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In this artist’s illustration, the sodium-potassium molecule is represented with frozen spheres of ice merged together: the smaller sphere on the left represents a sodium atom, and the larger sphere on the right is a potassium atom. Image credit: Jose-Luis Olivares / MIT.

Physicists Chill Sodium-Potassium Molecules to Near Zero

Jun 12, 2015 by News Staff

A team of physicists led by Prof Martin Zwierlein from Massachusetts Institute of Technology has cooled molecules of sodium-potassium (NaK), each consisting...

The best campfires are roughly as tall as they are wide. Image credit: Adrian Bejan, Duke University.

New Study Reveals How to Build Perfect Fire

Jun 10, 2015 by News Staff

The hottest pile of burning fuel occurs when the height of the pile is roughly the same as its base diameter, according to a new study authored by Prof...

Stanford University bioengineers have developed a computer that operates on water droplets. Image credit: Kurt Hickman.

Researchers Build Water Droplet-Based Computer

Jun 9, 2015 by News Staff

A group of bioengineers led by Dr Manu Prakash of Stanford University has developed a synchronous computer that operates using the physics of moving water...

Atomically thin two-dimensional liquid. Image credit: Pekka Koskinen.

Scientists Predict Existence of Flat Liquid

May 26, 2015 by News Staff

A group of scientists from Finland has conducted computer simulations that predict the existence of an atomically thin, free-standing 2D liquid phase. Atomically...

This image shows the liquid metal antenna. Image credit: Jacob Adams.

Scientists Create Liquid Metal Antenna

May 21, 2015 by News Staff

A group of researchers headed by Dr Jacob Adams of North Carolina State University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has created a...

CERN Physicists Confirm Existence of Bs0 Meson

May 14, 2015 by News Staff

The CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) and LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty) collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland report the first...

Atoms of potassium-40 are cooled during imaging by laser light, allowing thousands of photons to be collected by the new microscope. Image credit: Lawrence Cheuk / MIT.

Physicists Create Microscope for Fermionic Atoms

May 13, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by Prof Martin Zwierlein of MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms and Research Laboratory of Electronics has built a microscope...

The image in the left is a schematic diagram of the onion epidermal cells plated with gold of different thickness acting as the top and bottom electrodes. The image in the right displays the completed onion actuator. Credit: Chien-Chun Chen et al., doi: 10.1063/1.4917498.

Scientists Create Artificial Muscles from Gold, Onion Epidermal Cells

May 7, 2015 by News Staff

Onion artificial muscles can either expand or contract to bend in different directions depending on the driving voltage applied, says a group of scientists...

Acoustic signature of thunder. Image credit: University of Florida / Florida Institute of Technology / Southwest Research Institute.

Researchers Capture Acoustic Signature of Thunder

May 6, 2015 by News Staff

Scientists at the Southwest Research Institute say they have visually captured the sound waves created by lightning. Acoustic signature of thunder. Image...

Scientists demonstrated how a narrow-band strobe light source for speckle-free imaging has the potential to reveal microscopic forms of life. Image credit: Research Group Materials for Microelectronic Applications / TU Bergakademie Freiberg.

Scientists Develop New Microscopy Technique

May 4, 2015 by News Staff

A group of researchers headed by Brett Hokr of Texas A&M University has demonstrated that a newly emerging technique known as random Raman lasing emission...

This image shows a nano-lasing device consisting of gold nanoparticle arrays and a microfluidic channel fabricated by sandwiching a 250 μm-thick silicone sheet with a 5-mm-wide and 15-mm-long slit in the center between the gold nanoparticle substrate and a glass microscope slide. Image credit: Ankun Yang et al.

Researchers Create First Liquid Nanoscale Laser

Apr 27, 2015 by News Staff

A group of scientists from Northwestern University and Duke University has found a way to manufacture a liquid nanoscopic laser whose emission properties...

JILA’s atomic clock based on strontium atoms held in a lattice of laser light is the world’s most precise and stable atomic clock. Image credit: Jun Ye et al / Baxley / JILA.

Strontium Atomic Clock Most Precise Timekeeping Device Yet, Say Scientists

Apr 22, 2015 by News Staff

The experimental strontium lattice clock at JILA, a joint institute of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado...

A new radio-frequency spectrometer is able to identify single electrons. Image credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

New Radio-Frequency Spectrometer Identifies Single Electrons

Apr 22, 2015 by News Staff

A group of scientists from the Project 8 Collaboration has developed a new particle detector that is able to detect the frequency of cyclotron radiation...

An image shows a comet striking coastal Yucatan, forming the giant Chicxulub impact crater and causing the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs (Don Davis / NASA)

Experiments Show What Happens Below Ground When Meteorite Strikes Earth

Apr 13, 2015 by News Staff

Scientists led by Dr Abram Clark of Duke University and Yale University developed a novel technique which enabled them to simulate accurately high-speed...

Laser light enters a synthetic diamond from a facet at its corner and bounces around inside the diamond until its energy is exhausted; this excites the NVs that can be used to measure magnetic fields. Image credit: H. Clevenson / MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Physicists Create Ultrasensitive Magnetometer

Apr 10, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed an ultrasensitive magnetic-field detector that could lead to smaller devices...

Visualization of magnetic fields. Image credit: Windell Oskay / CC BY 2.0.

Study Reveals Surprising Behavior in Frustrated Magnets

Apr 4, 2015 by News Staff

In a new study reported in the journal Science, Princeton University physicists tested the frustrated magnets – so-named because they should be magnetic...

Further studies are needed to take into consideration the possibility that many modes, or light paths, exist simultaneously in the cavity, Dr Ge and his colleagues said. Their far-field emission patterns may change in different ways, which causes a reduction of the sensitivity to rotation. Image credit: Li Ge et al.

Physicists Find Way to Create Tiny Optical Gyroscope

Apr 1, 2015 by News Staff

According to a group of scientists led by Dr Li Ge from the CUNY’s College of Staten Island, a pair of light waves may hold the key to creating the world’s...

NIST-F1 Cesium fountain atomic clock, serving as the U.S. time and frequency standard. Image credit: NIST.

New Technique Could Make Atomic Clocks More Accurate

Mar 31, 2015 by News Staff

An international group of physicists led by Prof Vladan Vuletic of MIT has developed a novel technique that can successfully entangle 3,000 atoms using...

Square ice between two graphene sheets as seen in a transmission electron microscope (TEM); high-contrast dark spots are oxygen atoms that indicate positions of water molecules; hydrogen atoms yield too little contrast to be resolved even by the TEM. The top right inset shows a magnified image of a small area in the centre of the ice crystal. Image credit: University of Ulm.

Physicists Create New Form of Ice: Square Ice

Mar 27, 2015 by News Staff

When water is confined at high pressure between sheets of graphene its molecules adopt a square configuration, says a team of physicists from the University...