All Stories by Stephen Ornes
- Space
Fast, mysterious clouds swarm around our galaxy
Astronomers want to know the source — and importance — of these faint, fast-moving clouds that zoom beyond and toward our Milky Way’s disk.
- Earth
These ultra-long experiments outlive their scientists — on purpose
To study phenomena that unfold over decades or even centuries, scientists may launch projects they may never see finished.
- Tech
Pickleballs inspire a new way to reduce drag on vehicles
Dimples in a skin can be adjusted on demand to reduce drag or to steer where a vehicle goes.
- Materials Science
A beautiful blue butterfly wing offers a new way to study cancer
Once a morpho butterfly wing is placed atop a thin slice of tissue, shining polarized light through it can help reveal how likely breast cancer is to spread.
- Space
The universe: How will it end?
The Big Bang likely brought our universe into existence. What will mark its grand finale? Scientists blend imagination and data to make predictions.
- Planets
So many wondrous moons — just a spaceship ride away
Scientists are studying extraterrestrial moons for clues to how planets form, how life began — and whether there’s life out there right now.
- Tech
Lasers help put the cork on spilled oil
Treating cork with lasers made the material able to quickly sponge up oil while repelling water, scientists in China and Israel found.
- Tech
Laser-based tech can identify illegal elephant ivory
Most elephant ivory is illegal to sell. Ivory from extinct mammoths isn’t. They look similar, but lasers can tell the difference to help catch poachers.
- Physics
Here’s why scientists want a good quantum computer
These machines could tackle big problems in climate, medicine and more. But the tech is still in its infancy — and runs on truly strange physics.
- Tech
Lego bricks inspired a new way to shape devices for studying liquids
Inspired by Lego building blocks, the approach could enable design of adaptable tools to study how fluids move through very small spaces.
- Math
Cake-cutting math offers lessons that go far beyond dessert plates
As a way to study how to fairly share a limited resource, cake-cutting can inform splitting up chores, drawing fair voting districts and more.
- Tech
Balsa wood transistors could usher in ‘greener’ electronics
Researchers in Sweden coaxed wood to conduct electricity, then used it to make a climate-friendlier building block of electronics.
