nanoscale views

This past week was a genuinely horrific reminder of the importance of lab safety, especially in the realm of hazardous chemicals.   First, a...

Much as I feel like I should write about the latest developments in US science policy, instead I want to point out two exciting recent super...

In case you weren't aware, in addition to the OMB proposed rule changes which just concluded their public comment period, the NSF has p...

Yesterday I attended the 40th annual summer research colloquium of the Smalley-Curl Institute at Rice, a fun internal conference that prov...

I think it's safe to say that most people who've considered the issue think that a doctoral degree in the sciences and engineering i...

First, some science, clearing out a number of papers and articles that I've been collecting for some time in my far-too-numerous browser...

I've been blogging for 21 years now (!!), and over that time I've had a wide variety of comments on here, but there have been a coup...

This past week I attended META 2026 , the 16th International Conference on Metamaterials, Photonic Crystals and Plasmonics, at Trinity Colle...

When I wrote this post last month , I really did not want it to be first in a series. The inciting incident to write that post was a news ar...

For non-US folks, feel free to skip.  For US folks:  The Office of Management and Budget , which for much of its history has been a compara...

 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...