In America, there is a debate over 'high risk, high reward' independent research versus Big Science - largescale science projects usually being done by taxpayer funded grants to large universities…

Researchers at TU Delft have succeeded in measuring the influence of a single electron on a vibrating carbon nanotube.   That can be a real milestone on the road to ultra-small measuring…

Health requires safety. There is a laser hazard that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is concerned about: the increased availability in stores and on the Internet of certain types of laser…

"It's not supposed to do that" - Sandia principal investigator Jack Houston. Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Pittsburgh have found they can make salt, a solid,…

Is it a magic trick?   A man takes a paper clip and bends it so that it is just a crooked piece of wire, then he throws it into a bowl of hot water and instantly the metal wire returns to the…

Any road with a loose surface like or gravel or snow can develop ripples that make driving a very shaky experience. A team of physicists from Canada, France and the United Kingdom have recreated this…

Have a really smart kid who loves big trucks but you can't stand loud, growling voices with too much reverb in stadiums?   You're in luck.    MANTRA (The Manufacturing Technology…

Dolphins, whales and porpoises are perfectly adapted for maximum aquatic agility.  We know why that is - biologists expect that as a result of evolution - but to-date no one in physics had ever…

At the quantum level, the atoms that make up matter and the photons that make up light behave in seemingly bizarre ways. Particles can exist in "superposition," in more than one state at the same…

21st century computer modelling software has enabled a long-lost, trumpet-like instrument called the  Lituus to be recreated – even though no one alive today has heard, played or even seen a…