WEIRD SCIENCE
This microbe breaks one of the toughest chemical bonds in existence. By Peter Hess – Let’s face it: It’s nearly impossible to avoid a startling array of chemicals, whether they’re in the water we drink, the air we breathe, or the food we …
No wonder the dinosaurs didn’t survive. By Passant Rabie – The day a massive asteroid hit our planet about 65 million years ago may have been the most chaotic day on Earth, and we’re not just talking about the mass extinction part. New …
By Michael Irving – A new battery cell design could help us tap into the vast stores of geothermal energy beneath our feet. OlgaSinenkoBO/Depositphotos. – One of the largest natural sources of renewable energy could be right under our feet – literally. The Earth …
By Michael Irving – The thermoelectric generator uses a black aluminum disk to radiate heat into the atmosphere, and a polystyrene enclosure to keep the air inside warm. Aaswath Raman. – As effective as solar panels are, one of their major downsides is that …
By Ben Coxworth – A diagram of the energy-harvesting device. Gao et al. – As compared to most other joints in the human body, the knee has quite a large range of motion … so why not put that motion to use, as a …
Meet Greater Adria. By Sarah Sloat – Around 180 million years ago, Earth fundamentally changed when Gondwana began to dismember. Today, present-day places, including South America and Australia, are visible chunks of this former ancient supercontinent, as well as not-so visible slices of …
The exoplanet K2-18b isn’t exactly Earth, but it’s as close as it gets. By Passant Rabie – Good news: We’re all moving 110 light-years away! Well, maybe not quite yet, but scientists just made a major breakthrough in the search for habitable worlds …
By David Szondy – High-resolution mapping of the distribution of elements in a sample from the 2,000-year-old Temple Scroll, as shown by the colors at the right of this image, is providing insight into the scroll’s ancient fabrication method. James Weaver. – A …
Researchers at Texas A&M University want to make batteries a bit more eco-friendly. By Mike Brown – Organic batteries that use protein to transfer electrons could one day hold the future of power storage. Researchers at Texas A&M University have discovered a means …
The helmet could offer more vital information faster. By Mike Brown – Ready to leap into action, Iron Man-style? Hypergiant Industries took the wraps off its prototype augmented reality helmet Thursday, which can be used by firefighters and rescue teams to help save …
