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Enter the Mechanical Qubit

Author(s): Susan Curtis

The demonstration of the first fully functioning mechanical qubit offers a new platform for quantum information processing and could lead to ultraprecise gravity sensors.


[Physics 17, 172] Published Wed Dec 04, 2024

Dark Matter at Cosmic Dawn

Author(s): Charles Day

Low-frequency radio observations could allow researchers to distinguish among several dark matter models, thanks to dark matter’s influence on the early Universe.


[Physics 17, s132] Published Tue Nov 19, 2024

First Glimpses of the Neutrino Fog

Author(s): Matteo Rini

Two dark matter searches report that their detectors have likely recorded neutrinos coming from the Sun—spotting the “neutrino fog” that could imperil future dark matter searches.


[Physics 17, 161] Published Thu Nov 07, 2024

Predicting Droplet Size in Sprays

Author(s): Rachel Berkowitz

A new model of liquid sprays reveals the mechanisms behind droplet formation—providing important information for eventually controlling the droplet sizes in, for example, home cleaning sprays.


[Physics 17, 158] Published Tue Oct 29, 2024

Why Emus Favor Fast Walking

Author(s): Charles Day

Emus inherited from their dinosaur ancestors a crouched posture that dictates the gait they adopt when moving quickly, according to a new computer simulation of bird motion.


[Physics 17, 151] Published Wed Oct 16, 2024

Diabolical Nanomagnets

Author(s): Charles Day

A quantum degeneracy named after a Chinese yo-yo boosts the magnetization lifetime of a short chain of magnetic iron atoms by a factor of 1000.


[Physics 17, s118] Published Tue Oct 15, 2024

Old Movie Demos New Tech

Author(s): David Ehrenstein

Using an old film as input, researchers demonstrate an algorithm that rapidly determines the positions of thousands of particles whose light-scattering produces an image or other desired output.


[Physics 17, 134] Published Fri Sep 13, 2024

Gated Flows in Charged Channels

Author(s): Rachel Berkowitz

Electrically patterning the walls of a nanochannel could provide a route to creating “valves” that abruptly alter the speed at which a charged fluid flows through a nanofluidic device.


[Physics 17, s95] Published Wed Aug 14, 2024

Measuring Fusion Power

Author(s): Charles Day

Experiments at the Joint European Torus make the case for using gamma rays to determine the fusion reaction rate in a magnetically confined plasma.


[Physics 17, s59] Published Tue Jul 30, 2024

Podcast: The Sounds of Data

Author(s): Julie Gould

Sonification and other multisensorial approaches offer powerful tools to analyze data, help visually impaired researchers, communicate science, and create science-inspired art.


[Physics 17, 113] Published Fri Jul 12, 2024

A New Way to Transport Spin Currents

Author(s): Ryan Wilkinson

Spin currents carried by magnetic waves called magnons can be sent across a device without using insulating magnets—a result that could lead to spintronic devices compatible with silicon electronics.


[Physics 17, s67] Published Tue Jun 18, 2024

Mimicking an Elephant Trunk

Author(s): Philip Ball

The extraordinary range of motions achieved by elephants’ trunks can be mimicked by a physical model that uses just three “muscles,” which could inspire robotic designs.


[Physics 17, 98] Published Fri Jun 14, 2024

Recipe for a One-Way Waveguide

Author(s): Martin Rodriguez-Vega

Experiments and numerical simulations indicate that randomly replacing a few nonmagnetic components with magnetic ones in a photonic alloy induces backscattering-free light propagation along its edge.


[Physics 17, s60] Published Thu May 30, 2024

How Water Flows inside a Sea Sponge

Author(s): Charles Day

A deep-sea sponge’s intricate skeleton converts the horizontal flow of ocean currents into a vertical flow through the sponge’s body—a mechanism that helps with the sponge’s filter feeding.


[Physics 17, 81] Published Thu May 16, 2024

Magnetic Vortex Rings on Demand

Author(s): Ryan Wilkinson

Scientists have devised a promising method for generating and manipulating exotic spin patterns called magnetic vortex rings, which could have applications in energy-efficient data storage and processing.


[Physics 17, s29] Published Tue Mar 19, 2024

Applying a Twist to Light

Author(s): Charles Day

Researchers have determined the amount of transverse orbital angular momentum that a type of optical vortex carries per photon, an important step for future applications.


[Physics 17, s28] Published Wed Feb 28, 2024

Rainproof Water Striders

Author(s): Matteo Rini

Researchers reveal how water striders survive collisions with raindrops that are much larger than the insects—a result that could help in understanding how microplastics are transported in water.


[Physics 17, 33] Published Tue Feb 27, 2024

Voltage Control over Magnons

Author(s): Michael Schirber

Researchers have demonstrated that magnetic spin waves called magnons can be controlled by voltage and thus could operate more efficiently as information carriers in future devices.


[Physics 17, 29] Published Fri Feb 16, 2024

Squeezing More out of Atomic Clocks

Author(s): Katherine Wright

Quantum effects can nearly double the precision of a state-of-the-art optical atomic clock, a finding that could allow the devices to search for possible fluctuations in fundamental constants of the Universe.


[Physics 17, 8] Published Tue Jan 16, 2024

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