Issues
-
Cover Image
Cover Image
Cover: The light all around us comes in a multitude of polarization states. By splitting an image into four components, represented here by the colored shadows, a specialized camera can capture them all. Imaging the ways that objects can transform the polarization of the light that hits them is a task four times as complicated, but that can now be done with a compact device based on optical metamaterials. To learn more, turn to page 12. (Image by Freddie Pagani.)
Readers' Forum
Live streaming a radio-telescope observation of the solar eclipse
Beyond the cinematic feat: Consequences Oppenheimer ignored
Search and Discovery
Metamaterial device makes 16 polarization measurements at once
Capturing all the ways that an object can affect a light wave’s polarization has always been cumbersome. Now it can be done in an instant.
A new route to synthetic diamond
Most diamonds are formed at pressures exceeding 40 000 atm. With a new approach, nanocrystals can be grown in a liquid-metal mixture at just 1 atm.
Ultralow-field MRI machine could cost less than a car
The prototype medical device, whose AI-processed images show features similar to those from a typical instrument with a strong magnetic field, could increase MRI access.
Updates
New memory circuit can handle the heat
A ferroelectric device can store data at temperatures up to 600 °C for dozens of hours at a time.
Old forests are irreplaceably cool
Satellite measurements confirm that the sudden disappearance of mature tropical forests has a more drastic effect on local land temperature than does the gradual growth of young forests.
Keeping accurate time while on the ocean
Researchers use iodine to design smaller optical clocks for uses outside the laboratory.
Issues and Events
What is nuclear energy’s role in mitigating climate change?
Cost, construction time, and safety, security, and proliferation risks all figure in.
Einstein statue unveiled in Havana
Albert Einstein visited Cuba briefly in 1930. This past March, he came back to stay—in bronze.
Arecibo STEM educational center to open soon
Biology and computer science activities replace the iconic radio telescope at the Puerto Rican observatory site.
Indigenous women thrive in Los Alamos internships
A small program is having a big impact on its participants.
Articles
When cellular systems meet power grids
Although biological energy systems and electrical grids differ in scale and are studied by different disciplines, the strategies from one system could lead to benefits for the other.
Fixing the PhD qualifying exam
For the past five years, the faculty in the department of atmospheric, oceanic, and Earth sciences at George Mason University has used a qualifying process that overcomes many of the shortcomings of traditional exams.
Exploring Mars’s harsh atmosphere
Getting humans to Mars is difficult enough. But things won’t be any easier after they arrive: The red planet’s climate and weather are anything but friendly.
New Products
Quick Study
The threat from cosmic flotsam
A power-law distribution of asteroid impacts on Earth spans 13 orders of magnitude in energy. The risk is dominated by low-probability but high-consequence events.