Law and society rely upon a 'Republic of Belief'
In developed and less developed countries alike, many worry about why laws are so often ignored. But there's a converse question that is even more puzzling: Why are laws obeyed at all?
Jun 08, 2018
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Researchers use 'flying focus' to better control lasers over long distances
When you were a kid, you might have used a magnifying glass to focus the sun's light onto a spot on the sidewalk. The lens of the magnifying glass allowed you to concentrate the sun's energy by converging the light rays on ...
Image: The moon in 1992
The moon was a focal point for NASA in 2017, whether it was blocking out the sun during one of the most-viewed events in U.S. history, or reinvigorating the agency's human space exploration plans. But the moon has always ...
No escaping ocean plastic: 37 million bits of litter on one of world's remotest islands
The beaches of one of the world's most remote islands have been found to be polluted with the highest density of plastic debris reported anywhere on the planet, in a study published in the prestigious US scientific journal ...
Researchers unleash graphene 'tiger' for more efficient optoelectronics
In the quest to harvest light for electronics, the focal point is the moment when photons—light particles—encounter electrons, those negatively-charged subatomic particles that form the basis of our modern electronic ...
New method reduces need for fish in experiments
Fish are commonly used in experiments to identify environmental hazards and pollutants in water. As gills are in constant contact with the water, they are often the focal point for studies seeking to understand the effects ...
Storm chasers take on supercell thunderstorms in Bangladesh
This past April, Scott Olson touched down in Bangladesh to become the country's first known storm chaser. On the other side of the world, back in Oklahoma, Tim Vasquez and a team of meteorologists worked tirelessly to put ...
Student's six-foot water and solar-powered lens purifies polluted water
(Phys.org) —Water may appear to be an abundant resource, but in some parts of the world clean water is hard to come by.
Deformable mirror corrects errors
Very high power is needed to cut or weld using a laser beam. But this creates its own problem: the beam's energy deforms the mirrors that are focusing it to a point. When this happens, the beam expands and loses intensity. ...
Researchers use sound waves to levitate objects in three dimensions
(Phys.org) —A trio of researchers with the University of Tokyo in Japan has expanded the science of sound wave levitation by adding more speakers and controlling the focal point of the waves that are created. In so doing, ...
