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Being outside gives us a sense of freedom and spaciousness, and as far as some German engineers are concerned, that means increased work efficiency. That's why they've invented a "dynamic luminous ceiling" that simulates working outside during a clouding day. More »
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If you've ever dunked your head underwater sans goggles in search of a set of keys or a pool toy, then you know how difficult it can be for the human eye to make sense of light in a subaqueous environment — but you might not know why this is. More »
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Wanna watch a pyrex dish and some water make a penny disappear? How about a little more water (in an unusual place) making it come back? Take a look at a confusing physics demonstration that you can do at home, whenever you want to frustrate your guests. More »
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If my parents had shown me this video when I was five, I would have broken my habit of leaving the lights on whenever I left a room much sooner. More »
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Three MIT physicists took the idea of high-exposure photography and cranked it up to absolutely ridiculous levels, using special optical equipment to show actual light particles on the move. Prepare to see the fastest thing you'll ever see... in slow motion. More »
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The sky above this Singapore hotel seems perfectly normal...but then something weird starts happening in the clouds. They suddenly change shapes, brighten and dim, and seem to pulsate for no apparent reason. This strange phenomenon has baffled scientists...until now. More »
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In the house that math built, there are many rooms. The Unilluminable Room is one of the strangest. How do you build a room that is guaranteed to have one spot of complete darkness? Here's the weird solution to this 26 year mystery. More »
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There's no surefire way to find evidence of alien civilizations — indeed, they're basically all long shots — but a new method could reveal the existence of aliens just like us. And we've almost got the technology needed to do it. More »
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Before the invention of modern navigational equipment, ancient sailors crossed the seas largely through their knowledge of the positions of the Sun and stars. So how did Vikings cross from Europe to America in the often foggy, cloudy northern Atlantic? More »
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Since Victorian times, humans have devised a method of creating illusionary ghosts. This illusion, known as Pepper's Ghost, was used at carnivals and might be a great addition to your haunted house. More »
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A week ago, who among us would have guessed that light, the universe's ultimate speed demon, would be observed getting outpaced by a bunch of reckless neutrinos? Yes, these observations will obviously need to be checked and rechecked, but it just goes to show that you rarely know as much about something as you think you do. More »
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For centuries the rules of optics were simple; light makes a single bend when it moves from one medium to another. Those rules have now changed, and the result is a flat funhouse mirror of phase discontinuity. More »
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Scientists have developed a technique to change the color and shape of photons. This could be a boon for quantum computing. More »
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The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. The speed of sound is 761.2 miles per hour. That takes care of vision and hearing, but what about our other senses? Shouldn't there be a speed of smell? More »
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Within the tight confines of a fiber-optic cable, some researchers at Cornell have managed to create an invisible flash of light. It's invisible not because the flash is manipulated to be hidden, but because the stretch of time during which it happened is erased by the time the flash gets to the other end of the cable. It has achieved temporal invisibility. More »
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According to scientists, birds have been evolving in a very specific way. And it looks like, given their abilities, they'll continue to evolve. We just won't be able to see it. More »
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The Doppler Effect is the reason why car horns drop in tone as they go by, and radar speedometers work. But a new material may actually create an inverse Doppler Effect. More »
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Humans and most other animals are only able to see light in the visible spectrum. But what about infrared, which the alien in Predator famously uses to see prey approaching just by their heat signature. Why can't we do that? More »
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The famous one-way mirror used in police interrogations isn't really one-way - it's just a trick of clever lighting. But physics could produce true one-way mirrors, and even walls that are only soundproofed in one direction. More »
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Scientists can tie light into knots. And those knots can stabilize nuclear fusion. Because every day, physics gets crazier. More »
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Ohio State engineers have made a single microscope lens that is capable of capturing enough angles to form a 3D picture of a object. Soon there could be an all-paramecium version of Avatar. More »
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Scientists have been able to use metal to do tricks with light. Now they can differentiate that light into a spectrum, and store each color in separate little grooves on the metal. With the power of plasmonics, you may one day have a rainbow on your keychain. More »
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Purple is hot. Rhodopsin, or visual purple, doesn't just let you know when Prince is performing or when the Joker is about to gun you down. Recently, scientists discovered it's also a heat sensor. More »
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Every day, the world finds another way to show us that, once we work on a level that's small enough, nothing makes sense. Things we take for granted no longer happen. For instance, say you're lying in bed in the early morning sunlight - or, no judgment, the late afternoon sunlight. If all that daytime starts bothering your eyes, covering up the window would block the light. Or, if you painted the window green, the room would be suffused with green light. More »
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In unholy-army-of-the-night news, scientists have a new way to turn swarming beasts of the sea into unreasoning killers. Nothing is safe from their merciless aggression. Not . . . even . . . you. More »
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Recently British physicists announced to the world that they managed to put a Luneburg Lens on a silicon chip. Here's why this odd bit of news could change the world. More »
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Scientists have engineered a worm with neurons that respond to light, making it a living bio-bot. More »
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Ask scientists a question, and you might get amazing answers. Consider this video, which poses three head-scratchers: what happens to electrons at absolute zero, whatever happened to the light from the Big Bang, and are you any good at sports? More »
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This photo captures the sun setting over Spain's Canary Islands, and it reveals two phenomena that are often dismissed as myths: the fabled green flash, and the even rarer blue flash. Here's how these strange lights appear. More »
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Although they can't stick the thermometer any of the usual places, researchers have found a way to take the temperature of a single molecule. How? A ray of light. More »
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Scientists in China were able to make a "false wall" in an incredible demonstration of illusion optics. Find out why you shouldn't believe your eyes anymore, thanks to physics. More »
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This glowing green shell belongs to a species of "clusterwink snail" that lives in the ocean. Its special molecular composition makes it the perfect material to filter light. Already, scientists are thinking about ways to manufacture it for this purpose. More »
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Scientists from the Rochester Institute of Technology have recently demonstrated that micrometers-long, airplane-wing-shaped rods can be lifted by a beam of laser light. This research has the potential to upgrade solar sail technology and power microscopic machines. More »
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Poisson's Spot is proof that even if you're right about things, you can be humiliated forever. Find out why this physics concept has caused the name Siméon Poisson to live in infamy for almost 200 years. More »
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Invisibility cloaks are taking baby steps from science fiction to science fact. But there's an even stranger and more incredible possibility - an invisibility cloak that works in both space and time, shielding whole events from history itself. More »
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Everyone's seen the police shows in which they shuffle suspects into a room with a mirror on the side. How do the police see in while the suspect doesn't see out? More »
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The moon, stars, comets and planets aren't the only ones lighting up the night sky. Gegenschein glows in the sky every night – it's usually just too faint to be seen. More »
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In their quest to study ever smaller and smaller particles, scientists have hit on particles too small even to be captured in a wavelength of light. What can you use to trap these particles? Meet the electrostatic trap. More »
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Beer! The head on a glass of beer is a different color than the body, and yet the chemical make-up is the same. Why? More »
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There is a subtle indicator that tells you whether or not you're seeing polarized light, and which direction the light is polarized on. Find out about Haidinger's Brush. More »
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