Earth
Explainer: How volcanoes erupt
Magma can sit underground for tens, hundreds or even thousands of years before an influx of new magma or gush of gas triggers a volcano to erupt.
Featured Articles in this Issue
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Cover Story
What the weird world of protists can teach us about life on Earth
Microbes vastly outnumber multicellular life on Earth. A close-up look at protists highlights how much we don't know about the microscopic world.
Explainer
Technically Fiction
Animals
To clear loops, Sonic the Hedgehog must hit the right speed
Most animals don’t run through loops. Sonic would need the physics behind roller coasters and race cars to clear one.
Profile
Microbes
Under the microscope, this biologist sees a tiny jungle
Sally Warring has long been captivated by the beauty of mostly single-celled life forms called protists.
Features
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Cake-cutting math offers lessons that go far beyond dessert plates
As a way to study how to fairly share a limited resource, cake-cutting can inform splitting up chores, drawing fair voting districts and more.
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What the weird world of protists can teach us about life on Earth
Microbes vastly outnumber multicellular life on Earth. A close-up look at protists highlights how much we don't know about the microscopic world.
More Stories from the December 1, 2024 issue
- Physics
Science reveals the reasons behind painful paper cuts
Some types of paper are more likely to cause paper cuts. It’s the paper’s thickness and slicing angle that matter, physicists conclude.
- Tech
Want to spot a deepfake? Focus on the eyes
A technique from astronomy could help detect deepfakes by spotting unrealistic reflections in the eyes of AI-generated images.
- Earth
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano recently erupted like a stomp rocket
This appears to be a newfound type of eruption. It could only be recognized because of the extensive monitoring of Kilauea's crater.
- Animals
Balmy ‘saunas’ help frogs fend off a deadly fungus
Hanging out in small sun-warmed hideaways could help some frogs resist deadly chytrid fungus, a new study finds.
- Planets
Experiment: Make your own craters!
Let’s make our own craters in cocoa and flour to learn how these features form throughout the solar system — and why they’re different sizes.
- Tech
Lasers help put the cork on spilled oil
Treating cork with lasers made the material able to quickly sponge up oil while repelling water, scientists in China and Israel found.
