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Astronaut John Glenn was wary about trusting a computer. It was 1962, early in the computer age, and a room-sized machine had calculated the flight path for his upcoming orbit of Earth — the first for an American. But Glenn wasn’t willing to entrust his life to a newfangled machine that might make a mistake. […] More
On the International Space Station, astronauts are weightless. Atoms are, too. That weightlessness makes it easier to study a weird quantum state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. Now, the first Bose-Einstein condensates made on the space station are reported in the June 11 Nature. The ability to study the strange state of matter […] More
Someday, shadows and light could team up to provide power. A new device exploits the contrast between bright spots and shade to create a current that can power small electronics. “We can harvest energy anywhere on Earth, not just open spaces,” says Swee Ching Tan, a materials scientist at the National University of Singapore. Tan […] More
Physicists have harnessed the aloofness of quantum particles to create a new type of crystal. Some particles shun one another because they are forbidden to take on the same quantum state as their neighbors. Atoms can be so reluctant to overlap that they form a crystal-like arrangement even when they aren’t exerting any forces on […] More
Superconductivity under pressure, Science News, May 2, 1970 – Cooling certain metals to temperatures near absolute zero turns them into superconductors, substances without electrical resistance, in which currents flow without power loss. In recent years it has become apparent that in some cases pressure as well as cooling has something to do with inducing superconductivity. Metals are […] More
Superconductors are getting edgy. For the first time, scientists have spotted a superconducting current traveling along the edge of a material, like a trail of ants crawling along the rim of a dinner plate without venturing into its middle. Normally, such superconducting currents, in which electricity flows without any loss of energy, permeate an entire […] More
Quantum computing’s deep freeze is beginning to thaw. Computers that harness quantum physics could trump standard computers on certain types of calculations. But the machines typically work only at temperatures tiny fractions of a degree above absolute zero. Now, two teams of physicists report that they’ve created silicon-based quantum computers that work under warmer conditions. […] More
Hala Nelson and her colleagues wanted to cook the perfect steak. So they decided to use math. The researchers created a mathematical simulation of a lean slab of beef roasting in an oven. That simulation successfully reproduced the temperatures and moisture levels seen within meat in laboratory experiments previously performed by food scientists, the team […] More
