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24 July 1998 | ScienceNOW

Spin Wizards of the Nanoworld

by Science News Staff

Molecules are incorrigible fidgeters. Let loose in a gas, they store their heat by zigging and zagging; when trapped in a solid, they wiggle against their neighbors. Now, scientists have...

24 June 1998 | ScienceNOW

Tiniest Carbon Sphere Sparks Big Reaction

by Science News Staff

Researchers have isolated a pint-sized spherical carbon molecule, or fullerene, that could turn out to be far more useful than its bigger cousins. Experts say the new fullerene, described in...

11 June 1998 | ScienceNOW

The Future of Display Screens: Plastics

by Science News Staff

In a step toward making display screens out of a material not too different from garbage bags, researchers for the first time have got plastic transistors and glowing diodes to...

14 May 1998 | ScienceNOW

Viral Couriers

by Science News Staff

A virus is like a smart bomb, its protein shell a warhead containing DNA or RNA that can subvert a cell's genetic machinery. Now researchers describe in today's issue of...

13 May 1998 | ScienceNOW

Holey Silicon Lights Way for New Computers

by Science News Staff

Thin and iridescent as soap bubbles, porous silicon wafers hardly seem like the stuff of a future generation of computers. But they do one thing that run-of-the-mill silicon chips can't:...

27 April 1998 | ScienceNOW

Teflon Heart

by Science News Staff

A nagging problem with artificial hearts and other medical implants is that blood proteins stick to them, gumming them up and sometimes leading to dangerous blood clots. Now scientists have...

17 April 1998 | ScienceNOW

Fast Reactions From Tiny Mixer

by Science News Staff

Scientists will soon be able to get a peek at exactly what proteins do in the first few microseconds of folding. A report in an upcoming issue of Physical Review...

15 April 1998 | ScienceNOW

Cheap Batteries Designed From Scratch

by Science News Staff

A cheaper, lighter version of the lithium batteries used in laptop computers and cellular phones may soon become available. Researchers have found a way to replace cobalt--the most expensive component...

18 March 1998 | ScienceNOW

Polymers Stretch Efficiency of Displays

by Science News Staff

If you have a laptop computer, chances are that it has a liquid crystal display (LCD). And chances are that you have bemoaned the short battery life that results from...

5 February 1998 | ScienceNOW

Atomic Earthworms

by Science News Staff

A group of materials scientists has unleashed atomic-scale earthworms, which eat meandering trenches just a few atoms wide through a semiconductor. Spawned when the researchers mixed two elements in a...

5 January 1998 | ScienceNOW

The Tiniest Spring

by Science News Staff

By bouncing lasers off a microscopic bead as it bobbed up and down, a team of Danish scientists has measured the stiffness of the shortest spring ever measured. The team...

10 December 1997 | ScienceNOW

Asbestos-Eating Foam

by Science News Staff

A new chemical foam can break down asbestos fibers in materials once used to fireproof homes, schools, and offices. The foam, announced at a press conference today by the chemical...

14 November 1997 | ScienceNOW

Twelve Candles for 60 Carbons

by Science News Staff

The buckyball, a 60-carbon molecule shaped like a soccer ball, made its debut 12 years ago today in the pages of Nature. The discovery came while British chemist Harold Kroto...

28 October 1997 | ScienceNOW

Frankenstein Can Wait

by Science News Staff

Scientists have built the first silicon chip equipped with living nerve cells. The "neurochip," a silicon rectangle about 4 centimeters wide immersed in a petri dish, may be the forerunner...

24 October 1997 | ScienceNOW

Swell Gel Sensors

by Science News Staff

Scientists have invented plastic gels that, like high-tech litmus paper, change color after encountering a target chemical. The versatile gels, described in this week's issue of Nature, could lead to...

23 October 1997 | ScienceNOW

A Stay-at-Home Superfluid

by Science News Staff

Superfluids are immune to many of the forces that constrain ordinary liquids. Because they have no internal resistance to flow, ultracold helium-4 or helium-3 slips through microscopic holes, flows effortlessly...

17 October 1997 | ScienceNOW

Teeny Tiny Transistor

by Science News Staff

TOKYO--Circuit designers at NEC Corp. have probed what some thought was a lower limit on the size of microelectronics--and found some give. By combining a novel design with high-precision techniques...

10 October 1997 | ScienceNOW

Gems of the Nanoworld

by Science News Staff

Most diamonds are made with brute force. Extremely high pressures and temperatures inside Earth or in a laboratory, for example, can rearrange the carbon atoms of graphite into the crystalline...

9 October 1997 | ScienceNOW

Telling Who's Who in Atom Images

by Science News Staff

Scanning tunneling microscopy sketches exquisite atomic-level landscapes of material surfaces, but reveals little information about the identity of those atoms. Now, two researchers have found a way to pluck small...

21 August 1997 | ScienceNOW

A Golden Way to Detect DNA

by Science News Staff

Chemists have constructed a sensor, made from a web of DNA and gold particles, that turns from red to blue when it detects a precise strand of DNA. This easy-to-read...

5 August 1997 | ScienceNOW

Atomic Jockeys

by Science News Staff

Spin doctors may be the masters of manipulation, but scientists are catching up fast--at least with atoms. In the current issue of Physical Review Letters, scientists describe how to push,...

2 May 1997 | ScienceNOW

Brookhaven Lab Operators Given Pink Slip

by Science News Staff

Energy Secretary Federico Peña said yesterday that he will terminate the department's contract with the operator of Brookhaven National Laboratory, Associated Universities Inc. (AUI). During a visit to the Upton,...

31 December 1996 | ScienceNOW

Black Widows Spin Super Silk

by Science News Staff

Albuquerque, New Mexico--Need a strong elastic fiber? Try black widow silk. The thread spun by these deadly spiders is several times as strong as any other known spider silk--making it...

9 December 1996 | ScienceNOW

Getting a Grip on Ice

by Science News Staff

Ice has always been a slippery subject. As simple as an ice cube may seem, scientists have long been baffled about why its surface is so slick. But an upcoming...