Science Art: Escut del Marquès d’Oró (Escutcheon of the Marquis d’Oró)
Click to embiggen The Marquis d’Oró (without that accent mark, he’d be the Marquis of Gold) has a coat of arms with a diagram of […]
chemistry
Spinning yarn from human skin
PhysOrg reminds me here of a piece of jewelry my mother won at an auction, which she then gave to me to give to the […]
To make hydrogen from water and sunlight, you need an efficient catalyst. Here’s a perfect one.
Nature looks at what it takes to make a 100 percent efficient catalyst for getting clean fuel from water: The largest potential source of renewable […]
Better bottles.
The Guardian looks forward to a time when our plastic bottles will be replaced with plant-based containers that turn into, essentially, mulch in a year: […]
Medieval Blue is Remade
Science News opens a new book on an old pigment, reconstructing a botanical purple-blue hue that had puzzled medievalists for ages: The pigment, called folium, […]
Learning from the ashes of Notre Dame
Nature takes a look at how the tragic fire at Notre Dame last year created a unique opportunity for researchers to study medieval construction: The […]
Squeezing lead makes it stronger than steel.
Science News proves that there’s always something new to figure out – in this case, with one of the most common and worked-with metals we […]
Microscopic nutrient doses to solve malnutrition. (With Bill Gates as a lab rat.)
Inverse covers an invention that should invisibly make a difference in some of the world’s hungriest communities, beating back malnutrition-based diseases with super-tiny capsules of […]
Bourbons have microscopic signatures. (In a way that scotches don’t.)
Science News takes appreciation of American whiskeys to a whole new level – a teeny-tiny one. Researchers publishing in Physical Review Fluids found that bourbons, […]
Common insectides have lowered songbird populations – they eat a couple seeds and lose weight.
National Geographic reports on a study that has found nicotine-based insecticides – the world’s most widely used pesticides – act like appetite suppressants for songbirds. […]
Microplastics in your tea, from the teabag.
New Scientist has the less-than-cheerful discovery that a plastic-based teabag will release *billions* of microplastic particles as it steeps: A Canadian team found that steeping […]
I don’t know, how *do* you make Saturn Yellow?
LA Times plunges into a chemical and artistic riddle – how can we restore fading Day-Glo paintings when the formula for Saturn Yellow remains a […]
Irish kid wins big for plan to get rid of microplastics using magnets.
Business Insider lauds Fionn Ferreira, an 18-year-old who won the Google Science Fair (and a $50,000 pot) with a plan to use ferrofluid – magnetic […]
“Diamond-based security” low-tech foil for high-tech counterfeiters
Fortune reports on a new company that aims to keep supply chains secure in the era of 3D printing by using unique patterns of diamond […]
China is going back to fighting the ozone hole.
Nature reports on Chinese officials having a redo on one of our past environmental successes, seeking out the source of massive plumes of ozone-destroying CFCs […]