Atoms
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Ball lightning has been consistently reported for centuries, and yet we still know very little about it. Now, scientists have created quantum ball lightning by knotting together the magnetic spins of atoms, which could help unlock the secrets of the phenomenon, or make more stable fusion reactors.
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As tiny as they are, there's a relatively large amount of empty space inside an atom. Now, scientists from Austria and the US have filled in some of those gaps, creating a new state of matter in the form of "giant atoms" filled with other atoms.
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Researchers have now found a way for graphene to be used as a clean and potentially unlimited energy source. By tapping into the random fluctuations of the carbon atoms that make up graphene sheets, the scientists can generate an alternating current strong enough to indefinitely power a wristwatch.
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To better understand molecular events, scientists use short-pulse X-ray lasers to take precise snapshots. Now, researchers at ETH Zurich have managed to shorten the pulse of an X-ray laser down to 43 attoseconds – which the team says is the shortest controlled event ever created by humankind.
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To get a better look at the molecular scale we need a “camera” that’s several kilometers long, and one such facility is firing up this month. The European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL), which happens to be the largest x-ray laser in the world, can take 3,000 images per second of that tiny world.
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Having created the world’s smallest magnet, IBM has managed to store one bit of data in a single atom, in a breakthrough that could lead to storage devices that can hold 1,000 times more data in the same physical space.
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ScienceGeologists estimate that the Earth’s core is a sweltering 5,700 K – and yet the inner core is a solid ball of iron. Why it doesn’t liquify is a bit of a mystery, but now a study puts forward a new theory, simulating how solid iron can remain atomically stable under such extreme conditions.
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At just three atoms wide, scientists from Stanford University and the SLAC laboratory say they've created the world's thinnest nanowire assembled from diamondoids. The researchers believe that the new wire could be useful in a range of applications including energy-generating materials.
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A team of physicists have just created the world's smallest working engine from a single electrically-charged atom. With an equivalent efficiency (if scaled to size) of an average automobile engine, it actually produces a significant amount of power
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Researchers at ETH Zurich claim to have created both the world's smallest optical switch using a single atom, and accompanying circuitry that is smaller than the wavelength of the light that passes through it.
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ScienceScientists have successfully created a new super-heavy element called 117. The element matches some of the heaviest atoms ever observed and is around 40 percent heavier than a single atom of lead.
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The Cesium 133 from Bathys Hawaii is the world's first true atomic wristwatch. Boasting an internal cesium atomic clock that's claimed to be accurate to one second over 1,000 years, the Cesium 133 is a rather expensive but utterly unique timepiece.
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