Awesome Science

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 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.

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.

In theory, a clone should be an exact copy. But the reality is even if we chose to create engineered copies of humans, every little variable in their environment would make them a very different person from their genetic doppelgänger. Life Noggin explains.

Steel wool is really useful for scrubbing and cleaning. But it’s also incredibly flammable. The guys from The King of Random decided to play with fire, and see how it might react if a lit piece of the shredded metal was dropped into a cup of styrofoam filled with liquid oxygen.

The Slow Mo Guys have captured some amazing imagery at speeds over 100,000 fps. But to visualize something as fast as the speed of light, they had to visit a science lab at Cal Tech to take advantage of a camera that shoots at 10 trillion fps. Learn more here.

Here’s a little life hack – if you drop an alkaline battery on its end, it should bounce higher if its depleted than when charged. Warped Perception decided to test this out in front of his slow-motion camera, to see how differently-charged batteries behave.

MIT’s food computers are small robotic gardens that let people control, gather and share data about the conditions of a plant’s growth. Such systems can be built anywhere in the world, greatly accelerating learning and experimentation to improve crop yields.

Good, bad, or ugly, most living creatures are aware of everything they experience throughout life (we think). But at what point did life forms become self-aware? Kurzgesagt digs into the puzzling nature of consciousness, and what makes sentience even a thing.

This DNA test kit provides you with info about your genetics, providing pesonalized guidance on the best nutritional and exercise plans for you, along with data on your global ancestry. Plus, Vitagene won’t sell or publish personal information. Save 30% in The Awesomer Shop.

Dogs are known for their impressive olfactory systems, and their ability to suss out all kinds of minute scents. In this clip from Deep Look, we learn how researchers are working with rescue dogs to better understand how their scent tracking abilities really work.

It’s been drilled into our heads that the majority of Earth is covered in water, but just how much is there? Wren of Corridor Crew provides some great visualizations to give us a better idea of the volume of H2O, and when packed into a sphere, its size is surprising.

Apeel Sciences’ revolutionary coating slows down oxidation and water loss in fruits and vegetables, making food stay fresh for far longer. The non-toxic coating is made from a mixture of pulp, peels, and seeds that is dissolved in water then applied to the skin of produce.

Captain Disillusion investigates those videos that show what appears to be water frozen in time, and demonstrating something known in science as “laminar flow.” It doesn’t take the Cap’n long to replicate the effect himself, but is it real or fake?

You might think your bathroom would be the place in your house with the most germs and bacteria, but you’d be wrong. Science Insider explores some far more populous places to be when it comes to microscopic organisms – and how one of them is inescapable.

To show how easy it is to visualize magnetic fields, Magnetic Games tossed a super-strong neodymium magnet into a pile of magnetite sand sitting on an impromptu trampoline. As the magnet and particles fly through the air, the patterns emerge.

Want to go down in history? You don’t need to solve an obscure problem. Mental Floss’ List Show enumerates 19 common topics that science hasn’t fully figured out, including laughing, hiccups, ice skates, and of course the common cold.

Despite our fascination with Mars, the red planet isn’t exactly the most hospitable place. Kurzgesagt looks at some of the many challenges we’d face if we ever wanted to colonize Mars. Humans can’t breathe there, it’s freezing cold, and Martian dust is poisonous.

How much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black. This desktop curiosity is made using a carbon nanotube array to absorb 99.% of visible light, so when you look into it up close, it’s the darkest void you’ve ever seen. Available in 2.5cm and 4cm sizes.