Awesome Science

When it comes to watching our diet, counting calories is one of the most common methods of tracking food intake. AsapSCIENCE explains how the nutritional composition of foods, our individual metabolisms, genetics, and microbiomes affect how we process food, impacting our health far more than calories alone.

Geek out as a team of scientists remove the old coating and apply a new one to the mirror from the Air Force Research Lab’s huge Advanced Electro-Optical System telescope. The process must be performed from time to time to ensure the telescope remains functional in its job of tracking low-earth satellites and ballistic missiles.

Building full-size rockets typically requires the creation of costly custom tooling. But Relativity Space is taking a different approach to the problem, using a giant 3D printer and additive manufacturing to melt and form aluminum into the shape of a rocket. Veritasium takes us inside of their facility for a look at how it works.

We’ve always enjoyed learning about science and nature from Kurzgesagt. They explain all kinds of theoretical events and technologies with an authoritative voice. SilentSushi edited together some random bits and pieces from their videos which make absolutely no sense when taken out of context. And then there’s this video.

(Flashing lights) This fascinating short film from Joel Penner and Anna Sigrithur uses time-lapse footage to reveal how tiny organisms spoil food, others that make it tastier through fermentation, and yet more that compost and break down dead things to fertilize the Earth for new life.

What could be more terrifying than a regular volcano? A supervolcano, that’s what. Kurzgesagt explains how these massive ash, lava, and gas-spewing volcanoes form, and what sort of catastrophic consequences they might have on the Earth and its inhabitants for if the planet’s superheated insides erupted.

These stainless steel water bottles from Cognitive Surplus are covered with artwork that celebrates aspects of science and nature. Whether you’re into botany, rocket science, geology, or medicine, there’s a bottle for you. Each one holds a substantial 32 oz. of liquid and is double-wall vacuum insulated.

It’s been a while since we got a lesson from the Sam O’Nella Academy, but after a nearly 3-year hiatus from YouTube, the snarky educator takes us back to school to learn about scientific animal names and where they come from. Those taxonomy mnemonics are just as good as the ones on TV Funhouse.

Places… numbers… the future… all of these things seem limitless, but are they? This documentary explores the nature of infinity through interviews with prominent mathematicians, physicists, and cosmologists. Is the universe genuinely boundless, or is that just human wishful thinking? Drops 9.26.22 on Netflix.

Ready to have your mind blown? Much like a Christopher Nolan movie, PBS Space Time host Matt O’Dowd is here to make us question our understandings about time, as he explores theories that look at the relationships between the past, the present, and the future.

Engineers need to simulate earthquakes to make buildings and other structures safer. Tom Scott headed to the University of Texas to check out the T-Rex, a mobile test rig that can produce massive vibrations in the ground. Combined with sensors, it can measure the stiffness of soil thousands of feet beneath the surface without digging.

Tools like DALL·E 2 have proven it’s possible for AI tech to create art based on text. Neural Synesthesia fed text descriptions of the history of the Earth and the evolution of its species into StableDiffusion, which it used as a guide to creating the video Voyage Through Time. The music is Order from Chaos by Max Cooper.

Normally the only hole on a soap bubble is the one that you blow through to fill it with air. But science vlogger and teacher Steve Mould shows us how it’s easy to make a perfectly circular hole in a film of soap using a loop of thread. He goes on to explain how it’s a useful metaphor for the way cell membranes work.

Nature show host ZeFrank offers up a detailed look at a kind of amoeba known as Dictyostelium and explores how they work. These strange microscopic organisms gobble up bacteria and other tiny things, then divide over and over to reproduce. But the weirdest part is what they do once the colony runs out of food.

You can do all kinds of fun things with magnets, but we never thought of them as musical instruments. The guys from Magnet Tricks and Magnetic Games teamed up to create a series of sounds from magnetic vibrations, sampled them, then turned them into a synthwave track.

We always had it in our minds that all matter was a solid, a liquid, or a gas. But as PBS Space Time explains, there are numerous other states of matter – some of which are understandable like plasma – and others that require a PhD in physics to fully comprehend. And then there’s sand.

You might think that those PVC pipe potato cannons were fairly innocuous, but they can deal out some serious damage if overpressurized or built with the wrong kind of pipe or glue. The Backyard Scientist performed a series of experiments to figure out just how dangerous they can be, and tests some supposed safety measures.

There’s a good reason that we use ultraviolet light to kill bacteria and other microbes. Journey to the Microcosmos provides a fascinating look at what happens to microbes when exposed to a bright UV light source, including their tendency to explode and disintegrate.

The word “meteorite” conjures images of rocks falling from the heavens, but each day our planet is pelted with tons of micrometeorites, mostly smaller than grains of sand. Project Stardust founder Jon Larsen gets us up close and personal with 41 of these tiny, otherworldly objects thanks to a scanning electron microscope.

This Cognitive Surplus mug celebrates the science of coffee. Science nerds will geek out on its breakdown of the molecules that give coffee its flavor, aroma, and kick. Choose from a 13 oz. borosilicate glass or 11 oz. ceramic mug. Their Social Chemistry collection includes beer, whiskey, tea, wine, and water glasses.

Mechanical gears can change the speed or force by using different sizes and spacing of their teeth. But we had no idea that a similar result could be achieved by spinning discs embedded with different quantities and sizes of magnets. Magnetic Games shows off this surprising behavior in this neat physics demonstration.

Helicopter rotors are usually propelled by a spinning motor, but Project Air wanted to see if it would be feasible to use a rocket engine to make the blade spin instead. Rather than build a complete helicopter, he built a free-flying monocopter that could fly with a single rocket.

If you heat up a penny with a blow torch then lower it over a puddle of acetone, the reaction with the vapors will make the penny glow like a dim red lightbulb. NileRed shows off the reaction and points out that it must be done with a copper penny and not one with zinc or it will melt. And remember, chemistry is dangerous.

There are countless videos on the Internet that claim to demonstrate machines that can generate their own energy and operate in perpetuity. Don’t believe the hype. In this video from The Action Lab, he shows off one such trick, which uses hidden electromagnets to make a sphere look like it’s spinning on its own.

Science says that all living things are the result of evolution. But do species stop evolving at some point or do they keep changing? Joe from Be Smart explains what things influence these changes and the question of whether science, medicine, and technology have allowed humans to bend the laws of natural selection.

This laser-engraved stainless steel card is packed with reference information for scientists and engineers. Its front side has the periodic table of the elements, along with rulers and a protractor, while its back offers up quick access to important constants, formulae, and conversions. There’s also a version for chemistry.