Applied Physics

Up-and-down ripples, swings that rise and recede like the teeth on a saw blade, are found in everything from stock prices on Wall Street to ocean waves; and they occur periodically in the temperature and density of the plasma that fuels fusion reactions in doughnut-shaped facilities called tokamaks. If the swings combine with other instabilities in the plasma they can halt the reactions. Why some plasmas are free of sawtooth gyrations has long puzzled physicists.  Fusion, the power that drives the sun and stars, is the fusing of light elements in the form of plasma -- the hot, charged…

Starting Science 2.0 in 2006, I was as wide-eyed as anyone new to media could be.  My first month I was sure we were about to discover life on other planets, cancer was going to be cured, chocolate was healthy, resveratrol was the one polyphenol to rule them all. Oh, and academic scientists were going to rush to write for the public because I loved science. (1)  It was about month three when I first took a look at a numerical model in a journal paper. It was simplistic rubbish, full of assumptions. I came from companies making numerical models for the private sector, where a mistake…

The Great Pyramid, built under the command of the Pharaoh Cheops (who died around 2483 B.C.), retains a lot of mysteries. We don't know how it was built, which has led to any number of conspiracy stories about alien technology and other things. Alien stuff has actually been able to help now, in the form of muons, by-products of cosmic rays that are related to but heavier than electrons and which most often reflect off of stone but can sometimes be absorbed. Using cosmic-ray muon radiography, a new study showed how researchers were able to non-invasively discover a previously unknown large…

Thor: Ragnarok is the latest Marvel movie (out in Australia today) that sees Australian Chris Hemsworth back as Thor, but he’s not on friendly home turf. Instead he finds himself imprisoned on the opposite side of the universe from his beloved Asgard, and out of his depth in a gladiatorial contest with the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). But Hulk isn’t his only problem. Ragnarok (the end of his homeland of Asgard) is looming and Thor has new villains to deal with, including the warlike Hela, played by Australian Cate Blanchett. Other new characters include the eccentric Grandmaster (Jeff…

You may have seen this tank filling puzzle that's gone viral. But have you wondered what happens at a faster flow rate? Someone has tried it out, with a 3D printer. First though, let's look at the original puzzle.   Here it is. Look closely, as it says. Most people answer “G”. If that's your answer too, take another close look. Many of the pipes are blocked, The line that blocks off D from C is not a mistake. To find the real answer - well first, it looks like it's just a drip at a low flow rate from the drawing. So let's assume that.. From A to B to C is straightforward. None of…

Lab-grown cartilage grown shows similar mechanical and chemical properties to the natural articular cartilage which allows our joints to move smoothly, according to a new study in Nature Materials.  A team biomedical engineers from University of California, Davis, created the lab-grown tissue similar to natural cartilage by giving it a bit of a stretch, growing it under tension but without a supporting scaffold. Their results show similar mechanical and biochemical properties to natural articular cartilage.  Articular cartilage provides a smooth surface for our joints to move, but…

The surface of water drops at 100 nm size changes with temperature. At room temperature, the surface water molecules of these droplets have much stronger interactions than a normal water surface. The structural difference corresponds to a difference in temperature of -50°C. Nanometric-sized water drops are everywhere, as droplets or aerosols in air, in our bodies as medication, and in rocks and oil fields. How they interact with their hydrophobic environment, at the curved droplet interface, a sub-nanometric region that surrounds the small pocket of water, could boost our understanding of…

Well known: Critical science is career suicide. But did you know you are not even allowed to warn the community about fraud committed yourself? Welcome to science, where we reject the scientific method because it slows down publications, and call the public stupid for not trusting us. The journal ‘ChemSusChem’ was informed already a year ago about fraud in their journal. 'Chemical Communications' has been informed about manipulations that inflate claims by 300%. Reproduction of Figure 5b from ChemCommun article Ref[2]: The claimed results are on a black curve that seems to be advanced (added…

Natural gas has seen a resurgence due to hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") which has allowed geologists and engineers to extract it from wells that were previously considered unusable. CO2 emissions from energy have plummeted back to early 1990s levels and emissions from dirtier forms of energy like coal are back at early 1980s levels. But transporting natural gas from wellheads to market provides multiple opportunities for its primary constituent, methane, to leak into the atmosphere. It dissipates very quickly compared to CO2 and so only the most aggressive environmental claims try to…

Solar power is all the rage, at least for government officials who don't understand physics but do spend a lot of time with environmental (and solar panel) lobbyists. Even in a small country like Belgium, solar can't even meet half of energy needs. In order for it to meet energy needs would require batteries, and that means doubling the cost for the public. If it were implemented in a large country like America, the cost would be astronomical, and that's without adding new transmission lines equivalent to every paved road in the U.S. An analysis in Belgium found that households equipped with…