All Stories
- Health & Medicine
Teen vaping soars past cigarette use
Most U.S. states ban sales of e-cigarette products to kids. Still, new data show that it’s no sweat for tweens and teens to buy them online.
- Ecosystems
This microbe thinks plastic is dinner
The bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis chows down on one type of polluting plastics. That means it could become helpful in cleaning up environmental waste.
- Materials Science
How to make window ‘glass’ from wood
Scientists have come up with a way to make wood transparent. The new material could be used in everything from windows to packaging.
- Health & Medicine
Teen girls start drinking earlier than boys
Teen girls now tend to take up drinking alcohol earlier than do boys, data show. Drinking-prevention programs, however, tend to focus on boys.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Frequency
The distance between one wave peak and another is wavelength. But how fast those peaks are moving along is frequency.
- Space
Hurricane at this galaxy’s center is wicked fast
The gale-force winds around one quasar whip by at almost 200 million kilometers per hour. That’s 625,000 times faster than the strongest hurricanes on Earth.
- Materials Science
Sunlight + gold = steaming water (no boiling needed)
Nano-gold is the new black, at least when it comes to absorbing heat. When tiny gold particles get together, they become energy super-absorbers — turning them black.
- Earth
Cool Jobs: Mapping the unknown
Scientists find different ways of exploring places humans will never visit — and drawing maps to help us better understand such mysterious places.
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A paper microscope magnifies on the go
Classroom microscopes can be clunky and costly. An inventor has designed one so small, tough and cheap that it can go home in every kid’s backpack.
- Earth
Carbon dioxide could explain how geysers spout
A new study overturns 150 years of thinking about Yellowstone’s geysers. Carbon dioxide, not just hot water, may be driving those spectacular eruptions.
- Tech
Tiny microrobots team up and move full-size car
Researchers have just created robots that mimic the ability of ants to move super-large objects.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Yottawatt
On Earth, scientists measure energy use in watts. When you have lot of those watts — one million billion billion — you have a yottawatt.
