wife and I host Thanksgiving at our house for the family every year). I had another microphone clip and replaced it so we ...

Article - Steve Schuler - May 19 2013 - 12:40pm

'Dinobird' Plumage Patterns Revealed By X-Rays

X-ray experiments have found chemical traces of the original 'dinobird' Archaeopteryx and dilute traces of plumage pigments in a 150 million-year-old fossil. Only 11 specimens of Archaeopteryx have been found, the first one consisting of a singl ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 13 2013 - 11:57am

Controlling Gene Expression Using Light

Of the estimated 20,000 genes humans have, only a fraction are turned on at any given time. It depends on the cell's needs, which can change by the minute or hour. Determining what those genes are doing means using tools that can manipulate their sta ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 23 2013 - 10:18am

Levitation: A Glowing, Nanoscale Diamond

Researchers have measured light emitted by photoluminescence from a nanodiamond levitating in free space.  Their paper describes how they used a laser to trap nanodiamonds in space, and – using another laser – caused the diamonds to emit light at given fr ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 12 2013 - 5:25pm

We Can Exceed The Speed Of Light- If We Slow Light To A Crawl

Light traveling in a vacuum is the ultimate speed demon, moving at about 700 million miles per hour. Matter cannot exceed the speed of light- unless, perhaps, there is a speed bump in light's path. Researchers from  France's Université de Nice-S ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 14 2013 - 7:30am

Astronomical Camera Resolution Makes Night Sky Images Sharper Than Ever Before

A new type of camera allows scientists to take sharper images of the night sky than ever before.  It combines a telescope with a large diameter primary mirror is being used for digital photography at its theoretical resolution limit in visible wavelengths ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 21 2013 - 4:02pm

Use Your Digital SLR Camera To Measure The Height Of Aurora Borealis

If you want to see Aurora Borealis (the northern lights) in 3-D with your SLR cameras, and even determine the altitude where electrons in the atmosphere emit the light that produces aurora,  Ryuho Kataoka from the National Institute of Polar Research in T ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 6 2013 - 2:15pm