Scientists Say
A weekly word defined, in a sentence and in context. Click here to find the alphabetized list.
-
Scientists Say: Petrichor
There is no smell quite like that of fresh soil after a rainstorm. That smell has a name — petrichor — and scientists even know how it’s made.
- Ecosystems
Scientists Say: Niche
An organism’s niche is the role it fills in the community it lives in.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Zirconium
Zirconium is a metal that knows the meaning of tough. It’s so heat resistant that it’s used for molds to shape melted metals, and so radiation resistant that it coats nuclear reactors.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists Say: Metabolism
Metabolism is all the chemical activities that support life in a cell, an organ and a whole organism’s body.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Jellies
Jellies have roamed the seas for 500 million years. Some have stinging tentacles and bell-shaped bodies and are called jellyfish. Others are very different.
- Planets
Scientists Say: Exomoon
A moon that orbits a planet in our solar system in a moon. But a moon that orbits a planet outside our solar system? That’s an exomoon.
- Brain
Scientists Say: Opioid
Opioid drugs work in the brain to stop pain. But the drugs also produce pleasure, which can make people want to take them over and over again.
- Climate
Scientists Say: Rime ice
Rime ice is ice that forms when water freezes in a snap onto a surface.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Symbiosis
Two species can live together and support each other in a relationship called symbiosis.
- Math
Scientists Say: Statistical significance
Statistical significance is a phrase that describes how often a scientific difference might occur by accident.
- Space
Scientists Say: Orbit
An orbit is the path one object in space takes around another, such as a planet, star or the center of an atom.
- Life
Scientists Say: Nectar
Nectar is a fluid filled with sugar that plants — especially flowers — produce. They use it to attract animals that will then spread their pollen to another plant.
