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Physical Society Roundup/Hirshon
Mixing diamonds and ice. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
Diamond films are ideal for coating artificial heart valves and joint replacements. That’s because diamonds are hard and don’t corrode. But diamond films can be rough, and proteins in the body stick to them. Two Harvard researchers propose coating the diamond films with ice. Believe it or not, they created a diamond film that could bond with ice and prevent it from melting—even at body temperature. In fact, they claim they can make ice that won’t melt even at the boiling point.
In other physics news, researchers writing in the journal Physical Review Letters describe a column-shaped invisibility cloak. A person inside the column would be invisible to anyone outside. The scientists found that such a cloak is possible, but that the surface would have to be fabricated to extremely precise specifications.
I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.