Lisa Zyga

The ability to securely transmit information over the internet is extremely important, but most of the time, eavesdroppers can still generally determine who the sender and receiver are. In some highly confidential situations, ...

Physicists have developed a quantum simulation method that can "virtually cool" an experimental quantum system to a fraction of its actual temperature. The method could potentially allow access to extremely low-temperature ...

Ever since the late 19th century, physicists have known about a counterintuitive property of some electric circuits called negative resistance. Typically, increasing the voltage in a circuit causes the electric current to ...

Sometimes in shallow water, a type of wave can form that is much more stable than ordinary waves. Called solitons, these phenomena emerge as solitary waves and can travel long distances while maintaining their shape and speed, ...

Researchers have developed the first fully functional biofuel cell whose biocatalysts (enzymes that play a critical role in power generation) directly self-assemble onto the electrodes. In about 5 minutes, enzyme-nanoparticle ...

Many famous experiments have shown that the simple act of observing a quantum system can change the properties of the system. This phenomenon, called the "observer effect," appears, for example, when Schrödinger's cat becomes ...

Some animals, such as birds, dolphins, and whales, can engage in unihemispheric sleep, in which one hemisphere of the brain sleeps while the other hemisphere remains awake. Staying half-awake allows animals to literally "keep ...

We might imagine that electric current flows as a smooth, even stream of electrons through our electronics devices, but at the quantum scale the flow of electric current might be more accurately pictured as a bubbling brook ...

When a container of silicone oil or other similar liquid is vertically shaken at a regular frequency, 1-millimeter-sized droplets of the same liquid placed on the liquid's surface appear to "walk" across the surface at speeds ...

Researchers have found that cuttlefish ink—a black suspension sprayed by cuttlefish to deter predators—contains nanoparticles that strongly inhibit the growth of cancerous tumors in mice. The nanoparticles consist mostly ...

Patterns appear widely throughout nature and math, from the Fibonacci spirals of sea shells to the periodicity of crystals. But certain math problems can sometimes trick the human solver into seeing a pattern, but then, out ...

Over the past two decades, research in morphology—the study of the shapes and structures of biological organisms—has exploded due to advances in imaging technologies. Researchers have generated massive amounts of visual data, ...

Efficiently moving water upward against gravity is a major feat of human engineering, yet one that trees have mastered for hundreds of millions of years. In a new study, researchers have designed a tree-inspired water transport ...

In 1975, R.M. May and W.J. Leonard first used the rock-paper-scissors game to model ecological scenarios in which three species cyclically dominate each other: one species dominates a second species, the second species dominates ...

When it comes to electric charge, there is one overriding theme: opposites attract, and like charges repel. But in a new study, physicists have made the surprising discovery that two spherical like-charged metal nanoparticles ...