Articles in the Category: Physics and Chemistry

SDF: Science Rap Battle of History — Einstein v. Hawking

SDF: Science Rap Battle of History — Einstein v. Hawking
Editor’s Note: In 2012 REALscience rolled out a new feature — Science Ditty Friday. Each and every Friday we’ll compile a song (preferably with accompanying video) to kick your weekend off with a musical start. And there will be a more detailed explanation of the science in the lyrics...

Big Solar Storm Brewing

Big Solar Storm Brewing
As a precaution planes that travel over the North Pole are being rerouted. Satellites are bracing for a direct hit and technicians are watching energy grids with unblinking eyes. The reason for all the hub-bub is a big solar storm. The Space Weather Prediction Center issued a warning on Monday when...

IBM Cracks Atomic Hard Drive Code

IBM Cracks Atomic Hard Drive Code
Right now there are about one million magnetized atoms involved in one bit of information. A bit is defined as a variable that can have only two possible values, 1 or 0. In computing those values are interpreted as binary digits. And IBM just lowered that minimum threshold from one million to 12. For...

Student Sings Science Project

Student Sings Science Project
Maggie Arias is on her way to becoming the next iTunes sensation. The Atlanta-area 6th Grader is not your typical pop princess though. She uses “thermosphere” in her song, Aurora, which pays tribute to the beauty and power of the Northern Lights. When her teacher asked each student to become...

Rosie Redfield — Tyrant Queen of Science

Rosie Redfield — Tyrant Queen of Science
Rosie Redfield is no shrinking violent. The outspoken University of British Columbia microbiologist always seems to have a wild hair about something. This year it ran the gamut from a fight over mailing flu cells to England using FedEx to her efforts showing scientific journals acting irresponsibly by...

Science Finds Shroud of Turin Wasn’t Faked

Science Finds Shroud of Turin Wasn’t Faked
A new theory posits that an instantaneous light burst at the moment of Jesus’ resurrection left the imprint of his image in the cloth used to bury him. Just in time for what believers call a Christmas miracle, a team of Italian scientists has concluded that the cloth believed to hold the image...

Is Metal the New Building Block of Life?

Is Metal the New Building Block of Life?
The focus of Lee Cronin’s work is understanding and controlling self-assembly and self-organisation in chemistry to develop functional molecular and nano-molecular chemical systems; linking architectural design with function and recently engineering system-level functions.Lee Cronin's Lab Searches...

New Newton Project Drops Online

New Newton Project Drops Online
Sir Isaac Newton wrote mainly in Latin and Greek, the languages of science at the time he made astonishing discoveries about the laws of motion and gravity. Now those numerous writings are being put online in new a collection of 4,000 pages, including his hand-annotated copy of Principia Mathematica.Principia...

Search Narrows for Particle to Explain All Mass

Search Narrows for Particle to Explain All Mass
For physicists the search for the elusive subatomic particle that gives all things mass is tantamount to the search for the Holy Grail. That’s one reason why scientists call the much-theorized but never seen Higgs Boson the God particle. Now an update on research from the European nuclear agency...

Earth-like Planet Fuels Excitement for Space Exploration

Earth-like Planet Fuels Excitement for Space Exploration
The question is the subject of movies, science fiction novels and our own curious minds. Are we alone in the universe? Prevailing scientific wisdom says yes but more and more the answer appears to be no. With the advent of more sensitive cosmological equipment to scan the night sky, astronomers are...

Combustion Whoosh Bottle Experiment Done Right

Combustion Whoosh Bottle Experiment Done Right
Last week, a Minnesota science class got more than they bargained for when a combustible demonstration being done by the physical sciences teacher caught chemicals on a lab table on fire and burned several students, including 15-year-old Dane Neuberger. The burned student says, “I started screaming...

Help Name the New Elements

Help Name the New Elements
The latest additions to the periodic table of the elements finally have placeholder names. It was earlier this year when elements 114 and 116 were admitted onto the coveted list of elements. At the time they were referred to by their numerical Latin ununquadium and ununhexium. They might be called flerovium...

Arctic Region Warms into New Climate State

Arctic Region Warms into New Climate State
In 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began monitoring the Arctic region, creating an annual report card to mark rapid change occurring there. Five years in and the news isn’t good. The 2011 Arctic Report Card shows that the entire region is changing dramatically. Ice, both...

Softbots Slither in Tight Spaces

Softbots Slither in Tight Spaces
(no audio to accompany video) After the earthquake in Japan or Haiti robots were pretty useless in sifting through rubble to find survivors. They also didn’t do well in off-road situations where the environment had shifted and they couldn’t maneuver over obstacles. But a chemist at Harvard...

Quantum Levitation Hovers on the Horizon

Quantum Levitation Hovers on the Horizon
Science has proven it’s possible to make the Back to the Future II hover board a thing of the future. But first scientists need to overcome the need to flash freeze the object in order to turn it into a superconductor, which makes quantum levitation possible.Team Demonstrates Quantum Levitation...

Bright Ideas Drove Invention of Mundane Things

Bright Ideas Drove Invention of Mundane Things
Right now Steve Jobs is being remembered as the man who made technology personal and pleasing. But as time passes the iPod, iPhone and iPad will become part of our lives, no longer remarkable. This is the same journey that other inventions took, from bright, new concept to items in everyday use.iPad,...

Climate Skeptics Confirm Global Warming

Climate Skeptics Confirm Global Warming
Global warming has become so politicized that many people forget there is science underlying the concept. The camps sort out like this. Climate scientists for the most part agree that the world is heating up thanks to man-made or anthropogenic global warming, largely caused by excess carbon dioxide...

Northern Lights Track South

Northern Lights Track South
Generally people in the far northern latitudes get to see the solar wind dancing with the magnetic field around Earth. But because of increased solar activity, the northern lights have been more visible further south, including Alabama, Georgia and even Florida. An automated NASA camera that takes a...

Music Meets Science in Biophilia

Music Meets Science in Biophilia
The voice of nature Sir David Attenborough is featured explaining Iceland musician Bjork’s latest venture — Biophilia. It’s part music album reflecting the connection points between sound, nature and technology. It’s an app for iPhones and iPads. It’s a creation generator...

Science of…Fall Foliage

Science of…Fall Foliage
For leaf peepers Fall is the time for the best leaves. They turn from bright green to yellow, then orange and if the conditions are right red and purple too. But what makes fall colors so spectacular? Science can explain. First just about everybody knows that chlorophyll gives leaves their green color....

Ig Nobel Prizes Take a Lighter Look at Science

Ig Nobel Prizes Take a Lighter Look at Science
Pee pressure, beer bottle-humping beetles and a wasabi-flavored fire alarm were among the top prizes awarded at Harvard University’s 21st Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, a more laid back version of the Nobel Prize ceremony. Nobel Prize laureates present the Ig Nobels to scientists and philosophers...

Quasicrystal Discovery Wins Chemistry Nobel Prize

Quasicrystal Discovery Wins Chemistry Nobel Prize
Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman has won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Shechtman “for the discovery of quasicrystals.” Until his 1982 discovery, Dr. Shechtman, who has joint appointments at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and...

Three Capture Nobel Prize in Physics for Expanding Universe

Three Capture Nobel Prize in Physics for Expanding Universe
For scientists it doesn’t get any bigger than the Nobel Prize. This year’s winners in the Physics category receive the honor for work they did on the biggest subject available to them or anyone — the universe. Three U.S. scientists are sharing the prize for their theory of a rapidly...

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