Fibre optics detect drunk drivers
Alcohol vapour changes the properties of a special optical fibre
Author archive
Buckyballs bounce back
Carbon-60 collisions yield surprising results
Ultraviolet light to squeeze in the data
Short-wavelength light will increase the capacity of devices like CDs and DVDs
New X-ray probe lights up the cosmos
A super-sensitive X-ray detector will give astronomers a new window into deep space
New era for quantum electronics
The miniaturization and increase in speed of electronic devices was one of the most spectacular achievements of 20th-century technology. We now have computer chips that contain billions of transistors and can perform operations in a billionth of a second. Will the constant improvement in performance that we have witnessed in the last few decades […]
Read article: New era for quantum electronics
Vote for teachers
The real show-stopper for science is a shortage of school teachers in general, and a chronic shortage of science teachers in particular, that threatens the economic prosperity of the country in a knowledge-based world. The new government has it in its power to increase salaries for teachers and, at the same time, reduce the administrative […]
Star gives good vibrations
Enormous advances in solar and stellar physics have been made in recent years as a result of helioseismology – the study of vibrations on the surface of the Sun. However, the Sun is only one star among many. While we believe it is a typical star, we do not know for certain. What we need […]
Do we need nuclear power?
Does the world needs nuclear power? Peter Hodgson and Dennis Anderson take up the debate
Read article: Do we need nuclear power?
Semiconductor fridges get into shape
At room temperature, the extraordinary magnetoresistance of such non-magnetic materials is much larger than that of other magnetic materials, including those that exhibit giant or colossal magnetoresistance. Now Joseph Heremans and co-workers at Delphi Research Laboratories in Michigan, US, have shown that there can also be a significant geometric contribution to the so-called magnetothermopower of […]
A universe in the life of an oxygen atom
In 1984 – the year made famous by George Orwell – I attended a physics conference in the city of Leipzig, East Germany. It was my first visit since I had been a student there 16 years before. As I had imagined, I was constantly followed by officers from the East German secret police, the […]
Read article: A universe in the life of an oxygen atom
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