Applied Physics

Ship Coating That Has An Air Layer Under Water Increases Efficiency

If you've swum in the ocean you know it requires a lot of energy, and for ships it is no different. Adding to that are the problems of friction, corrosion, and biofilms, all of which cause marine traveler to drag. Science is on the case. New types of ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 11 2019 - 8:15am

The Rheology Of Cats (are They Liquid Or Solid), The Deborah Number, And How It Won An Ig Nobel Prize

A liquid is traditionally defined as a material that adapts its shape to fit a container. Yet under certain conditions, cats seem to fit this definition. ...

Article - The Conversation - May 3 2019 - 1:39pm

Fur Color Identified In 3 Million Year Old Mouse

Were dinosaurs green? You'd think so going by pop culture imagery but there is no way to know if they were green or grey or something else. ...

Article - News Staff - May 21 2019 - 10:09am

How To Create Lightning Bolts Underwater

Plasma is like a lightning bolt, when it happens underwater. A new study explored how electrochemical cells that help recycle CO2 but whose catalytic surfaces get worn down in the process might be regenerated at the push of a button- using extreme plasmas ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 27 2019 - 10:25am

Forget Propaganda About Nuclear Energy, The Real Radiation Risk For Humans Is Natural Cosmic Rays

Sometimes pop culture becomes fact for the public. When the climate disaster film "The Day After Tomorrow" came out, journalists bizarrely started referencing it as a real climate change scenario, and now that Netflix, the home of anti-science se ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jul 9 2019 - 4:46pm

Frying Cancer With Vibrating Gold Nanoparticles

An antibody is an agent of the immune system that attaches to an antigen. Usually antibodies recognize antigens on a virus or bacteria and attach to the invader to mark it for destruction by other immune cells. In a new study,  University of Colorado Ansch ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 10 2019 - 5:00am

Trees Do It, And Now A Thin Slice Of Wood Can Remove Some Water Contaminants

Most membranes that are used to distill fresh water from salty are made of polymers, which are derived from fossil fuels.  There is a reason that fossil fuels have stuck around for so long. No longer do they have terrific energy density in the form of gaso ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 2 2019 - 5:37pm

The Science Of Baseball: What Is The Farthest Home Run (And Did Mickey Mantle Hit It)?

 As I briefly laid out in The Science Of Baseball: Coefficients And Happy Haitians, people like home runs though baseball purists don't necessarily think much of them- unless their team gets one.   ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Feb 28 2020 - 2:13pm

Does A Curveball In Baseball Really Break?

It's World Series time, which means it's time to talk about physics and baseball once again.    This season, among other things, we've covered the farthest homerun ever hit and how fast a pitcher really can throw (1) and today we're goi ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Feb 28 2020 - 4:10pm

The Army Has Developed A Quantum Sensor That Covers The Entire Radio Frequency Spectrum

The US Army has developed a quantum sensor that can detect communication signals over the entire radio frequency spectrum, from 0 to 100 GHz, using a single antenna. That is currently impossible with a traditional receiver system, and would require multip ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 22 2020 - 8:31am