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A Very Special Snowball
from U.S. News & World Report
Scientists have created the final predicted form of stable ice, called ice XV, in the lab. But don't worry — Kurt Vonnegut had nothing to do with it, and the exotic new form of ice can't destroy civilization. Full Article
Physicists Propose 'Schrödinger's Virus' Experiment
from Nature News
Suspending a cat between life and death is one of the best-known thought experiments in quantum mechanics. Now researchers from Germany and Spain are proposing a real experiment to probe whether a virus can exist in a superposition of two quantum states. Full Article
Calculating Why We See Classical Behavior in a Quantum World
from Ars Technica
One of the remaining mysteries of quantum mechanics is the question of how we transition between the probabilistic world of quantum mechanics and the everyday world of classical objects. From a strict reductionist point of view, everything is quantum, and, yes, you could build a dog if you had the right mixture of quarks and electrons. Full Article
Electron Bolts: Even Deeply Bound Electrons Can Escape Molecules via Quantum Tunneling
from Scientific American
Physicists used to believe that only the outermost electrons could tunnel from an atom, but research in the past few years has begun to revise that thinking, showing that lower-lying orbitals get into the act as well. Full Article
Nanotubes Could Enable Self-Repairing Electronic Circuits
from Popular Science
Many people know the familiar wince when a cell phone or laptop hits the floor. But electronic devices of the future may self-repair tiny cracks or breaks in their circuitry with the help of nanotubes. Full Article
New Images and Spectra from a Rejuvenated Hubble
from ScienceNews
Five grueling space walks in May have transformed the aging — and ailing — Hubble Space Telescope into a brand new observatory. Images and spectra released by NASA on Sept. 9 confirm that two new instruments and two old, revived instruments are working properly. Full Article
"Earth-Shaking" Surprise Found in Upper Atmosphere
from NBC Los Angeles
A half-century-old mystery about how the solar wind interacts with earth's atmosphere may have been partly solved by some UCLA atmospheric scientists. As a result spacecraft, power grids and other modern facets of life could be made safer. Full Article
New Solar Cell Design Serves Up Seconds
from ScienceNOW
Even the best solar cells can convert only so much of the energy in sunlight into electricity. But researchers in the United States and Canada report today in Science about a new advance that may one day break through that barrier. Full Article
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