Strain doubles superconductor temperatures
Their technique works by growing single crystal films of the superconducting compound lanthanum-strontium-copper-oxide (La1.9Sr0.1CuO4) on top of a crystal with a smaller lattice spacing. Because the ...
New clues to the left-handed origins of life
Fred Hoyle was the first to suggest that organic molecules developed in outer space and then fell to the earth, but it was not until the discovery of large quantities of left-handed amino acids in a m...
Antarctic glaciers feel the heat
Rignot used radar data taken between 1992 and 1996 by two European satellites, ERS-1 and ERS-2, to generate interference patterns that are sensitive to small vertical movements. These patterns provide...
The myth of high-tech job creation
The report suggests that governments should move more university researchers onto short-term contracts to encourage mobility between academia and industry. It also recommends that scientists should re...
‘Idle’ machines look for ET
In the past similar approaches have been used to crack encryption codes or calculate the largest prime number, but this is the first time such a scheme has been used for analysing raw scientific data....
The shape of sonoluminescence
Sonoluminescence occurs because sound waves cause a bubble to expand and then collapse in a liquid. The bubble first expands to almost 10 times its original dimensions, and then collapses at supersoni...
First American in space dies
Shepard was born in East Derry, New Hampshire, on November 18, 1923, and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the US Naval Academy in 1944. Before joining NASA, he flew as a Navy pilot. Shepard ...
Falling objects: new twists on an old problem
Andrew Belmonte of the University of Pittsburgh, and Hagai Eisenberg and Elisha Moses of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel dropped thin strips of plastic, brass and steel in various liquids ...
Black hole alert for astronomers
When a star explodes as a supernova, the remnants of the explosion can fall inwards to form a neutron star or a black hole. Neutron stars are easy to detect because they emit powerful radio waves. Bla...
Satellite email on the cheap
Satellites have been used to provide email access in isolated regions of the world for at least eight years. Until now, however, all such systems have relied on bulky equipment costing tens of thousan...
