Physics & Chemistry

Scientists Just Melted a Solid Below Its Freezing Point

Imagine you are standing in a freezer. You look at an ice cube. “Ah, a solid, yes, this makes a lot of sense to me,” you think. But suddenly, it begins to melt. “Did someone turn up the temperature?” No. The laws of physics you remember from high school tell you this is impossible. You…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 23

Custom High-Speed Camera Films ‘Sonic Boom’ of Light for the First Time

Scientists have finally filmed what’s known as a “sonic boom” being created by light. But the breakthrough with the most immediate potential may be the camera itself. The explosive sound that is normally associated with a sonic boom occurs when an object goes faster than the speed of sound. An object that breaks the sound…

Physics & Chemistry Rhett Jones Jan 22

A Promising New Method For Cleaning Up the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

Hundreds of millions of gallons of radioactive water remain sitting around the site of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan. But scientists can’t simply dump the liquid into the ocean, and if it continues sitting around, it could seep into the soil. A team of scientists from Rice University in Texas and Kazan…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 19

Spectacular Light Display in Northern Ontario Looks Like an Alien Encounter

Late last weekend, semi-pro photographer Timothy Joseph Elzinga woke up in the early hours of the morning to attend to his crying two-year-old son. When he looked out the window, he was greeted with a rare and spectacular sight known as light pillars. Smartly, he picked up his camera and captured some of the most…

Physics & Chemistry George Dvorsky Jan 12

What’s Causing These Eerie Spinning Ice Discs?

Physics causes some strange phenomena, like slowly-rotating discs of ice on a frozen river that resemble UFO saucers. But have no fear, science is here to explain away your excitement. Michigan resident Jason Robinson spotted and filmed this eerie phenomenon in the Pine River in Vestaburg, Michigan, as reported Sunday on MLive.com. Similar discs of spinning…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum Jan 10

If Einstein Is Right Santa Is Even Fatter Than We Thought

There’s a controversial little interpretation of Einstein’s theory of special relativity that could affect what happens to masses moving at a really high speeds: they appear to get heavier. The effect isn’t huge until something nudges right up to the speed of light, when its mass seems to shoot up to infinity. This happens because…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum Dec 21

Antimatter Looks Surprisingly Like Regular Matter

Scientists learned something crazy about antimatter this morning: it turns out, as far as we can tell, it looks like an exact mirror image of regular matter. But okay, what does that even mean? Physics theory says that every particle has an antiparticle, so for each negatively-charged electron there’s a positively charged positron, and for…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum Dec 19

The World’s Best Spacetime Ripple Detector Just Got Better

The world’s leading gravitational wave detector is back online and better than ever. After a series of upgrades, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (Advanced LIGO) switched on yesterday. Physicists are already stoked about the cosmic collisions they’re going to measure during its next six-month run. Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime produced when…

Physics & Chemistry Maddie Stone Dec 1

How the Universe Could Annihilate Itself at the Speed of Light

Time now for a very cute video about a rather terrible prospect—the very grim possibility of the universe spawning a lethal bubble of pure vacuum that expands in all directions at the speed of light. This excellent and highly entertaining new video produced by YouTube channel Kurzgesagt—In a Nutshell tackles a speculative natural disaster of…

Physics & Chemistry George Dvorsky Oct 21

MIT’s Fusion Reactor Broke a World Record Right Before the Feds Shut It Off

MIT’s fusion program has fallen on hard times, but that hasn’t stopped it from smashing world records and keeping the dream of limitless, carbon-free energy alive. At an International Atomic Energy Agency summit in Japan this week, researchers involved with MIT’s Alcator C-Mod tokamak reactor announced that their machine had generated the highest plasma pressure…

Physics & Chemistry Maddie Stone Oct 17

Astronomers Spot a Massive Black Hole That’s Gone Rogue

Using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found evidence of a “wandering” black hole on the outskirts of a distant galaxy. It’s too far away to cause us any trouble, but the discovery of this homeless ball of gravitational despair affirms a long standing theory about the existence of such objects. A massive black hole…

Physics & Chemistry George Dvorsky Oct 5

X-Ray Images of Bird Feathers Hold the Secret to Dinosaur Colors

Textbook illustrations and museum dioramas could soon be even more accurate in their depiction of the rich colors of long-extinct animals like dinosaurs. An international team of scientists used advanced X-ray imaging techniques to map out elements related to pigmentation in modern birds of prey, which they will use to reconstruct the likely color patterns…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Sep 30

Breakthrough Quantum Cat Experiment Captured on Camera

The paradox of Schrödinger’s cat—in which a quantum cat is both alive and dead at the same time until we check to see which state it’s in—is arguably the most famous example of the bizarre counter-intuitive nature of the quantum world. Now, Stanford physicists have exploited this feature weirdness to make highly detailed movies of…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Sep 23

Scientists Made Beautiful Holograms Using Sound

We’re all familiar with holograms, the projected 3D images created by manipulating light. But can you create a hologram with sound? Actually, yes. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany used tiny silicone beads assemble into patterns on the surface of water, holding that shape for as long as the sound persisted. In effect,…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Sep 21

Does Listening to This Pink Kinetic Sand Give You the Tingles?

Kinetic sand is a freaky-looking substance made of 98 percent sand and 2 percent silicone oil, so it sticks to itself, but won’t stick to anything else. It’s like an especially granular type of dough, and you can watch—and hear—the stuff in action in a new short “trigger” video from The ASMR Circus. The ASMR…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Sep 19

Scientists Just Made a Working Laser Using Blood

Lasers are behind so much of our cutting-edge technology. Now scientists at the University of Michigan have successfully shown that is possible to build a working laser with blood, the better to spot tumors in the human body. A laser is technically defined as any device that creates and amplifies a narrow, focused beam of…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Sep 4

It’s the Physics That Makes Roller Coasters So Exciting

If you’re taking advantage of the long holiday weekend to visit your favorite theme park, take a moment to learn a little about the underlying physics of roller coasters, via the latest video from the folks at SciShow. All roller coasters basically involve Newtonian physics 101: inertia, gravity, acceleration, and friction. The higher the train…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Sep 4

Your Bad Driving Is the Reason Traffic Jams Exist

We’ve all been frustrated by city traffic, waiting in a long line of cars for the light to change at an intersection. And then the stupid light turns red again before we can make it through because the cars ahead of us took so long to get going. A new video by CPG Grey deftly…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Sep 3

We’ve Solved the Mystery of Those White Splotches on The Scream

A team of Belgian researchers has closed the case on the origins of a mysterious smudge on Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s most famous painting, the Scream. Long believed to be bird poo, they found that it is bees wax. Munch actually painted four versions of his iconic masterpiece, and the one housed in the Norwegian…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Sep 2

Why Astronaut Mark Kelly Is Now Even Older Than His Twin Brother

Astronaut Scott Kelly returned from a year-long sojourn in space in June. His slightly older astronaut twin, Mark Kelly, stayed home as a control—part of NASA’s twin study to monitor the effects of space on the human body. But there’s a physical change that NASA might not be able to measure that easily. Mark is…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Aug 26

Scientists Just Melted a Solid Below Its Freezing Point

Custom High-Speed Camera Films ‘Sonic Boom’ of Light for the First Time

A Promising New Method For Cleaning Up the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

Spectacular Light Display in Northern Ontario Looks Like an Alien Encounter

What’s Causing These Eerie Spinning Ice Discs?

If Einstein Is Right Santa Is Even Fatter Than We Thought

Antimatter Looks Surprisingly Like Regular Matter

The World’s Best Spacetime Ripple Detector Just Got Better

How the Universe Could Annihilate Itself at the Speed of Light

MIT’s Fusion Reactor Broke a World Record Right Before the Feds Shut It Off

Astronomers Spot a Massive Black Hole That’s Gone Rogue

X-Ray Images of Bird Feathers Hold the Secret to Dinosaur Colors

Breakthrough Quantum Cat Experiment Captured on Camera

Scientists Made Beautiful Holograms Using Sound

Does Listening to This Pink Kinetic Sand Give You the Tingles?

Scientists Just Made a Working Laser Using Blood

It’s the Physics That Makes Roller Coasters So Exciting

Your Bad Driving Is the Reason Traffic Jams Exist

We’ve Solved the Mystery of Those White Splotches on The Scream

Why Astronaut Mark Kelly Is Now Even Older Than His Twin Brother

Two Songs We Really Wish Were the Anime Outros for ‘Steel Ball Run’

AI Training Data Giant Mercor Is Reportedly Looking to Buy the Work You Did at Your Old Job

Utah Is Giving Dr. AI the Power to Renew Drug Prescriptions

Here’s the Perfect Excuse to See ‘Project Hail Mary’ Again

US Airlines Are Hiking Bag Fees Amid Iran War Oil Crisis

This Ridiculously Simple Trick Might Stop Gulls From Nabbing Your Lunch

‘Starfleet Academy’ Season 3 Could Have Done the ‘Voyager’ Sequel Episode of Robert Picardo’s Dreams

Judge Kills Lawsuit Against Infamous Study That Might Have Increased Teen Suicides

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