Physics
- 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.
- Materials Science
This engineer uses light to get hearts pumping
Pengju Li designed a new type of pacemaker to help doctors during open-heart surgery.
- Physics
Physics finally explains the sound of clapping
The “Helmholtz resonator” concept is responsible for the sound produced by hand-clapping.
- Microbes
Living lenses? Glass-coated microbes might take better photos
Bacteria with a gene from sea sponges can coat themselves in glass. Working as tiny, bendable lenses, they could lead to thinner cameras or sensors.
- 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.
- Physics
This weird ice may exist on alien planets
Scientists used high pressure and heat to create plastic ice, which has qualities of both ordinary ice and liquid water.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Lift
An airplane wing’s unique shape creates air pressure differences that result in this gravity-defying force.
- Tech
Experiment: Make the fastest rubber band paddleboat
With a rubber band and some cardboard, you can build your own paddleboat to speed across the surface of a pool.
- Materials Science
Orange food dye can temporarily turn skin transparent
When mixed with water and rubbed on the skin, a common food dye allows researchers to peer inside the body of a mouse.
- Physics
Wiggling robots reveal the physics of how Hula-Hoops stay up
Newbies should swing their Hula-Hoops fast and in line with their bodies, the new findings suggest.
- Earth
Scientists Say: Dark lightning
We don't see it, but rare gamma-ray lightning can bolt from stormy skies like regular lightning.
- Physics
Let’s learn about static electricity
The effects of static electricity are all around us — from lightning strikes to clothes clinging together out of the drier. But scientists still don’t fully understand this phenomenon.
