Awesome Science

Have you ever noticed that while wolves have pointy, upright ears, most pet dogs have soft, floppy ears? Skunk Bear explores the fascinating and puzzling evolutionary biology of wild versus domesticated animals that created these distinctions among others.

Learn a little bit about the chemistry and physics that go into the construction of a basic rocket in this clip from BBC Earth Lab’s Bang Goes the Theory. The demonstration with the oxy-acetylene soda bottle rockets is neat, but is way too dangerous to try at home.

It’s been more than four decades since the U.S. sent anyone to the Moon. With its upcoming Artemis missions, NASA will return to the moon, establishing a regular presence on the lunar surface. The space agency explains how astronauts will travel to, spend time on the surface, and come home from the moon in the future.

Things are always changing in the universe, so it’s possible that someday in the distant future that the Earth could be in danger from a catastrophic force. But is there a way that we could avoid such a fate given enough notice and ingenuity? Kurzgesagt digs into a theoretical method to do just that, by moving our entire solar system.

Everyone knows atoms are really tiny. But just how small are they? After putting the scale of the universe in perspective, Wren from Corridor Crew channels his inner Vsauce, illustrating the relative size of atoms, quarks, molecules, and cells by scaling them up to something a bit easier to comprehend.

Do you know what’s beneath your feet? Go deeper than the dirt and the rocks and the water, and you’ll eventually get to the Earth’s crust. This great infographic video from Dr James O’Donoghue (@physicsJ) and Dr. Christine Houser (@seismodoc) illustrates the materials comprising the crust, as well as their proportions.

Director Louie Schwartzberg’s documentary Fantastic Fungi: The Magic Beneath Us takes viewers deep into the underground world of mycelium and mushrooms. Beyond their abilities to feed and heal, it further explores how fungi can be part of massive, interconnected networks.

After wowing us with their footage of fire and ice, macrophotography channel Beauty of Science’s series Envisioning Chemistry shares images of the Belousov–Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction, a wild pattern of oscillations that occurs when a bromine and an acid are combined in a petri dish.

There’s no question that nuclear power can be dangerous – especially when something goes wrong – but it’s still pretty amazing that something so small can generate so much energy. This compilation from Top Fives demonstrates the imposing sound and light show that occurs when starting up a reactor.

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.

We know John D. Boswell aka Melodysheep best for his awesome musical mashups, but he is also fascinated with science. The first episode of his series “Live Beyond” explores the origins of life and humanity’s place in the universe, while further episodes will dig into the potential for life beyond our world.

If you live somewhere that snow coats roads in the wintertime, you’ll want to check out Engineering Explained’s latest clip, as Jason walks us through the variables at work when driving on slippery surfaces, and provides some tips on how to maintain control on the snow.

Sending cargo and ships into space is extremely expensive and resource-intensive. But there’s an idea that’s been bandied about that would use endlessly-moving tethers to catapult ships into space from Earth’s orbit. Kurzgesagt explains how this relatively simple concept could dramatically improve space travel.

Smart MicroOptics‘ tabletop gadget is designed to turn any smartphone into a high resolution microscope. The system will offer 35x-200x, 75x-500x, and 150x-1000x magnification modules, capturing details as small as 0.7 micron. Both a basic and precision sample stage are available.

If you find space science fascinating, check out this clip from Kurzgesagt, in which they explain how neutron stars work. These phenomena may only be a few kilometers in diameter, but have an insanely dense atomic nucleus and powerful gravity, thanks to their origins as massive stars which have collapsed and gone supernova.

The Earth’s lone moon is very important to the way the world works, affecting everything from the ocean tides, to the regularity of our seasons and the length of our days. But what would happen if another similar asteroid got pulled into the Earth’s orbit? SciShow explores some of the potentially serious implications.