nanoscale views

 Some brief science and technology items heading into the weekend: IBM has reported making prototype chips for the "0.7 nm node" ....

This is a US research ecosystem post.  Feel free to skip if this isn't your cup of tea. I'm showing my internet age in thinking that...

A few days ago I wrote about localization , where waves in a medium can become trapped due to interference by scattering off disorder.  This...

Physicists love simplifying idealizations , and this is especially true in the physics of materials.  The simplest decent model for metals, ...

It's been almost a decade since I last wrote about this topic , and a preprint on the arXiv this week  is a good jumping off point for m...

I watched the webcast of the NAS State of Science address by outgoing NAS president Dr. Marcia McNutt .  (I did not watch the panel discuss...

Introductory undergraduate labs are a recurring challenge at nearly every university.  Is the purpose to teach students something about how ...

The Manhattan Project was the largest government sponsored research and development project of its time.  Some things worth noting, in light...

Several items worth reading about as we head into a long weekend in the US.  Starting with news related to funding and other aspects of US g...

I'm surprised that I haven't written about heavy fermion s as a separate post before, so here we go. (It's a break from thinking...

As I mentioned previously, the National Science Board was summarily fired on April 25.  The NSB nominally advises the National Science Foun...

A science story first, then a US research ecosystem story later. When we think about using molecules to store energy, it's usually in th...

First, some inside-baseball US funding discussion.  Apologies to my international readers, who likely don't care much about this except ...

We've all seen a traditional compass.  A ferromagnetic, magnetized needle is mounted on a rotating bearing (or floated on the surface of...

No, this is not another grim post about the chaotic US research funding environment.  Instead I wanted to write a bit about a good example o...

To the surprise of no one at all, the 2027 presidential budget request is extremely bad for science.  Remember, this is largely a politica...

As I distract myself from work-related writing that I really need to do, here are a few science-related links: This article in ars technica ...