Chemistry
Explainer: What is chirality?
Chiral molecules are mirror images of each other. They might not seem all that different — but can have drastically different effects in medicine, materials and more.
Physics
More Stories in Physics
- Climate
As winters warm, athletes must cope with harder snow and tricky ice
Ice arenas and artificial snow now dominate the winter Olympics. Athletes there — and everywhere — may need to adjust how they train and perform.
- Animals
Is it possible to be invisible?
Fiction is full of characters with the power to vanish. But some animals have real-life ways to become nearly invisible.
- Physics
Energy may seem to disappear, but there’s a law against that
When a ball rolls to stop or a phone battery dies, it’s energy didn't vanish — it just morphed to another form. Energy is always conserved.
- Animals
Radioactive animals don’t glow — but do show the power of radiation
Wild species exposed to nuclear contamination help show how radiation affects living things — including its risks to people.
- Environment
Nuclear weapons tests many decades ago have left a radioactive legacy
Decades of aboveground nuclear weapons tests, starting in the 1950s, lightly littered the planet with toxic fallout, which appears to have sickened some people.
- Materials Science
‘Stenciling’ tiny gold particles gives them new properties
Decorating nanoparticles with other chemicals could give them useful properties for medicines, textiles and more.
- Fossils
Here’s why ammolite gems have a rainbow shimmer
The fossils’ fabulous colors arise from delicate assemblies of crystal plates.
- Space
This cosmologist studies the invisible parts of the universe
Katie Mack started out building solar-powered LEGO cars as a kid. Now she studies dark matter to better understand how galaxies form and evolve.
- Physics
Chopping an onion? Sharp knives can keep its juice out of your eyes
Slow and steady cuts with a sharp blade, video shows, can reduce the pain-inducing spray of tiny onion-juice droplets by more than 100 feet!
