Ryan F. Mandelbaum, Author at Gizmodo

Here’s the Best Way to Make Fried Rice, According to Hungry Engineers

Scientists explored the physics of tossing fried rice in order to devise the “optimal regime” for producing the dish, according to a new paper. Fried rice dates back 1,500 years, when Sui dynasty chefs began quickly moving their hot woks to toss rice and impart the browned-but-not-burned flavor. But surprisingly, scientists haven’t quantitatively studied or…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum

These Crows Evolved Into a New Species, Boned the Old Species Too Much, Now Back Where They Started

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, a glacier advanced upon the Pacific Northwest, its ice forming a natural barrier that fractured crows into two populations. These populations began to diverge into two separate species, which ornithologists decided were distinguishable by small differences in body measurements and the sounds they made. At least, that’s what they…

Biology Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Telescope Detects Fast Radio Burst Hitting Earth Every 16 Days

A telescope in Canada has found a source of mysterious fast radio bursts that repeat every 16 days, according to a new paper. It’s the first regularly repeating fast radio burst known to science. Fast radio bursts (FRB) are bright radio blips that originate from deep space. After the initial fast radio burst discovery in 2001,…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Image: Solar Orbiter: ESA/ATG medialab; Parker Solar Probe: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

The Solar Orbiter Will Launch Tonight on Its Journey to Peer Into the Sun

On Sunday, the European Space Agency hopes to launch its Solar Orbiter in order to better understand a star we know far too little about: the Sun. The launch is scheduled for 11:03 p.m. ET on February 9 (live stream from NASA TV is embedded below). As its name suggests, the Solar Orbiter is a…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Release the Muons! Physics Breakthrough Will Lead to a New Kind of Particle Collider

The next generation of atom smasher could be a 100-kilometer-round ring, costing over $10 billion, with no promise of finding something as glamorous as last decade’s Higgs boson. But does the future of physics need to be so large? What if researchers could probe the secrets of the smallest particles using technology that was, well,…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum

A Second Butterfly Defender Has Been Found Dead in Mexico

Two butterfly activists have been found dead in Mexico in less than a week. The body of guide and conservationist Raúl Hernández Romero was found in the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Ocampo, Mexico on Friday, following the discovery of the body of activist Homero Gómez González the week before in a retention pond. Both activists…

Conservation Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Meet Iowa’s 400,000-Year-Old Living Fossil

Northeastern Iowa holds a 400,000-year-old time capsule. Rather than vast, flat prairies, this region boasts a rolling landscape of bluffs and ravines spared by the earth-tamping force of the last Ice Age’s glaciers. And nestled in the leaf litter on rubble piles beside the area’s chilly bluffs lives a tightly coiled, quarter-inch endangered snail. Discus…

Conservation Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Illustration: Mark Myers, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery

Astrophysicists Observe Star Dragging Space-Time

Scientists have observed a spinning star dragging space-time along with it, according to a new paper. Physicists today devote a lot of time to trying to disprove the claims made in Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, but each new attempt has continued to prove the theory correct. This newest discovery, evidence of “frame dragging,”…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Scientists Turned a Normal Jellyfish Into a Speedy Cyborg Jellyfish

Jellyfish are the most efficient swimmers in the ocean, albeit fairly slow ones. Researchers at Stanford University made a jellyfish swim three times faster by sticking a motor to it, creating a biohybrid robot with the jellyfish as the “scaffold.” The swimming cyborg was 10 to 1,000 times more energy efficient than other swimming robots,…

Biology Ryan F. Mandelbaum

After an 80-Year Quest, Scientists Have Almost Certainly Discovered Metallic Hydrogen

Newly published results offer compelling evidence that hydrogen is a metal at extremely high pressures. But is the research enough to convince the field at large that metallic hydrogen exists? Theorists have long predicted that, at very high pressures (over 4 million times the pressure of the atmosphere at Earth’s surface), hydrogen should exist as…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum

The Agony and the Ecstasy of the Concord Grape

In 1849, Ephraim Wales Bull strolled through rows of wild grapes in his Concord, Massachusetts yard, each plant’s bare limbs spread out as if shrugging. After more than a decade experimenting with Isabella grapes that wouldn’t ripen outdoors and musty-tasting wild grapes that ripened too late, most people would’ve given up. Bull refused to. On…

Tech News Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Highest-Resolution Solar Telescope Ever Releases Incredible First Images of the Sun

This image is the first high-resolution shot from the 4-meter Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawai’i. Though it’s the nearest star to Earth, the Sun is still a mystery, and understanding its behaviors—specifically the behaviors that manifest as space weather here on Earth—has proven difficult. The Inouye Solar Telescope’s core goals include imaging the…

Space & Spaceflight Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Don’t Claim Purell Protects Against Ebola and MRSA, FDA Warns Company

In what can only be described as an incredible dunk, the Food and Drug Administration has sent a letter to Gojo Industries, maker of Purell hand sanitizer, warning that the company is violating federal rules by saying its products can kill “99.99% of most common germs that may cause illness in a healthcare setting, including…

Health Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Why Are There So Few Black Physicists? A New Report Describes What Needs to Change

A task force organized by the American Institute of Physics, a not-for-profit organization made up of other American physics societies, has released the results of a study into why African American students are persistently underrepresented in receiving undergraduate degrees in physics and astronomy. The National Task Force to Elevate African American representation in Undergraduate Physics…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum

This Locked Cabinet Holds the Answer to One of the Biggest Questions in Particle Physics

A 50-foot ring topped with white insulation sits attached to wires, pipes, and other electrical components in a warehouse on Fermilab’s northern Illinois campus. Scientists taking data with this device have the potential to rock the field of particle physics to its core, but they’re missing a crucial number to make their final calculation: the…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Why I Went Birdwatching at a Particle Physics Lab

We drove past the perfect-circle frozen pond delineating the Booster—the second in a sequence of Fermilab’s particle accelerators—and then onto the 2-mile ring road that traces the tunnel that houses the Main Injector accelerator. Along the road are unfrozen ponds filled with water used for cooling research equipment, where Canada geese have taken up residence…

Biology Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Using a DNA-Based ‘Computer,’ Scientists Get the Square Root of 900

Using a computer-like system made from engineered DNA, scientists have computed the square root of 900. Biologists have proposed using genetic material for performing computations since as early as 1994. Since then, they’ve found ways to store bits of information in DNA and manipulate those bits via the same rules of logic that computers use.…

Gadgets Ryan F. Mandelbaum

‘Remarkable’ Mathematical Proof Describes How to Solve Seemingly Impossible Computing Problem

You enter a cave. At the end of a dark corridor, you encounter a pair of sealed chambers. Inside each chamber is an all-knowing wizard. The prophecy says that with these oracles’ help, you can learn the answers to unanswerable problems. But there’s a catch: The oracles don’t always tell the truth. And though they…

Gadgets Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Scientists Built a Robot From 40 Pigeon Feathers and It Flies Beautifully

Scientists seeking to understand the mechanics of bird flight have constructed PigeonBot, a robot made from 40 pigeon feathers (and a few other components). While airplanes maneuver by altering their wing elements, birds can morph the shape of their entire wings to dive, bank, and coast through the air, increasing both their efficiency and agility.…

Biology Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Image: NASA, ESA, A. Nierenberg (JPL) and T. Treu (UCLA

Has Hubble Detected Rogue Clumps of Dark Matter?

Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered evidence of small clumps of dark matter warping the light from distant quasars. Regular matter seems to form only a small part of the universe—much more of the matter seems to be “dark” stuff that influences regular matter via gravity but can’t be detected directly. The most…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Here’s the Best Way to Make Fried Rice, According to Hungry Engineers

These Crows Evolved Into a New Species, Boned the Old Species Too Much, Now Back Where They Started

Telescope Detects Fast Radio Burst Hitting Earth Every 16 Days

The Solar Orbiter Will Launch Tonight on Its Journey to Peer Into the Sun

Release the Muons! Physics Breakthrough Will Lead to a New Kind of Particle Collider

A Second Butterfly Defender Has Been Found Dead in Mexico

Meet Iowa’s 400,000-Year-Old Living Fossil

Astrophysicists Observe Star Dragging Space-Time

Scientists Turned a Normal Jellyfish Into a Speedy Cyborg Jellyfish

After an 80-Year Quest, Scientists Have Almost Certainly Discovered Metallic Hydrogen

The Agony and the Ecstasy of the Concord Grape

Highest-Resolution Solar Telescope Ever Releases Incredible First Images of the Sun

Don’t Claim Purell Protects Against Ebola and MRSA, FDA Warns Company

Why Are There So Few Black Physicists? A New Report Describes What Needs to Change

This Locked Cabinet Holds the Answer to One of the Biggest Questions in Particle Physics

Why I Went Birdwatching at a Particle Physics Lab

Using a DNA-Based ‘Computer,’ Scientists Get the Square Root of 900

‘Remarkable’ Mathematical Proof Describes How to Solve Seemingly Impossible Computing Problem

Scientists Built a Robot From 40 Pigeon Feathers and It Flies Beautifully

Has Hubble Detected Rogue Clumps of Dark Matter?

Do ‘Disclosure Day’ Prep With a Spielberg Sci-Fi Marathon

How to Watch the F1 Japanese GP 2026 on a Free Channel

Ranking 2016’s Superhero Debuts, 10 Years Later

Fourth Most Populous Country in the World Bans Most Social Media for Kids

How to watch UFC Fight Night Adesanya vs Pyfer live this Saturday

‘Steel Ball Run’ Will Return This Year…Eventually

‘The Mummy 4’ Is Getting the Family Back Together

JD Vance Says UFOs Are Actually Demons

Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine Hits Its Lowest Price of the Year for Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, Cut Your Daily Coffee Costs at Home

Amazon Clears Out Govee LED Smart Light Bulbs (2-Pack) at a Record Low, Each Bulb Costs Just a Few Dollars

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets

Apple Studio Display XDR Review: It Looks So Good, I Wish It Were an iMac

RayNeo Air 4 Pro Review: My Eyes Love These Video Glasses, but My Nose Disagrees