nanoscale views

Today was probably the maximum crowd at the APS meeting. Saw a number of talks and had lots of conversations. One particularly interesting...

As I am every year, I was again somewhat shocked by how many people come to this meeting. The attendance just keeps going up, and unfortuna...

For an organization so deeply ingrained with technology, the American Physical Society has some surprising issues. For example, as I type t...

Thanks, Wolff, for pointing me to this . Coming up this week, some commentary from the March Meeting of the APS.

When historians of science look back on the whole OPERA superluminal neutrino discussion, one way or the other, there are going to be a numb...

" Spontaneous symmetry breaking " is a profound idea from condensed matter physics that has been adopted with a vengeance by the h...

There's a new meme floating around the web these days. Here's an example: I'd like to propose a contest for a version of this ...

Two semi-related topics have come to mind lately.  First, this post by the FSP caught my attention, regarding "citation circles",...

I really got a kick out of this video , and this one (some overlap), of President Obama at the White House Science Fair.  See here for a p...

Many people online have heard about and commented on this sad story .  An assistant prof in molecular biology at Case Western published a pa...

If they aren't already, these people are going to be swimming (or drowning) in DARPA money.

There was pretty big hoopla last week about two papers concerning graphene (and it's related material graphene oxide).  In Science, Andr...

Over the last decade, since this experiment in particular, there has been rapidly growing interest in using optically trapped ultracold ato...

A person at NASA's Langley Research Center appears in a video touting the great benefits that are going to come with the realization of...

While working on several writing projects simultaneously, I've run across some interesting articles and links. Here is an interesting d...

This is my first attempt at using a blogging app for the iPad.  Let's see how it goes.... Over the last few weeks, I've received s...

While doing research, scientists and engineers read (at various levels of depth) many papers.  Every now and then, you come across one that ...

First, I have a guest post on the Houston Chronicle's science blog today.  Thanks for the opportunity, Eric. Second, here is a great ...

One of the most appealing aspects of a career in academic science and engineering is the freedom to choose your area of research. This free...

There was an interesting article earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, on mental health concerns in college students. It's no ...