These shape-shifting devices melt and reform thanks to magnetic fields
Shape-shifting liquid metal robots might not be limited to science fiction anymore. Miniature machines can switch from solid to liquid and back again to squeeze…
Shape-shifting liquid metal robots might not be limited to science fiction anymore. Miniature machines can switch from solid to liquid and back again to squeeze…
High-tech shrink art may be the key to making tiny electronics, 3-D nanostructures or even holograms for hiding secret messages. A new approach to making…
CHICAGO — More than electricity can illuminate a thundercloud. Brilliant bursts of gamma radiation, known as dark lightning or terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, also explode in…
Tubular laser beams can create what amount to fiber-optic cables made of thin air, researchers report in a study to appear in Physical Review X.…
Tiny drops of dirty water, often mistaken for air bubbles, tell the tale of rippling icicle growth. Icicles made of pure water are smooth. But…
If you ever happen to fall through a wormhole in space, you won’t be coming back. It will snap shut behind you. But you may…
A perfect ending for the final Apollo — Science News, December 23, 1972 Project Apollo ended this week. The last moon men … returned to…
These reported discoveries from 2022 could be game changers, if only we were sure of the findings. News reports this year left us wondering ……
Scientists have finally managed to bottle the sun. Researchers with the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, Calif., have ignited controlled nuclear fusion that resulted in…
A New Figure for the Cosmic Speed Limit – Science News, December 2, 1972 A group at the National Bureau of Standards at Boulder, Colo.,…
The infant universe transforms from a featureless landscape to an intricate web in a new supercomputer simulation of the cosmos’s formative years. An animation from…
Olympic divers slice into a pool with a quick turn underwater that minimizes splash. But not for the reasons many athletes think it does, according…
Restroom visitors can expect cleaner knees and tidier floors, if they happen to use a new urinal inspired by curves in nature. The key to…
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing — all you’ve got to do is stagger your timing. For decades, fans of…
Even sperm gotta stick together. Bull sperm swim more effectively when in clusters, a new study shows, potentially offering insight into fertility in humans. In…
Protons might be stretchier than they should be. The subatomic particles are built of smaller particles called quarks, which are bound together by a powerful…
Particles raining down from space offer 3-D views inside swirling tropical storms. Muons created from cosmic rays that smash into Earth’s upper atmosphere have revealed…
Wind turbines could offer a double whammy in the fight against climate change. Besides harnessing wind to generate clean energy, turbines may help to funnel…
You might feel a spark when you talk to your crush, but living things don’t require romance to make electricity. A study published October 24…
Tiny “fingers” can help polar bears get a grip. Like the rubbery nubs on the bottom of baby socks, microstructures on the bears’ paw pads…
Your cell phone could reveal the health status of bridges just by being in your pocket as you go about your daily travels. Accelerometers and…
Zapping liquid metal droplets with ultrasound offers a new way to make wiring for stretchy, bendy electronics. The technique, described in the Nov. 11 Science,…
You don’t need a dandelion to know which way the wind blows. But it can help. On any given dandelion, some seeds are destined to…
Even though it’s only even odds that 2022 will turn out to be less of a disaster than 2021 (or 2020), at least 2022 is…
If you hate having your bubble burst, you’ll love these “everlasting” bubbles. While soap bubbles are known for their fragile constitutions, the new bubbles can…
Some quantum particles gotta get right back to where they started from. Physicists have confirmed a theoretically predicted phenomenon called the quantum boomerang effect. An…
Trapped within a bead of water, thousands of tiny worms wiggle in hypnotic synchrony as they stream around the globule’s rim. And at the center…
Scientists are like prospectors, excavating the natural world seeking gems of knowledge about physical reality. And in the century just past, scientists have dug deep…
It’s confirmed: Protons and antiprotons are well-matched. The two types of subatomic particles mirror each other in the ratios of their electric charge to mass,…
The only known duo of pulsars has just revealed a one-of-a-kind heap of cosmic insights. For over 16 years, scientists have been observing the pair…
An elusive form of matter called a quantum spin liquid isn’t a liquid, and it doesn’t spin — but it sure is quantum. Predicted nearly…
A cloud of ultracold atoms is like a motel with a neon “no vacancy” sign. If a guest at the motel wants to switch rooms,…
It all happens in a snap. New high-speed video exposes the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it physics behind snapping your fingers. The footage reveals the extreme speed at which…
Inscribed on an Italian family’s 15th century coat of arms and decorating an ancient Japanese shrine, the Borromean rings are symbolically potent. Remove one ring…
From the maw of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87, two enormous jets stream thousands of light-years into space. Scientists…
The cosmic origins of elements heavier than iron are mysterious. One elemental birthplace came to light in 2017 when two neutron-rich dead stars collided and…
A mad scramble to observe the moments after a star’s death is helping scientists understand how the star lived out its last year. Astronomers reported…
For decades, physicists have suspected an interloper. A reclusive, hypothetical subatomic particle might be creeping into studies of neutrinos, nearly massless particles with no electric…
There’s physics to having your ducklings in a row. By paddling in an orderly line behind their mother, baby ducks can take a ride on…
A millimeter might not seem like much. But even a distance that small can alter the flow of time. According to Einstein’s theory of gravity,…
Mistakes happen — especially in quantum computers. The fragile quantum bits, or qubits, that make up the machines are notoriously error-prone, but now scientists have…
You’ve heard of disappearing ink. Now get ready for suddenly appearing ink. Using a clear liquid, researchers can print a full rainbow of colors on…
Like helicoptering maple seeds, tiny new fliers whirl gracefully as they glide. The miniature aircraft, which can be made as small as a grain of…
A crucial number that rules the universe goes big in a strange quantum material. The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in…
Like soft serve ice cream, beams of atoms and molecules now come with a swirl. Scientists already knew how to dish up spiraling beams of…
Protons can surf some truly gnarly waves. A new experiment suggests that the subatomic particles can be accelerated by a process akin to surfers catching…
Flashes of CreationPaul HalpernBasic Books, $30 The Big Bang wasn’t always a sure bet. For several decades in the 20th century, researchers wrestled with interpreting…
The W particle may have been found — Science News, August 21, 1971 Physicists distinguish four different kinds of force by which objects in the…
With a powerful laser zap, scientists have blasted toward a milestone for nuclear fusion. A fusion experiment at the world’s biggest laser facility released 1.3…
At every moment, subatomic particles stream in unfathomable numbers through your body. Each second, about 100 billion neutrinos from the sun pass through your thumbnail,…
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