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The Incredible Shrunken Kids
The smallest kids on Earth are much smaller than you or your baby brother or sister. They’re smaller than a flea. They’re even smaller than the hairs on a flea’s leg. These tiny tykes are so small, in fact, that 20 billion billion of them can fit into a jar, with lots of room to spare. They have names such as NanoJester, NanoScholar, NanoBaker, NanoPilgrim, and NanoTexan. “We made a whole community of them,” says ch…
The Incredible Shrunken Kids
The smallest kids on Earth are much smaller than you or your baby brother or sister. They’re smaller than a flea. They’re even smaller than the hairs on a flea’s leg. These tiny tykes are so small, in fact, that 20 billion billion of them can fit into a jar, with lots of room to spare. They have names such as NanoJester, NanoScholar, NanoBaker, NanoPilgrim, and NanoTexan. “We made a whole community of them,” says ch…
The newest superheavy in town
Scientists around the world are on a quest to find all the elements possible in the universe. Everything is made of elements, so understanding elements is a way of understanding all the matter around us. Some of these elements, hydrogen or oxygen for example, can be easily found on Earth. Others, especially atoms that are heavier than uranium, are hard to study. They have to be made in the lab and, even then, usually decay, or break down into ot…
Atom Hauler
Atoms are everywhere, but you’d never know it. Even though these tiny building blocks of matter make up everything—from chairs to air—they’re far too tiny to see with your own eyes. When scientists want to study atoms one at a time, however, they can use special, highly sensitive microscopes to see them. Using these tools, called scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs), researchers can also move individual atoms around. Now…
Harder than diamonds?
This image depicts the mixture of fullerenes (pink, soccer ball–shaped molecules) and xylene (blue molecules) before it is compressed to form a material that’s hard enough to dent a diamond. Credit: Carnegie Institution of Washington Diamonds have long been considered the world’s hardest material. Scrape one across any surface, and it will leave a scratch. Press one into any surface, and it will make a dent. But the prized mineral’s record stat…
Building a better battery
Researchers designed a way to make better batteries using supersmall sulfur particles coated with titanium dioxide. Credit: Seh et al., Nature Communications (2013) Battery designers face many challenges, but two stand out. One is developing small, heavy-duty batteries. These units hold a really big charge. The other is being able to recharge such batteries hundreds of times without them losing their ability to hold a boatload of energy. A team…
Quake leaves destruction, fear
This is a view of the Pacific Ocean, where different colors indicate the height of the tsunami in that area. The highest waves, in black, were probably more than eight feet tall. The orange and red areas indicate areas where the wave was closer to eight inches. Credit: NOAA People in Japan face a catastrophe that has gone from terrible to tragic. The disaster began as an earthquake that launched a powerful ocean wave, called a tsunami, that cau…
These gems make their own way
Tom Chatham’s desk is littered with gemstones. Rubies, sapphires, and emeralds are scattered like pieces of candy. Some of them are as big as golf balls. We’re sitting on the seventh floor of a building in downtown San Francisco, upstairs from the famous jewelry store Tiffany & Co. But Chatham didn’t buy these gems at a jewelry store. His company, Chatham Created Gems & Diamonds, made them in its laboratories. Lab-made gemstones c…
Heaviest named element is official
Everything on Earth that scientists can see, measure or study is made of atoms — and atoms are named by what type of element they are. You probably know the name of many elements, such as oxygen, gold or hydrogen. Others, such as cadmium or xenon, may sound strange and exotic. In any case, elements are everywhere: You, your shoes, your desk, cars, water, air — all made of elements. Now, there’s a new kid on the block: Elements, meet copern…
A very good blast from the past
The loss of a fiber optic cable in San Jose, Calif., last year highlighted how crucial lasers have become in our lives. Credit: Henrick5000/iStock On April 11, 2009, vandals sliced through a handful of fiber-optic cables in San Jose, Calif., a high-tech hub in Silicon Valley. Instantly, cell phones and land-based phone lines stopped ringing. Internet service crashed. Credit card machines froze. Banks locked their doors. Traffic lights blink…
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