Science

Researchers from Keio University in Japan have devised a wearable mechanical device that gives humans a moving, vertebrate tail. While it might look ridiculous, the air-powered appendage can be used to improve balance, much in the way that animals use their tails.

The human body is an amazing organic machine that performs countless tasks every minute of every day. In this video from The Infographics Show, they tally up some of the things that your body will do in the next minute – or twice as much while you watch the entire 2 minute clip.

“It’s like a cross between silver and milk.” Gallium is a pretty amazing element, a shiny metal that melts above 85.57ºF. The Slow Mo Guys decided to play with some of the stuff in front of their high-speed camera, capturing some amazing footage of the metal’s properties when in motion.

Magnet enthusiast Magnetic Games decided to see what would happen when he introduced a bunch of his small, Buckyballs-style spheres to some of his incredibly powerful neodymium monolith magnets. The impacts are quite spectacular, and especially neat to watch in slow motion.

Kurzgesagt once again dives deep within our bodies, this time to explore the complement system, a part of our immune system which can activate to help defend us from disease, but that also needs to be kept in check to keep from destroying us from the inside.

There’s nothing quite like the delicious flavor of grilled, seared, or smoked meats. But the way you cook and handle meats after cooking can dramatically improve its quality. SciShow explains tips for making the perfect BBQ meal and the scientific reasons that these techniques improve flavor and texture.

Did you know that the smartphone in your pocket has moving parts inside of it? Devices such as accelerometers use a hybrid of mechanical and electronic mechanisms known as MEMS. New Mind puts this fascinating and complex tech under the microscope to explain how they work, and how they’re made.

Derek Neutron and Barbara Proton… Usually they engage in a 3-way with Carmen Electron. Exurb1a presents a brief “educational” video, skimming over how the universe works, from tiny subatomic particles to entire galaxies. At least it’s better than this explanation.

You never want to get too close to a mound of fire ants. But from the comfortable distance of your browser, they’re neat little buggers. Vox explores some of the fascinating ways in which colonies stick together to form structures, and how they can act as both a solid or fluid.

On the surface, the power to see through anything seems like a pretty useful superhero ability. But as What If explains, not only would you need an X-ray emitting sidekick to take advantage of your power, but your viewing subjects would probably end up getting cancer unless they wore safety aprons.

There’s been a long-held concern that the electromagnetic radiation that emanate from cell phones, power lines, and other devices could cause harm to our bodies. But is there any truth to this concern? Kurzgesagt attempts to separate the fact from fiction in this controvertial topic.

There’s an oft-repeated story among school children that if you managed to keep your eyeballs open while sneezing, that they’d pop right out of their sockets. SciShow digs into this little gem to see if there’s any reason to actually be worried the next time you let out an atchoo.

xkcd creator Randall Munroe’s latest book offers solutions to real-world problems. But don’t expect to get advice you can actually use. Instead, you’ll receive overly-complicated and impractical methods, in what he calls “world’s least useful self-help book.” Drops 9/3/19.

Traveling to and colonizing Mars seems like a very daunting task, but as Aperture points out, humans have been able to influence the climate and landscape on Earth, so why couldn’t we do it there? His video looks at the big changes that would have to happen to make the planet habitable.

Veritasium managed to make his skin resistant to both flames and water by modifying the ultra-lightweight, synthetic known as Aerogel. It’s a very difficult material to work with, but has some amazing properties, including incredible thermal insulation and absorption.

Macro photography series Beautiful Chemistry presents an up-close look at the formation and behavior of bubbles, with different chemical solutions and electrical charges producing some very different volumes, sizes, and arrangements of the air-filled orbs. The accompanying soundtrack is wonderfully soothing.

Our bodies, brains, and blood cells thrive on oxygen, and inhaling a little extra is good for an energy boost. But is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? What If explores the hypothetical of what might happen if the Earth’s atmosphere had twice as much o2.

You might think that mammals always ate meat, but it turns out it was an evolutionary necessity due to changes in Earth’s climate. Kurzgesagt explores whether or not this change in our diets was actually good for us, or if eating meat truly has a negative impact on our health.

The macrophotography experts from the Beauty of Science present a stunning close-up look at the formation of crystals with razor-sharp clarity. The time-lapse, black-and-white imagery was selected to evoke the icy cold sensation of the Arctic. Still image gallery on Behance.

Engineers from MIT have developed 3D-printed objects with embedded magnetic particles that allow them to change shapes in an instant. The current prototypes are mere playthings, but the tech could give way to tiny, remote-controlled medical devices.

Scientists from Samsung’s Moscow-based AI Research Center recently showed off “Few-Shot Adversarial Learning” tech, which can generate talking head videos from just a handful of still images, and a source video of another head. It’s so impressive, they even made the Mona Lisa talk.

Utah State University Professor Boyd F. Edwards uses a Hoberman sphere to demonstrate the conservation of angular momentum. After spinning the sphere to generate angular momentum, he pulls its string to shrink its size, and its speed increases dramatically.

The always awesome Chop Shop Store teamed up with The Planetary Society to create 20 wooden blocks, each featuring a planet, dwarf planet, or moon from our solar system, and printed with useful data. They’re also offering space-themed add-ons like posters, tees, and stickers.

The idea of filling a swimming pool with gelatin seems simple enough, but as engineer Mark Rober explains, it’s way more complicated than you might think. Leave it to a rocket scientist to figure out how to boil and then refrigerate an entire pool filled with 15 tons of Jello.

The man we know as Vsauce Michael of the channel formerly known as DONG is shows off a nifty plaything. Designed by Pacific Puzzle Works, this oversize top conceals a smaller top inside that automagically spins when you spin the larger top. Available as a kit or fully-assembled.

A neat little loop captured from The Royal Institution’s fascinating video about trapping particles in a particle accelerator. The machine shown here is a rudimentary version of a Paul Trap – a saddle-shaped device that can hold an object in its center as it rotates.

WIRED sat down with forensic scientist Thiago Piwowarczyk and art historian Jeffrey Taylor PhD to get the inside skinny on ways that science and a skilled eye can help detect art forgeries. Abstract works like Jackson Pollock’s drips and splashes are especially challenging.

Have you ever wondered why insects, birds, fish, and bats gather together into huge and coordinated groups? TED-Ed’s Maria R. D’Orsogna explores the fascinating science behind this behavior, which drives many species as a method of survival and group productivity.

We wouldn’t be here on this planet if it weren’t for evolution – and a big part of the evolutionary process is natural selection. Primer presents a great 10 minute lesson on how the whole “survival of the fittest” thing works, along with a visual simulation with little blobby creatures.

One of the more entertaining science experiments involves slapping neodymium magnets on a AA battery, and placing it into an length of copper wire. Mr. Michal plays with the idea, using a loop of wire to see how long batteries last, then drag races them to see which is most energetic.