All Stories
- Science & Society
Let’s learn about music
Researchers are delving into how instruments and spaces shape our experience of music, and how computers could play a role in the future of music-making.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Proton
These positively charged particles are important building blocks in atoms.
- Tech
Like an octopus, this glove lets fingers grip slippery objects
The octopus-inspired suckers on each fingertip grab and release objects on demand.
- Animals
Why these jumping toadlets get confused mid-flight
The tiny pumpkin toadlet tumbles when it jumps. Its ear canals may be too tiny to help the animal track its motion through the air.
- Plants
Catnip’s insect-repelling powers grow as Puss chews on it
Damaging the leaves boosts the plant’s chemical defenses — and their appeal to cats.
- Physics
Scientists used lasers to make ‘smoke rings’ of light
Physicists had a bright idea: Make light into swirling, ring-shaped vortices, similar to smoke rings or bubble rings.
- Animals
Sleepy mosquitoes prefer dozing over dining
Mosquitoes repeatedly shaken to prevent slumber lagged behind well-rested ones when offered a leg to feed on.
- Tech
You might someday ‘wallpaper’ your bedroom with this loudspeaker
This thin, flexible and lightweight loudspeaker could reduce noise in loud spaces. It also might enable listeners to experience sound in new ways.
- Planets
Scientists Say: Habitable Zone
The habitable zone is the region around a star where temperatures could be right for worlds to host liquid water.
- Physics
When dominoes fall, how fast the row topples depends on friction
Two types of friction help determine how quickly a line of dominoes collapses, computer modeling shows.
- Chemistry
Simple process destroys toxic and widespread ‘forever’ pollutants
Ultraviolet light, sulfite and iodide break down these PFAS molecules faster and more thoroughly than other methods.
- Animals
Butterfly ‘tails’ might be part of an escape tactic
Slender, tail-like extensions on their wings may help some butterflies survive attacks by hungry predators.
