Graphene Girl Scout Cookies
It’s cookie season! Can the Girl Scouts revolutionize electronics? Find out by listening to this podcast from the Loh Down on Science.
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Moon twinkles
If you ever travel to the moon, don’t forget to pack a heavy-duty umbrella. It’s not for downpours: With no atmosphere, there’s no chance of rain. But hundreds of times each year, small space rocks smash into the lunar surface, flashing brightly enough to be seen from Earth. Read more at Science News for Kids.
Mapping the invisible
Most maps show places you can visit and how to get there. Most maps, however, were not made by astronomers — physicists who study stars and galaxies far, far, far away. At a recent meeting in Texas, three teams of these scientists presented new maps unlike any atlas, globe or street guide. These maps show
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Costs of missing sleep
Not all fruit flies are born equal. Some can skip 12 hours of sleep without missing a beat; others need their beauty rest to keep buzzing. In recent experiments on these two varieties of flies, scientists found that the bugs that skip zzzz’s pay a price to stay awake: They don’t fare as well as
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No frostbite for dogs
When playful pups skid across an icy pond or romp in a snowdrift, their paws plunge into frosty places. If people go barehanded and barefooted in such cold places, their skin may freeze in a painful condition called frostbite. Dogs frolic without fear of frostbite, and scientists from Japan say they’ve figured out why. Read
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Electronic skin
James Bond and his enemies would be interested in the goings-on at the laboratory of John Rogers. So would Batman, the Spy Kids, Darth Vader and their enemies. That’s because Rogers, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, mixes electronics with the human body to create new devices not found even
Introducing silicene
Electronics engineers are constantly seeking the next great thing, the supermaterial that will allow for devices even smaller and faster than are possible with silicon chips. But research from this year has convinced some people that silicon’s successor may be none other than silicon itself—reinvented for the 21st century. Read more in the January-February 2012
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Better boarding
Slow boarding annoyed Jason Steffen. but rather than complain about it, like most of us would, the Fermilab astrophysicist took to his computer and began writing algorithms to model potential solutions. In 2008 he announced a method that he claimed would cut boarding times in half, but it wasn’t until last year that he finally
Self-cleaning clothes
Cleaning clothes usually requires soap and water to remove stains and smells, and a tumble in the dryer or an afternoon on the clothesline to dry. The time and energy needed to turn a heap of dirty laundry into a pile of clean clothes might make people wish for clothes that just clean themselves. That
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Searching for underground water, from the sky
Keeping track of water makes for tricky science. It drains through soil, slips through cracks in rocks and refills underwater reserves. It bubbles up through springs and runs in rivers. Water evaporates and forms clouds; rain brings it back to earth, where it keeps plants alive and drains into the soil again. Scientists who study
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