Yale University scientists have discovered a “repulsive” light force that can be used to control nanoscale components, meaning that future nanodevices might be manipulated by light rather than electricity. The same team had previously discovered an “attractive” force of light and showed how it could be manipulated to move components in tiny electromechanical systems. Researchers […]
Tag Archives | Light
Incandescent light bulbs: not quite down and out
An ultra-powerful femtosecond laser flash can make regular incandescent light bulbs as cost-effective as their fluorescent cousins, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester. The process, according to the researchers, can make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper than a fluorescent […]
Entanglement of single photon detected across four locations
California Institute of Technology scientists have demonstrated how entanglement in the form of beams of light simultaneously propagating along four distinct paths can be detected with a surprisingly small number of measurements. Explaining their work in Science, H. Jeff Kimble, professor of physics at Caltech, and his colleagues show that quantum uncertainty relations can be […]
String Theory Faster-Than-Light Drive Proposed
Physicists Gerald Cleaver and Richard Obousy, of Baylor University, believe they have come up with a new method for a spaceship to travel faster than the speed of light without breaking the laws of physics. They theorize that by manipulating the extra spatial dimensions of string theory around a spaceship with an extremely large amount […]
Physicists Create Quantum-Entangled Images
Using twin light beams and a technique known as four-wave mixing, researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) and the University of Maryland have produced “quantum images,” pairs of information-rich visual patterns whose features are entangled. Entanglement, or what Einstein referred to as “spooky action at a distance,” means that changes in one image are […]
Plenty Of Earth-Like Planets Out There, Say Astronomers
Terrestrial planets might form around many, if not most, of the nearby sun-like stars in the disk of our galaxy, believe University of Arizona astronomers. Revealing the findings to attendees at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, team leader Michael Meyer said that at least 20 percent, and possibly […]
GM Bacteria Creates Living Photographs
A living photographic “paper” that uses bacteria to produce images has been created by students at The University of Texas at Austin and UCSF. These first-ever bacterial photographs were created using Petri dishes full of genetically engineered E. coli, the students report inNature. The bacterial camera came about as part of MIT’s intercollegiate Genetically Engineered […]
Wastewater Reveals A Cocaine Surprise
Law officials and drug policymakers may have to reconsider the methods they use to estimate the number of illegal drug users following some surprising research results from Italy. The levels of cocaine residue in flowing water from the Po valley area suggest that many more people take cocaine than official national estimates had previously suggested. […]
UV Light Turns Plankton Into Cloud Factories
Much like Dr. Evil’s weather control machine, plankton may be able to change the weather, and longer term climate, in ways to benefit the tiny organism. New research confirms a theory that plankton can indirectly create clouds that block some of the Sun’s harmful UV rays. The study was conducted by Dierdre Toole of the […]