Recently, butlers to orange-colored cats got a bit of a shock when reading the news, as headlines began to call out their fuzzy feline friends as ‘freaks of nature’ and using similarly uncouth terms. Despite the name-calling, the actual reason for this flurry of feline fascination was more benign — with two teams of scientists […]
[Daniel Salião Ferreira] may or may not be a Game of Thrones fan, but he does have a fun demo of the Seebeck effect in the form of a flashlight powered by fire and ice. The basic idea is to use a thermocouple, but — in this case — he uses a Peltier effect cooler. […]
To the average person, walking into a flour- or sawmill and seeing dust swirling around is unlikely to evoke much of a response, but those in the know are quite likely to bolt for the nearest exit at this harrowing sight. For as harmless as a fine cloud of flour, sawdust or even coffee creamer […]
It’s sometimes easy to forget that the light in the sky is an actual star. With how reliable it is and how busy we tend to be as humans, we can take that incredible fact and stow it away and largely go on with our lives unaffected. But our star is the thing that gives […]
Since the tail end of World War II, humanity has struggled to deal with its newfound ability to harness the tremendous energy in the nucleus of the atom. Of course there have been some positive developments like nuclear power which can produce tremendous amounts of electricity without the greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuels. But […]
If you’ve been following environmental news over the past couple of decades, you’ve probably heard about PFAS – those pesky “forever chemicals” that seem to turn up everywhere from drinking water to polar bear blood. They’re bad for us, and we know it, but they’ve been leeching into the environment for decades, often as a […]
Today in material science news we have a report from [German Science Guy] about a new supermaterial which is as strong as steel and as light as Styrofoam! A supermaterial is a type of material that possesses remarkable physical properties, often surpassing traditional materials in strength, conductivity, or other characteristics. Graphene, for example, is considered […]
Genetic defects are exceedingly common, which is not surprising considering just how many cells make up our bodies, including our reproductive cells. While most of these defects have no or only minor effects, some range from serious to fatal. One of these defects is in the CPS1 gene, with those affected facing a shortened lifespan […]
To paraphrase The Simpsons: plastics are the solution to – and cause of – all of mankind’s problems. Nowhere is this more clear in the phenomenon of microplastics. Some have suggested that alternative bioplastics made out of starch, like PLA, could be the solution here, as the body might be able to digest and disassemble […]
Here’s one for our astronomy geeks. Our hacker [arrow] has made their own observatory! This particular video is a bit over ten minutes long and is basically a montage; there is no narration or explanation given, but you can watch clear progress being made and the ultimate success of the backyard facility. Obviously the coolest […]