To make glass more scratch resistant, you make it harder, but this increases brittleness and susceptibility to shattering. To make it less brittle and more shatter resistant, you make it softer, which makes it more susceptible to scratches. You can optimize for one or the other, but dramatically improving both simultaneously is essentially impossible.
During the Trinity nuclear test on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert—the world’s very first test of an atomic bomb—a new material spontaneously formed. It was discovered only recently, by an international research team coordinated by geologist Luca Bindi at the University of Florence, which identified the novel clathrate based on calcium, copper, and silicon. It’s a material never before observed either in nature or as an artificial compound created in the laboratory.
Scientists called it trinitite. Now researchers have identified a new material within trinitite called a clathratea cagelike chemical lattice that traps other atoms inside it. It's a completely new kind of clathrate crystal—something never seen before in nature or in the products of a nuclear explosion, says Luca Bindi, a geologist at the University of Florence in Italy, who is co-author of a new study detailing the finding.
Ralph's research focuses on the electronic, magnetic and optical properties of nanometer-scale samples, particularly revealing the 'spin-transfer torque effect' which manipulates magnetic orientation.
Carbon nanotubes come in various forms, including single-walled and multi-walled types. Single-walled nanotubes can be visualized as a rolled-up sheet of graphene, while multi-walled nanotubes consist of multiple layers wrapped around a core. The metallic form of these nanotubes offers minimal resistance to electron flow, but the majority of electrons are bound in chemical bonds, limiting their availability for current conduction.
Squeaking occurs across various contexts including shoes, bike brakes, rubber tires, and biomedical implants when soft and hard surfaces contact each other. Researchers used high-speed photography to study a rubber block sliding across hard acrylic to identify the source of these sounds. The investigation revealed that pulses similar to earthquake dynamics drive the squeaking phenomenon.
We were not expecting to find so much richness and depth from a physics point of view underneath the sole of a shoe, says Adel Djellouli, a scientist at Harvard University and co-lead of the study. In a new study, scientists explore the physics that give rise to the familiar squeak of basketball shoes sliding on a hard surface.
Apple's shift to 3D-printed titanium marks a turning point, not just for wearables, but for how material innovation becomes the foundation for meaningful design change. Every Apple Watch Ultra 3 and titanium Series 11 case now emerges from additive manufacturing using 100 percent recycled aerospace-grade titanium powder. The process cuts raw material consumption in half and saves over 400 metric tons this year alone.
Sure, concrete guitars do exist in the novelty space (they aren't a new idea), but they're typically solid slabs that weigh somewhere between 80 and 90 pounds, which makes them less "playable instrument" and more "sculptural middle finger to ergonomics." What these two pulled off is different. They engineered a semi-hollow body with 3/8 inch concrete walls, kept the whole thing under 20 pounds (19.8 to be exact), and somehow nailed the intonation without any adjustments.
Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode "The skin we're in" Anna Maria Coclite is developing artificial skin, even more sensitive than our own. For burn victims and beyond, this "smart skin" has the potential to restore sensation to our body's largest organ. About Anna Maria Coclite Anna Maria Coclite is a professor in the Department of Physics, University of Bari Aldo Moro, in Italy.
