A Bright Future: Quantum Dots and the Quest for Energy Efficient White Lights

From stadium lights to night lights, the modern way of life runs on artificial illumination. This lighting is costly—in both environmental and economic terms—but last week in the journal Optica, a team of researchers from Koç University in Turkey introduced a new kind of white light source, based on blue LEDs and quantum dots, that could lower the costs of lighting up our world.

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Scientists Identify Likely Source of High-Energy Cosmic Neutrinos

An international team of scientists has found compelling evidence that some the tiniest, most elusive particles we know about—neutrinos—are produced by one of the brightest, most energetic events in the universe. The key to this evidence? A single neutrino, detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory on September 22, 2017.

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Watch: How Does a Dead Fish Swim Upstream?

Take a quick look at this trout swimming upstream. Notice anything unusual?

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Big Bangs and Squibs: A Physicist Turns Pyrotechnician for the Day

Last week, I got to watch a great fireworks show from pretty close up—because I was part of the team that made it happen! By the end of the day, I had broken all of my nails, was covered in dirt from origins unknown, and had ash in my ears. It was awesome.


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What Happens When You Plug a Wire into a Lightning Bolt? Electrical Instability Caught on Camera

“It’s easy to forget, looking at a lightbulb filament, that electricity is still untamed and dynamic,” says Trevor Hutchinson, a graduate student in the physics department at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR).

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