Awesome Science

For some reason, humans lack the innate ability to walk in a truly straight line. NPR correspondent Robert Krulwich explores this phenomena, accompanied by animation by Benjamin Arthur.

Get swept away in the adrenaline-charged Tornado Alley, which documents Storm Chasers host Sean Casey’s thrilling quest to experience a tornado’s destructive power at point blank range.

While it might look like the craggy surface of a distant planet, what you’re looking at is the tip of a match, lit on fire, and captured at 2000 frames per-second. Watch another perspective here.

Ever wanted to know how to modify a cheap Bic lighter into a laser pointer that still lights a cigarette? Thanks to kipkay, now we all do. Kids: pretend that you don’t. (Thanks Benton!)

Do you have difficulty categorizing or describing yourself and your hipper-than-thou friends? Pull on your favorite pair of skinny jeans and throw on this handy Periodic Table of Hipsters tee for reference.

After enabling us to explore the Earth, the sea and the streets, Google is thinking smaller. From the company’s Labs comes the Body Browser, which is basically Google Earth for the human body.

Artist Iori Tomita uses a special process to turn the bodies of marine critters translucent, then injects dyes into their skeletons to produce these dramatic and educational biological specimens.

Using an incredibly well-focused mirror, this thing can harness the power of the sun into a 3500°C, rock-melting weapon. If you thought frying ants with a magnifying glass was something…

If you ever wondered how the radiation inside a microwave flows, this science experiment using a grid of neon bulbs and wire should help explain things. Plus, it just plain looks cool.

The Southern White-faced Owl has a couple of creepy transformations, but it’s got nothing on the Mimic Octopus. This strange cephalopod can copy the look of 15 species, from snakes to shrimps.

Peter Chinn combined three-dimensional ultrasound scans, computer graphics and footage from tiny cameras to come up with these eerie yet beautiful pictures of animals in the womb.

Hank of the Vlog Brothers gives us a primer about quarks via a catchy tune and kinetic typography. If only high school Physics was this addictive. “Up, Down, Strange, Charm, Top, Bottom…”

Segway inventor Dean Kamen shows off his incredible marvel of modern science – a prosthetic arm which can be controlled by the wearer’s mind, as if their real arm were still there.

There is a difference between setting yourself on fire and burning yourself. As explained by Theodore Gray, stuntmen often use a water-filled polymer to protect their skin. More at PopSci.

Did you know that when ants get separated from their colony, they start following each other in a circle until they drop dead? The phenomenon looks like an insect hurricane. Nature sure is weird.

Despite the fact that you’re never supposed to stick any part of your body into liquid nitrogen, PopSci’s Theodore Grey figured out a way to quickly dunk his hand without injury. Don’t try this at home.