nanoscale views

I finally bit the bullet and updated the look of the blog.  I'm still keeping it ad-free, though.

I have a nagging feeling that google+ could somehow be used to significantly increase readership of my blog, if only I was appropriately sa...

Over the last decade, there has been a great deal of exciting work in making electronically interesting systems at atomically sharp interfac...

I couldn't help but notice that one of my favorite producers of animated films, Aardman Animation , is coming out with a new movie (trai...

Regarding the story mentioned here , Nature has published both a provocative and interesting article by Eugenie Reich about the larger issu...

This past weekend, I caught a snippet of a rebroadcast of this NPR story about Jane McGonigal and the thesis of her recent book. In short...

Time and again, a major impediment to research progress in condensed matter physics, electrical engineering, materials science, and physical...

Five years ago, there was a controversy in the pages of Nature regarding this paper from 1993, the first to claim atomic-resolution chemica...

Summer blogging has been and will continue to be light, as I try to get some professional writing done. In the meantime, though, I have to ...

I am interested in reading good books or review articles on two particular topics, and I'm hoping that by "crowd-sourcing" to ...

I returned late last week from Germany, where I spoke at a summer school . One fun part of the trip was a tour of the main experimental fac...

As I get ready to head to Germany for my first ever experience lecturing at a Max Planck summer school, I wanted to point out very briefly t...

Improved batteries would be of enormous benefit and utility in many sectors of technology.  A factor of 10 improvement in battery capacity (...

Just in case anyone out there has or is a promising candidate, I wanted to point out that Rice University is looking for a new clean room fa...

I'll get back to physics shortly.  These two articles ( here and here ) explain how, in exchange for $1.5M in donations, the Florida St...

Finally, after only 45 years from conception to publication of results , Gravity Probe B has announced (dramatic pause) that Einstein's...

Sorry about the delay in this posting.  Real life has been busy. Solar energy is an obvious candidate for a long-term solution to many of ...

It might be fun to do a few posts on how nanoscale science can be used to the benefit of our energy concerns.  First, let me specify what I ...

On multiple blogs over the last few months, I've read comments from lay-persons (that is, nonscientists) that say, in essence, "As ...

In the limit of clean surfaces, friction has its origins in the microscopic, chemical interactions at the interface between the two objects ...