Applied Physics

Tetris stole hundreds of hours of our lives.  It’s about time it starts giving back.  Researchers at the Washington University of St. Louis have built a computer simulation that uses a…

Scott Altman is a pretty cool guy.   He's the commander of the Atlantis mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope (and, as noted previously, astronaut John Grunsfeld is also carrying along…

If pizza isn't already on the list of 7 greatest inventions of the post-modern world (because nothing goes with wanting to strangle someone who invokes Foucault like a nice slice of pepperoni) a new…

(Sensors in the skin - does that sound like Frank Sinatra singing?) Of the professors at Reading University, perhaps the one with the highest media profile is Kevin Warwick, well known for planting…

A piece of chalk in a laboratory at the University of Stavanger in Norway may be the key to unlocking a great mystery. If the mystery is solved, it will generate billions in additional income.  …

By way of the classical photoeffect, Einstein proved in 1905 that light also has particle character. However, with extremely high light intensities, remarkable things happen in the process, say…

To ring traditional church bells, a team of human operators pulls ropes that spin the giant bells (some in the multiple tons) and the mechanics of the system impose strict rules on what can be played…

Scientists at Cambridge University have discovered that freshwater algae can form stable groupings in which they dance around each other, miraculously held together only by the fluid flows they…

The ferroelectric materials found in today's "smart cards" used in subway, ATM and fuel cards soon may eliminate the time-consuming booting and rebooting of computer operating systems by providing an…

Our modern age has become accustomed to regular improvements in information technology, says Slava Rotkin, but these advances do not come without a cost. Take the laptop, for example. Its components…