None of us can stand perfectly still. No matter how hard we try, our bodies constantly make small adjustments, causing us to sway slightly as we stand.
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Feed SubscriptionResearchers freely share LCLS experiment data on public database
In 2009, when biophysicist Ilme Schlichting and her colleagues applied to use the X-ray laser at SLACs Linac Coherent Light Source, they added a radical idea to their proposal: They would make all the data they collected on two viruses and a nanoparticle available to the public one year after the experiment ended.
Read More »Computerized Contact Lenses Could Enable In-Eye Augmented Reality
Over past 125 years, contact lenses have come a long way. What started off as relatively thick brown glass eye coverings first created by German ophthalmologist Adolf Fick has evolved into biosensor-laden polymer lenses that can measure eye movement, glucose concentrations in tears and intraocular pressure. Now a team of researchers is investigating whether the integration of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), circuitry and antennas into modified contact lenses can transform them into miniature augmented reality displays
Read More »Fluid Dynamics in a Cup
At a recent math conference, Rouslan Krechetnikov watched his colleagues gingerly carry cups of coffee. Why, he wondered, did the coffee sometimes spill and sometimes not
Read More »A Modest Proposal: Star-Trek-like Communicator Badges for Siri
In the series “A Modest Proposal,” my colleagues and I will propose inventions and projects that I think are eminently doable and would love made real. A Star Trek communicator badge [More]
Read More »Research team shows nuclear clock could be 60 times more accurate than atomic clock
(PhysOrg.com) -- For almost sixty years, the world has considered the atomic clock the gold standard for keeping time.
Read More »6 Tricks to Being More Creative
It's no coincidence that a big, new idea never comes when you need it most.
Read More »More Efficient Dyed Cells Offer Hope for Cheap Solar Windows
Plants have been using a green pigment for billions of years to capture sunlight, turning it into a flow of electrons and storing its energy in the chemical bonds of big organic molecules (also known as food). Given that successful history, chemist Michael Graetzel of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and his colleagues turned to a compound similar in shape and color to chlorophyll when they set out to build a better solar cell.
Read More »Can Science Halt Hurricanes?
As another active hurricane season in the Atlantic winds down, some atmospheric scientists say they have the tools to stop or slow the powerful storms. Their efforts, however, are hampered by a lack of funding and tricky legal issues. Until recently, the U.S.
Read More »How biological capsules respond under stress
Cosmetics and pharmaceutical drug delivery systems could be improved thanks to a new method developed to precisely measure the capability of capsule-like biological membranes to change shape under external stress. This work is outlined in a study about to be published in European Physical Journal E by Philippe Meleard and Tanja Pott from the Rennes-based Institute of Chemical Sciences at the European University of Brittany and their colleagues from the Center for Biomembrane Physics at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense.
Read More »It’s Official: Fungus Causes Bat-Killing White-Nose Syndrome
A fungus known as Geomyces destructans is indeed responsible for the dusting of white across bat noses and wings that has wiped out entire populations of the flying mammals, new research shows. By purposefully infecting healthy bats with the fungus--and confirming that seemingly healthy "control" bats from the same population did not get sick from a prior but hidden fungal infection--microbiologist David Blehert of the U.S.
Read More »Erasing history? Temporal cloaks adjust light’s throttle to hide an event in time
Researchers from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., have demonstrated for the first time that it's possible to cloak a singular event in time, creating what has been described as a "history editor." In a feat of Einstein-inspired physics, Moti Fridman and his colleagues sent a beam of light traveling down an optical fiber and through a pair of so-called "time lenses." Between these two lenses, the researchers were able to briefly create a small bubble, or gap, in the flow of light.
Read More »Instant Health Checks for Buildings and Bridges
During 2011’s deadly onslaught of earthquakes, floods and tornadoes, countless buildings had to be evacuated while workers checked to make sure they were stable. The events served as a reminder that most structures are still inspected by a decidedly low-tech method: the naked eye.
Read More »Planetary Pretender: Asteroid Vesta Has Planet-Like Features
NANTES, France--Asteroids are often considered debris, the scraps and odd lumps that went unused in the forming of the planets. But when it comes to Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in our solar system, Chris Russell hardly considers the rock a mere castoff.
Read More »Painkillers Thwart Prozac
People with depression encounter a lot of pharmaceutical frustration. For largely unknown reasons, roughly one in three patients receive no benefit from any antidepressant.
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