Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions
- Animals
Analyze This: Bulky plesiosaurs may not have been bad swimmers after all
Long-necked plesiosaurs were thought to be slow swimmers. But new research suggests the animals’ large size helped them overcome water resistance.
- Materials Science
Laser light transformed plastic into tiny diamonds
The technique could be used to make nanodiamonds for quantum devices and other technology.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Force
When an object experiences a force, its change in motion — or acceleration — depends on its mass.
- Chemistry
New meat-scented food flavoring comes from sugar — and mealworms
Insects could become a protein-rich part of the human diet. This new research aims to help people get past the ick of eating insects.
- Materials Science
Cool Jobs: Scientific glassblowers shape science
Glass has played a major role in research for centuries. Today’s artisans work at the forefront of discovery.
- Animals
The top side of an elephant’s trunk is surprisingly stretchy
Research on elephant trunks could inspire new artificial skins for soft robots.
- Tech
You might someday ‘wallpaper’ your bedroom with this loudspeaker
This thin, flexible and lightweight loudspeaker could reduce noise in loud spaces. It also might enable listeners to experience sound in new ways.
- Physics
When dominoes fall, how fast the row topples depends on friction
Two types of friction help determine how quickly a line of dominoes collapses, computer modeling shows.
- Tech
Teens’ new tech would send alerts to reduce preventable deaths
A trio of teen innovations created devices that can speed up the response time to pool accidents, overheating in cars and combat-related injuries.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Inertia
Inertia is the tendency of objects to resist changes in their motion.
- Physics
A new clock shows how gravity warps time — even over tiny distances
This clock measured how gravity changes the passage of time in different places — even spots just one millimeter apart.
- Animals
Orb-weaving spiders use their webs like external eardrums
Scientists discover that orb-weaving spiders listen with their legs, detecting sound vibrations that travel through their silken webs.
