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.
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
Mapping the invisible Read More »
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
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
Introducing silicene Read More »
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
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
Self-cleaning clothes Read More »
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
Searching for underground water, from the sky Read More »
Australian scientists have invented a new breed of robots called Lingodroids, programmed to make, use, and share language. The bots can coin words to describe places they have been, places they want to go, and plans for getting there. Read more in this article from Discover magazine.
Robots invent their own language Read More »
The tsunami that struck Japan shook up the atmosphere, too. It caused airglow ripples that chased the giant waves across the Pacific; scientists in Hawaii caught photos of the fleeing waves. I wrote a short article for Science News for Kids about this finding; my snapshot was based on an original article by Alex Witze.
Tsunami, from the sky Read More »
Tibetan singing bowls, ancient instruments used for meditation, can be manipulated to produce droplets that levitate, bounce and skip across water. When one adds water to a Tibetan singing bowl and plays – often by tracing the edge with a mallet – the bowl’s haunting sound is accompanied by ripples on the water’s surface. That’s because
Tibetan singing bowls Read More »
