Science, Spoken

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Prepare to Be Hypnotized By These Delicate Paper Robots Aug 22, 2018

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As far as plant names go, the sleepy plant—or shy plant, or shameplant, known more formally as Mimosa pudica—is hard to beat. Touch one of its leaves and it curls up like it’s embarrassed, the leaflets folding in on each other. It’s hypnotic and, well, kind of a surprising response for an organism without a brain. Now, the shameplant is getting its very own robotic doppelganger.

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How to Prove That the Earth Orbits the Sun Aug 22, 2018

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One of my favorite classes to teach is Physics for Elementary Education. It's a physics class designed to address the needs of future elementary school teachers—grades 1 through 6 or so. To guide the class, I've been using a version of Next Gen Physical Science and Everyday Thinking for a long time, maybe 13 years or so, and it is super awesome.

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An Adorable Rodent Gives a Glimpse Into Earth’s Climate Chaos Aug 21, 2018

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Bounding around on giant hind limbs, using its giant tail to balance, the well-named giant kangaroo rat of Southern California is half Pokemon, half Mighty Mouse. It emerges at night to forage on seeds, building up underground stores. When it’s not busy foraging, it’s busy scrapping with its peers to claim territory. It dominates these grasslands, outcompeting smaller rodents while doing its best to dodge foxes and snakes. But the giant kangaroo rat isn’t invincible.

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Think Rivers Are Dangerous Now? Just Wait Aug 21, 2018

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A river is a mercurial thing, running deep and fast in the rainy season, and low and slow when the rains fade. It can dry up completely one year, then turn into a raging flood the next. Every so often, a river disappears entirely, bringing down the communities it once nourished. You hear a lot about how climate change is fueling the rise of our seas, but not so much about how it will transform our rivers, the flooding of which currently affects almost 60 million people a year.

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The Curious Case of a Revolutionary (But Imaginary?) Superconductor Aug 20, 2018

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On July 23, Dev Kumar Thapa and Anshu Pandey made an extraordinary claim online. It wasn’t your garden variety fake news: By cramming microscopic particles of gold and silver together into pellets, they said, they’d constructed the first ever room-temperature superconductor. In a 13-page PDF, the two chemists at the Indian Institute of Science laid out measurements that indicated the pellets could conduct electricity perfectly at temperatures as warm as 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

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After 13 Years, Scientists Finally Map the Massive Wheat Genome Aug 20, 2018

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In a field at the edge of the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus, half a dozen students and lab technicians glance up at the darkening afternoon skies. The threatening rain storm might bring relief from the 90-degree August heat, but it won’t help harvest all this wheat. Moving between the short rows, they cut out about 100 spiky heads, put them in a plastic container, and bring them back to a growling Vogel thresher parked at the edge of the plot.

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The Physics of Catching a Gnarly 80-Foot-Tall Wave Aug 17, 2018

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I've never been surfing—but I'm willing to give it a try. I would not, however, be interested in attempting to surf a massive wave like this one off the coast of Portugal. That's a pass for me. Of course even if you don't surf, there is still some cool physics involved in the act of surfing (let alone all the physics of wave formation). So, how does a rider stay moving with a huge wave like this? As with all motions, the key is to look at forces.

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Your Tweets Can Help Map the Spread of Wildfire Smoke Aug 17, 2018

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This storyoriginally appeared on High Country Newsand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. At the end of July, Twitter user Alicia Santana posted a photo of a man sitting in a plastic folding chair in his yard. He’s looking away from the camera, towards a monstrous, orange cloud of smoke filling the sky beyond a wire fence. “My dad not wanting to leave his home,” Santana wrote, ending it with #MendocinoComplexFire.

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Three Science Experiments You Can Do With Your Phone Aug 17, 2018

Show notes

Everyone already knows that you are carrying around a computer in your pocket. But your smartphone is more than just a computer—it's also a data collector. I'm going to guess that yours can measure acceleration, magnetic field, sound, location, and maybe more. Many phones also can measure pressure. Oh, and some phones can even make phone calls. With all of those sensors available, I'm going to go over three fun experiments you can do with your phone.

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Drone Swarms as You Know Them Are Just an Illusion—for Now Aug 15, 2018

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Look at all the pretty drones. Hovering above sports stadiums from Houston to Pyeongchang, many hundreds of them have lately sparkled in artful murmuration. On a recent Time magazine cover, 958 drones pixelated the sky. The world record, 1,374 LED-bedazzled microbots, was set by Chinese company EHang UAV in May. So-called drone swarms—the phrase people have taken up with gusto—are having their biggest, buzziest year ever.

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