The mystery of sand.
XKCD’s Randall Munroe, writing now for The New York Times, explores a scientific mystery more baffling than quantum physics – what makes sand feel softer […]
Articles by grant
Molecular ring on Titan could be key to life on Earth.
New Scientist looks at the origins of life – which may be revealed by a ring-shaped molecule we just found on Saturn’s moon Titan: The […]
Science Art: Germinating squash seed, 1908
A new beginning, from Elements of Philippine Agriculture on archive.org (though I found it on Flickr Commons).
A Finnish company is making food out of air – CO2 & water, to be precise.
Big Think has a piece on a NASA concept to convert atmosphere – and specifically, the gases we animals exhale – into protein powder like […]
Puzzling pair of Polish pigs from 3,500 years ago.
Archaeology wonders about the original purpose of a pair of snub-nosed figurines excavated from a Bronze Age hillfort in northern Europe. Were they religious relics […]
The UK has powered up an unusual fusion reactor.
Science magazine takes us inside the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) Upgrade, an experimental fusion reactor which has been switched on after a 7-year build […]
Science Art: Close-up view of a rock cutter in the Everglades Drainage District, c. 1920
Click to embiggen This is a machine for cutting through rock in a swamp. Or really, in a very broad, very shallow river – which […]
Birdies with the big, cute eyes are in the most danger from deforestation.
Science explains the odd irony behind the fact that the cutest birds – the ones gazing out at you with those big eyes – are […]
Our spaceship just grabbed a piece of asteroid.
Science News celebrates a long-shot success in space, as NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe is steered close enough to the asteroid Bennu to grab a piece to […]
Science Art: Hyneria, by ABelov2014
Click to embiggen A scene from the Devonian period, before dinosaurs ever emerged to rumble the earth. This lobe-finned fish measured between 8 and 15 […]
SONG: Bang, You’re Misled
SONG: “Bang, You’re Misled” ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Based on Defense One, 2 Oct 2020, “Can AI Detect Disinformation? A New Special Operations Program May Find […]
Tasmanian devils are being reintroduced to mainland Australia
CNN and other outlets are covering some good news about the cutest of marsupial carnivores. Tasmanian devils are doing well enough (and so is their […]
Sonifications turn telescope images of deep space into music.
Science News listens to astronomical data in a way that’s helping vision-impaired people and scientists find new ways to understand what our deep-space telescopes are […]
Science Art: Astro-2 Observavory in STS-67 Payload Bay, 1995
A space telescope inside a space shuttle, from the STS-67 mission. The mission summary, from archive.org, is: The Space Shuttle Endeavor, scheduled to launch March […]
New superconductor has zero resistance at room temperature. With one catch….
New Scientist reports on a new material that conducts electricity with no resistance whatsoever at room temperature – something electronics and electrical engineers have been […]