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What Does ‘Happy New Year’ Even Really Mean?
Physicists engage in a strange debate about whether time really passes
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Creep Through Albert Einstein’s Love Letters
The Digital Einstein archive offers a look into the great physicist’s writings
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Geckos Have a Surprisingly Strong Death Grip
Gecko toes remain firmly stuck in place even after the animal dies, implying that the lizards do not actively control their clinginess
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Designing a Smaller, Lighter Airplane Tail
With engineers from Caltech, Boeing and NASA, Israel Wygnanski is ushering in a new era of fuel-efficient airplane design
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Five Practical Uses for “Spooky” Quantum Mechanics
Fifty years after Bell’s Theorem, tools that harness the weird properties of quantum mechanics are at work all around you
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The Physics of Whisky’s Aesthetically Pleasing Residue
A photographer teamed up with scientists to figure out the fluid dynamics behind patterns left in whisky glasses
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Physicists Explain Why Coffee Is More Prone to Spills Than Beer
It all comes down to the foam
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What If There Are Parallel Universes Jostling Ours?
It could explain a lot of weird, quantum physics
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Rainbows Don’t Include Purple Light, So Why Do They Sometimes Seem To?
Supernumerary rings, supernumerary rings, supernummrings
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Build a Cloud Chamber for Cheap And See Particles From Outer Space
A simple device lets you see cosmic rays’ effects with your own eyes
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Like Ants, Small Backpackers Are Adept at Carrying Proportionally Heavier Loads
The weight a person or animal can carry does not increase uniformly with size
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The Potential Dark Side of Nobel-Winning LEDs: Pest Problems
The white lighting is clean and efficient but also a lot more attractive to flying invertebrates
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New Mexico’s Skies Burst With Color During World’s Largest Hot Air Balloon Festival
The 43rd Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta sends hundreds of hot air balloons soaring into the sky
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Breaking Down the Science of the Stolen Base
What does it take to swipe second? Math and physics lend their advice
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What Is the Universe? Real Physics Has Some Mind-Bending Answers
Science says the universe could be a hologram, a computer program, a black hole or a bubble—and there are ways to check
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Ghostly Neutrinos Created in the Heart of the Sun Are Finally Detected
This is the most direct evidence supporting researchers’ ideas about how the Sun is powered
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Geckos Can Control the Movement of Their Toe Hairs
Geckos take advantage of van der Waals forces to run across ceilings, but a simple shift allows them to drop to the ground
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There’s an Easy (And Tasty) Way to Measure the Speed of Light at Home
You can make surprisingly accurate calculations using chocolate and a microwave
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How Do You Build the World’s Tallest Water Slide?
From conceptualization to the first plunge, building the world’s tallest water slide takes more trial-and-error than you might believe
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How a Flock of 400 Flying Birds Manages to Turn in Just Half a Second
The birds’ patterns of movement are surprisingly similar to that of superfluid helium
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