Matter and Its Interactions
- Tech
This power source is shockingly eel-like
The electric eel’s powerful electric charge inspired this new squishy, water-based new approach to generating power.
- Brain
Explainer: What are opioids?
Opioid drugs can kill pain, but they can also kill people. Here’s how.
- Chemistry
Explainer: What are polymers?
Polymers, whether natural or artificial, are big molecules made by linking up smaller repeating chemical units. The most common “backbones” for polymers are chains of carbon or silicon, each of which can bond to four other atoms.
- Physics
Explainer: Quantum is the world of the super small
The word quantum often gets misused. What does it mean? Think small. Really, really small.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Catalyst
Sometimes a chemical reaction can take a while. If speed is needed, a catalyst can help.
- Environment
Trees can make summer ozone levels much worse
The greenery can release chemicals into the air that react with combustion pollutants to make ozone. And trees release more of those chemicals where it gets really hot, a new study finds.
- Earth
Ancient Arctic ‘gas’ melt triggered enormous seafloor explosions
Methane explosions 12,000 years ago left huge craters in bedrock on the Arctic seafloor. Scientists worry more could be on the way today as Earth’s ice sheets melt.
- Chemistry
To test pill coatings, try a stomach in a flask
Which pain reliever should you buy? The tablet, gel tab or compressed caplet? A teen did an experiment to find out.
- Chemistry
BPA-free plastic may host BPA-like chemical, teen finds
Something has to replace the BPA in ‘BPA-free’ plastics. A teen has been probing what that is.
- Health & Medicine
Adding ice to medics’ kits could help patients survive blood loss
Placing an ice bag on the face should increase blood pressure — and oxygen to the brain — in people who have experienced life-threatening blood loss, a new study finds.
- Health & Medicine
Cooking can alter a food’s vitamin C content
Scurvy plagued pirates and sailors on the high seas. It also inspired a teen to find out more about the vitamin C in her veggies.
- Chemistry
Cool Jobs: Counting calories
Do calories count? A nutrition label doesn’t tell the whole story. Meet three researchers working to shed light on the complex connections between food and health.
