Scientists Say
A weekly word defined, in a sentence and in context. Click here to find the alphabetized list.
- Space
Scientists Say: Red Dwarf
Red dwarfs are the most common kind of star in the Milky Way. They are much smaller and cooler than our own sun.
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Scientists Say: Faraday cage
A Faraday cage is an enclosure that distributes electrical charge all over its outside. That keeps the inside totally safe from electromagnetic waves.
- Earth
Scientists Say: Geyser
Geysers are underground springs with vents to the surface. When the water gets heated from nearby magma, the geyser blows.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Okapi
Okapis are African mammals that look a bit like horses and a bit like zebras. But they’re most closely related to giraffes.
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Scientists Say: Latitude and Longitude
Latitude is a measure of how far a location is north or south of the equator. Longitude is a measure of how far east or west a location is from the Prime Meridian.
- Climate
Scientists Say: Waterspout
A whirlwind over land is just a whirlwind. But over water, a whirlwind becomes a waterspout.
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Scientists Say: Gyroscope
Gyroscopes are devices that measure the three-dimensional orientation of an object. They can be found in objects as varied as smartphones and space telescopes.
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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.
