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The Large Hadron Collider will soon resume its search for new particles, and it's kicking its energy levels up a notch to do it. CERN's research director promises we will know the truth about the Higgs boson by the end of 2012. More »
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We've all heard of an infinite number of monkeys typing out Shakespeare, but could coincidence be even stronger than that? Could the universe become populated by giant space brains? And more importantly, has it been already? More »
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In X-Men: First Class, Banshee uses ultrasonic screaming like a jet pack to power his flight. In a recent video from special effects whiz Freddie Wong, a character named "Milk Man" gushes gallons of milk from his gullet to achieve a similar effect. More »
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Fukushima may still be reeling from last year's nuclear disaster, but a global interest in nuclear power looks to be on the up and up — even here in the U.S. More »
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Over 2000 nuclear tests took place between 1945 and the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996, with the United States and Soviet Union combining for over 1700 explosions. More »
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Scientists have found a way to turn iron nuclei transparent to X-rays, using lasers. And besides the coolness of making things disappear using lasers, this could have huge applications in optical computing. More »
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What would Tron be without black light? Or television crime scene investigations, for that matter? Just screw in a special lightbulb, and suddenly everything glows in an awesome way. But how does this actually work? More »
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Back in December, CERN physicists announced that they had probably spotted the long-awaited Higgs boson - at least, there was a 99.7% chance that they had. Now they've examined the data again, and it's looking even better for the Higgs. More »
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Almost 30 years after Daniel Shechtman noticed something weird in his lab, he finally won a Nobel Prize for chemistry. But before that, his strange discovery resulted in him being asked to leave the lab for bringing disgrace upon his colleagues. More »
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What you're looking at here are two incredible examples of a phenomenon known as fano flow, which show non-newtonian fluids appearing to defy the laws of physics...only they aren't defying any laws at all. More »
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In old movies, when there is electricity involved, there always seem to be two wires fanning out and a slowly-rising arc of electricity between them. This contraption is called Jacob's Ladder, and although it looks uselessly sci-fi, it was actually quite useful in machinery... a hundred years ago. More »
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One of the great fears of the early space race was what effect microgravity would have on human explorers — and while we know it won't instantly die when leaving the atmosphere, there's still a lot we don't know about the long term effects of low gravity. If we ever want to set up a long-term space settlement, it'd be good to have some idea what happens to the body in those environments... and according to some new research, it isn't good. More »
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Seriously. This map suggests that unless you live in California, a smattering of states out East, or a small handfull of other states sprinkled across the country, you're looking at a very grave problem when it comes to scientific illiteracy in your community's youth (and, presumably, its population in general). Come to think of it, this map should really concern you, no matter where you live. More »
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We spend a lot of time thinking about futurism, but the past is pretty interesting, too. In this week's "Ask a Physicist" we get extra speculative and think about what things may have been like before the beginning of time. What was there before the Big Bang? Did anything exist before our current universe? Here's what we know. More »
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Using ultra-fast pulsing lasers, scientists have managed to split ultraviolet light into separate frequencies, put them equal distance apart, send them shooting across a lab, and use them to measure atomic clocks. More »
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If asked to describe a moth's flight, I doubt many of us would use an adjective like "graceful." Neurotic? Yes. Flap-happy? Absolutely. But years of watching moths careen headlong into patio lights and bug lamps have left most of us with a decidedly unremarkable impression of these bugs' flying abilities. More »
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There was a time when increasing the distance between yourself and a sharp shooter bent on your extermination would significantly improve your chances of survival. But that time is coming to an end. More »
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Every day we get new evidence that physicists are just like us: hungry. Physicist Frank Crawford noticed a strange, musical effect when he stirred a packet of hot chocolate mix into his water. Find out about the physics he discovered behind this odd, shifting sound. More »
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Can you find the charge of an electron in a spritz of oil? It seems like the subatomic world is too tiny ever to be meaningfully measured. But that's exactly what two scientists did in 1909. Find out how, with a box, a microsocope, a spritz of oil, and a sensitive voltage meter, people figured out the charge of an electron. More »
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Most of us spent part of our youth cutting up construction paper to make snowflakes which tended to look nothing like the globs of white moving past our windows. Check under a microscope, though, and you'll see that snowflakes are beautiful six-sided crystals. Why is this? More »
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The famous Barking Dog Experiment combines a few chemicals in a tube and causes explosions that sound, most people say, like barking dogs. I say they sound a little more like phasers, or other ray guns. Learn a little chemistry, listen to a few explosions, and judge for yourself. More »
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The Agricultural Research Service produced scanning electron microscope images of what frost would look like on Mars. And it isn't water crystals that form this frost — it's carbon dioxide. More »
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This newly created X-ray laser is just unimaginably powerful. It's a billion times brighter than any previous X-ray source, and it can probe hot dense matter at nearly four million degrees. This laser could unlock the secrets of the Sun. More »
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The United States has long been recognized as one of the most scientifically productive countries on Earth. But when you're discussing progress, where you've been is not nearly as important as More »
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You may know that fiber optic cables gather up light and deliver it from one end to the other without letting it shine out the sides. But did you know that you can do much the same thing with water (and better with other liquids)? More »
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Find out how the cracking of knuckles works for the same reason deep sea divers have to take breaks as they ascend, soda fizzes, and water boils instantly in a vacuum. More »
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We can see Venus pass in front of the sun once every one hundred and twenty years. Ever since it's been observed, a strange thing has been happening. Instead of appearing as a dark circle moving across the sun, Venus formed a tear drop shape that slowly oozed onto the solar disc. It took three hundred years for scientists to understand the Black Drop Effect. More »
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Are you big on science and science communication? If you are, do yourself favor and check out ScienceOnline2012 (or scio12 to those in the know), the sixth annual international meeting on science and the internet. More »
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How far can you stack a 'stairway' of books, outwards from the ledge of a table? This is the problem that consumed physicists for over two hundred years. The answer? Forever — if you have enough books. Find out how this paradox gave rise to many ancient structures, and some structures that we can still see today. More »
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You probably think of your nervous system as a kind of computer network, or some kind of electrical system that passes nerve impulses around. But in reality, the miraculous journey of a signal thorough your nervous system is a story that involves cell biology, chemistry and physics. Your brain contains 30 billion neurons, and each of them is a staggering achievement. More »
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This slow-motion footage of a dove in flight is certainly worth watching for its artistic and technical merit (be sure to bump the resolution up to 720p), but it's also a great opportunity to understand some of the science behind the bird's aerial abilities. More »
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For decades, the world has relied on incredibly accurate atomic clocks to keep time; but atomic clocks are much more consistant than the rotation of the Earth, which varies in speed ever-so-slightly as it spins about its axis. Consequently, every few years, the time based on the Earth's rotation falls out of sync with time kept by atomic clocks. More »
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This video uses your eye's built-in blind spot to trick your brain into making a man's head vanish. I've seen some pretty awesome optical illusion videos in my time, and I'm calling it now: this is the best one yet. More »
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Whenever we hear about reconnaissance planes, descriptor such as "stealthy" and "slipping under the radar" are bandied around. But what actually goes into making stealth fighters undetectable, and what are the limits of this undetectability? More »
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There's an idea that suggests all the universe's electrons are actually one particle forever traveling backwards and forwards in time. It's a simple, elegant idea that solves some of physics's biggest mysteries. There's only one tiny problem. It's complete nonsense. More »
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Tomorrow, astronomers and physicists from around the word will convene in Tucson, Arizona to discuss the Event Horizon Telescope Project — a global network of 50 radio telescopes that together could soon enable us to photograph the black hole at the center of our galaxy. More »
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Every year, Edge.org poses a question to a hand-picked group of the world's "most complex and sophisticated minds." Then they publish the responses. More »
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Black diamonds, also known as carbonados, are dark, porous, and found only in Brazil and Central Africa. And they don't come from volcanoes — they come from outer space. More »
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The world's smallest ear doesn't belong to any animal. Instead, it's a tiny piece of gold suspended in a laser beam. It can hear sounds a million times fainter than any human ear can, making it a powerful acoustic microscope. More »
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WARNING: turn your volume down before watching this video. And while you're at it, go read this post, paying close attention to the parts that address the pitfalls of liquid nitrogen bomb assembly. More »
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