Earth and Moon as seen by the Galileo spacecraft from a distance of 6 million km away. NASA Gareth Dorrian, University of Birmingham It’s been 30 years since a group of scientists led by Carl Sagan found evidence for life on Earth using data from instruments on board the Nasa Galileo robotic spacecraft. Yes, you […]
Single-use plastics. Anton Petrus/Moment Katherine Harry, Colorado State University and Emma Rettner, Colorado State University Hundreds of millions of tons of single-use plastic ends up in landfills every year, and even the small percentage of plastic that gets recycled can’t last forever. But our group of materials scientists has developed a new method for creating […]
From Interesting Engineering: In a world where robotics and medical innovation converge, a game-changing hero emerges: a slime. This isn’t your typical gooey substance; it’s a fluid-based soft robot, a blend of polymers, borax, and alcohol, capable of shifting between liquid and solid states through viscoelasticity. Tiny neodymium particles grant it magnetic control, allowing it […]
Telescopes at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory near La Serena, Chile. Guillaume Doyen/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, CC BY Luke Keller, Ithaca College NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, dropping off its sample of dust and pebbles gathered from the surface of near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Analysis of this sample will help scientists understand how the […]
Update: the launch was a success. You can rewatch it above by rewinding the footage. I can’t specify the exact time yet since the live video is not over. From NASA: Watch the Psyche spacecraft launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. NASA and SpaceX are now targeting […]
Comet Hale-Bopp was visible from Earth in 1997. E. Kolmhofer, H. Raab; Johannes-Kepler-Observatory, Linz, Austria, CC BY-NC Shannon Schmoll, Michigan State University When you hear the word comet, you might imagine a bright streak moving across the sky. You may have a family member who saw a comet before you were born, or you may […]
Many cultures integrate hot peppers into traditional dishes. AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File Paul D. Terry, University of Tennessee Everyone has a different tolerance for spicy food — some love the burn, while others can’t take the heat. But the scientific consensus on whether spicy food can have an effect — positive or negative — […]
In the world of medical innovation, where countless hours and billions of dollars are invested annually, the power of serendipity often shines through. While deliberate research drives progress, some of the most remarkable medical discoveries have occurred entirely by accident. Here is a compilation of major medical breakthroughs that happened while pursuing entirely different objectives.
If you’ve ever reached for an over-the-counter decongestant in the past couple of decades, there’s a good chance it contained phenylephrine as its primary active ingredient. But here’s the catch: Phenylephrine doesn’t work any better than a placebo. So, why is it still available for sale? Vox’s Phil Edwards delves into this perplexing issue in […]
George De Hevesy working in his lab at Stockholm University in 1944. Keystone Features/Hulton Archive via Getty Images Artemis Spyrou, Michigan State University; Katharina Domnanich, Michigan State University, and Sean Liddick, Michigan State University Each October, the Nobel Prizes celebrate a handful of groundbreaking scientific achievements. And while many of the awarded discoveries revolutionize the […]