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Smart News / Smart News Science

Frozen bubbles

How to Make Awesome Frozen Soap Bubbles Without Having to Brave the Cold

Frozen soap bubbles are really cool looking. But going outside to make them means braving the cold. Here’s how to make them at home

A memorial to the Irish famine in Dublin.

160 Years Later, Scientists Grow a GM Potato That Could Have Prevented the Irish Potato Famine

Genetically modified potatoes resistant to potato blight were designed in Ireland

Drivers Are Doing Something Besides Driving Ten Percent of the Time

Simply talking on a cellphone, however, did not increase the risk of an accident or near accident for drivers - so long as their eyes stayed on the road

On a Warmer Planet, Fewer Clouds Form, And Temperatures Rise Further

Scientists use words such as “catastrophic,” “impossible” and “profound” to describe what life on the planet would be like under 4-degree-warmer conditions

Using Nothing But Sound, These Scientists Are Making Things Float

Using nothing but high frequency ultrasound, these researchers can make anything float

This Cold Snap Is Making It Colder Than the Surface of Mars

There’s a pocket of cold air hanging over the eastern states, and it is very cold indeed

Bodily maps of emotion developed by the researchers.

Different Emotional States Manifest in Different Spots in the Human Body

Humans are emotional creatures, but whether emotions produced the same physical responses in people across varying cultures remained unknown until now

A dolphin with its drug of choice.

Dolphins Seem to Use Toxic Pufferfish to Get High

The dolphins’ expert, deliberate handling of the terrorized puffer fish implies that this is not their first time at the hallucinogenic rodeo

White arrows point to the fossilized feathers of Microraptor gui.

Actually, Dinosaurs Probably Didn’t All Have Feathers

The increasingly-popular idea that all dinosaurs had feathers may be a bit too enthusiastic

Japan’s Newest Island Has Merged With Its Neighbor

Ongoing volcanic activity has caused Japan’s newest island to merge with its neighbor

Doctors Are Now Prescribing Books to Treat Depression

Reading to feel less isolated may be more than just a poetic thought

Tolkien’s Dwarves Would Have Needed 38 Mini-Nuclear Plants to Melt All That Gold So Quickly

Unless those dwarf furnaces were burning some sort of Middle-earth super fuel, in real life Smaug probably would have just eaten the dwarves

Jupiter's moon Io in orbit around the gas giant. Io is casting a dark shadow on Jupiter's atmosphere.

Did Astronomers Just Find the First Moon Outside Our Solar System?

The potential moon is half the size of Earth and in orbit around a planet four times bigger than Jupiter

Science Is Inching Closer to the Possibility of Erasing Bad Memories

Scientists began tinkering with memory in the late 1960s, but it’s only recently that research really began to hint that this might be possible

Coconut Crabs Eat Everything from Kittens to, Maybe, Amelia Earhart

According to one theory, Earhart did not drown in the Pacific but instead crashed on the remote Nikumaroro atoll, where she was eaten by coconut crabs

Sewage Water Reveals Community’s Illegal Drug Habits

Sewage analyses in the US found the highest levels of methamphetamines to date, but revealed that cocaine use in the US seems on par with that in Europe

Can You Fry Things in Space?

Can the good old American tradition of caking foods in grease continue in the vast recesses of space?

Hadza hunter-gatherers on the hunt for dinner.

Animals And Humans Use Similar Tactics to Find Food

The authors think this particular foraging method may have evolved in early humans and stuck around through the eons due to its effectiveness

Cool Finds

Some Spiders Eat Salads

Most people think of spiders as terrifying carnivores, laying in wait to trap their prey. That’s mostly true, but sometimes spiders eat other things too

Measured snowfall from this past weekend.

Here Are Your Odds of Getting a White Christmas

If nothing else, it gives you an excuse to sit inside all day drinking hot chocolate

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