Calcium Keeps Night Vision From Tricking Our Brains

 Inside Science, October 2012

As candy-crazed kids run up and down driveways this Halloween, guided only by the flickering light of jack-o’-lanterns, it’s easy to appreciate the low light vision that’s preventing trips over superhero capes and princess dresses. But despite the usefulness of night vision, scientists have only now identified the important chemical process that compensates for visual errors in low light.

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Shortest Laser Pulse Ever Created

 Inside Science, September 2012

American researchers have generated a record-setting laser pulse so short that it makes most everything else seem like an eternity. The pulse lasted just 67 attoseconds, which is about two million billion times faster than the blink of an eye. The previous record, set by European researchers in 2008, was about 20 percent slower.

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