UK physics scoops extra money
The JIF scheme was set up in 1998 by the UK government and the Wellcome Trust – the world’s largest biomedical research charity – to provide much-needed funding for university labora...
Complex fluids go through a strange phase
Some liquids are very useful because their molecules act as tiny dipoles that can be aligned by electric or magnetic fields. Vehicle clutches, ink-jet printers and lubricants are among the application...
Read article: Vortices get in a spin
Vortices get in a spin
Ordinary experimental fluids are subject to effects like viscosity and can be difficult to manipulate. Durkin and Fajans therefore used a cylindrical column of magnetically confined electrons to simul...
Molecular fingerprints in sonoluminescence
Although researchers have proposed a wide variety of explanations for sonoluminescence, they are in broad agreement that the oscillating bubbles reach very high temperatures. Until now, however, singl...
Read article: The bubble bursts for shrimps
The bubble bursts for shrimps
Scientists originally thought the shrimps’ snapping sound was produced by mechanical contact between opposing sides of the claw. But Barbara Schmitz, a biologist at the Technical University of M...
Organic superconductivity
Hendrik Schon, Christian Kloc and Batlogg investigated three different acenes: anthracene (which contains three linked rings), tetracene (four) and pentacene (five). The crystals are normally insulati...
DNA ‘tweezers’ take shape
Bernard Yurke from Lucent Technologies in the US, Andrew Turberfield from Oxford University in the UK and Lucent, and co-workers constructed the tweezers from three separate strands of DNA. DNA molecu...
Microscopy: two lasers are better than one
Stefan Hell and co-workers at Gottingen have adapted a technique known as fluorescence microscopy. In this form of microscopy the specimen is irradiated at a wavelength which excites either natural or...
New materials stretch the imagination
The Poisson’s ratio of a material is defined as nij = –ej/ ei, where ej is the lateral strain in the j direction that is caused when a strain ei is applied in the longitudinal i direction....
Physics, polymers and pesticides
Physicists have studied the interaction of water with surfaces for centuries. Felix Savart, for instance, first studied shocks in shallow water in 1833. It is now well known that the maximum diameter ...
