Some starfish made of a brittle material fortify themselves with architectural antics. Beneath a starfish’s skin lies a skeleton made of pebbly growths, called ossicles, which mostly consist of the…
Author: ID
Materials of the last century shaped modern life, but at a price
A 1920s science headline, “Ice cream from crude oil,” may best capture the era’s unbridled enthusiasm for chemistry. “Edible fats, the same as those in vegetable and animal foods ……
This eco-friendly glitter gets its color from plants, not plastic
All that glitters is not green. Glitter and shimmery pigments are often made using toxic compounds or pollutive microplastics (SN: 4/15/19). That makes the sparkly stuff, notoriously difficult to clean…
Fast radio bursts could help solve the mystery of the universe’s expansion
Astronomers have been arguing about the rate of the universe’s expansion for nearly a century. A new independent method to measure that rate could help cast the deciding vote. For…
Physicists’ devotion to symmetry has led them astray before
Second of two parts Physicists have a lot in common with Ponce de León and U2’s Bono. After decades of searching, they aren’t getting any younger. And they still haven’t…
The dark matter mystery deepens with the demise of a reported detection
First of two parts. Read part two. In mystery stories, the chief suspect almost always gets exonerated before the end of the book. Typically because a key piece of evidence…
Einstein’s theory of general relativity unveiled a dynamic and bizarre cosmos
Albert Einstein’s mind reinvented space and time, foretelling a universe so bizarre and grand that it has challenged the limits of human imagination. An idea born in a Swiss patent…
Dark matter clumps in galaxy clusters bend light surprisingly well
Dark matter just got even more puzzling. This unidentified stuff, which makes up most of the mass in the cosmos, is invisible but detectable by the way it gravitationally tugs…
Oxygen-rich exoplanets may be geologically active
Humble oxygen is more than just a building block of life. The element could also help scientists sneak a peek into the innards of planets orbiting faraway stars, a new…
Enceladus’ plumes might not come from an underground ocean
Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus sprays water vapor into space. Scientists have thought that the plumes come from a deep subsurface ocean — but that might not be the case, new…
