All Stories by Emily Conover
- Animals
Drones might one day capture a dolphin’s breath in midair
High-speed footage of dolphin spray reveals that droplets blast upward at speeds close to 100 kilometers per hour.
- Math
Color-changing fibers help unravel a knotty problem
Experiments with colorful fibers helped scientists discover a few simple rules on why the strength of various types of knots differs.
- Materials Science
Here’s how to hide some objects from heat-sensing cameras
A special coating that conceals temperature information from heat-detecting cameras might someday be used as a privacy shield.
- Physics
Giving Notre Dame back her unique voice
A 2019 fire robbed Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral of more than her roof. She also lost her voice. Now scientists are using acoustics to return her unique soundscape.
- Physics
Here’s how quantum mechanics lets heat cross a vacuum
Heat can move across a vacuum if the span is small enough. As in really, really small. In a new experiment, the gap was only a few hundred nanometers.
- Planets
Glass beads help scientists puzzle out how baby planets grow
Researchers have mimicked the first stages of planet formation in the lab. All they needed were glass beads and a catapult.
- Planets
Physics Nobel rewards discoveries on cosmic evolution and exoplanets
This trio of scientists helped figure out the makeup of our universe. Two of them also identified the first known exoplanet orbiting a sunlike star.
- Chemistry
Chemists have created a ring-shaped form of carbon
A ring-shaped carbon molecule takes its place among buckyballs, carbon nanotubes and other odd forms of the element.
- Physics
This idea would turn the Earth into a giant space telescope
One astronomer has a bold solution to getting around the high cost of building big telescopes.
- Space
The Milky Way is shaped like a curvy potato chip
Our galaxy’s got curves. You can see them in a chart of thousands of stars called Cepheids.
- Physics
This device turns the kilogram’s new definition into a real mass
A new suitcase-sized device will be able to measure small masses — around 10 grams — with surprising accuracy.
- Physics
Black holes might have a temperature
Physicists made a mock black hole in their lab. They used it to show the real, celestial black holes have a slight temperature.
