A calm, sunny day erupted into a thunderstorm off the coast of Scotland for photographer Brian Matthews. Turbulent clouds streak the sky, and a downpour on the left releases a Keep reading
Month: October 2024
How Venus Is Losing Its Water
Since Venus formed at the same time as Earth and is similar in size, scientists believe it once had the same amount of water our planet does. Today, hellish Venus Keep reading
A Comet’s Tail
A comet‘s tail changes from day-to-day depending on how much material the comet is losing and how strong the solar wind it’s facing is. This image sequence shows Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks Keep reading
Saving Screens with Shear-Thinning Fluids
These days glass screens travel with us everywhere, and they can take some big hits on the way. Manufacturers have made tougher glass, but they continue to look for ways Keep reading
How We Got Atoms From Brownian Motion
In 1827, botanist Robert Brown observed an odd jittery motion of particles as he watched grains of pollen floating in water under his microscope. He saw the random motion also Keep reading
“Dew Point” Deposits Droplets
Artist Lily Clark loves to work in water. One of her recent sculptures, “Dew Point,” uses superhydrophobic ceramic to grow and manipulate water droplets over and over and over. Droplets Keep reading
“Running on Water”
In the early morning light, young photographer Max Wood captured this coot escaping a fight. With wings flapping, the bird runs across the water surface. Each slap and stroke of Keep reading
Our Sun’s Corona Unfurled
This clever image is actually two solar eclipses stacked atop one another. The bottom half of the image shows the sun‘s corona — its wispy, dramatic outer atmosphere — during Keep reading
Microfluidics in Medicine
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Human Genome Project spent years decoding DNA from a handful of donors. The work was painstaking and slow, given DNA sequencing technology Keep reading
Exciting a Flame in a Trough
A viewer sent Steve Mould his accidental discovery of this odd flame behavior. In these 3D-printed troughs, a flame lit in lighter fluid will rocket around the track repeatedly as Keep reading