Science

Thanks to astronaut Chris Hadfield and a series of videos from the Canadian Space Agency, we've had incredible access to all aspects of life on the International Space Station. Activities that are so mundane here on Earth (like clipping nails and heating up some spinach) become things of wonder in zero gravity. That's why we're all going ga-ga over Hadfield wringing out a washcloth.

If I told you nearly 600,000 people would tune into YouTube to watch a piece of cloth get wrung out, you would probably laugh and tell me to take the day off. Fortunately, we're not all suffering from a mass delusion. Hadfield soaking up a washcloth with water and then wringing it out really is that cool.… Read more

Head underwater at the Great Barrier Reef with Google Maps, and you'll notice something deeply saddening: instead of the vividly colored corals you would expect, vast swathes of the reef are dull brown -- dying, thanks to pollution, fishing, and climate change. This is a situation repeated the world over, with 20 percent of the world's reefs dead, and another 50 percent under immediate threat.

Although coral reefs, when left alone, can regenerate, those closer to human habitation aren't so lucky. It seems hopeless; short of drastic intervention, such as the cessation of fishing and dropping waste into the sea, how on earth could we combat this?

Humans have been trying to help. Fragments of Hope is a coral nursery in Belize that sends divers down to plant pieces of healthy coral in the dying reefs to speed up the recovery process. This work is painstaking and slow, however, and -- perhaps most pertinently -- subject to the limitations of the human body. There are places where humans cannot dive, and human endurance has a limit.

The Coral-bot Team from the U.K. has proposed that robots go where humans can't tread. The team has designed and built a series of robots that could autonomously navigate the depths and continue the work of planting coral. … Read more

The prevailing stereotype of scientists is that they're a bunch of quiet geeks wearing white coats and playing with test tubes in labs. They're not usually associated with moves more often seen on WrestleMania. In the midst of a heated discussion, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson hopped out of his chair, only to be playfully restrained by renowned PBS nerd Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Nye and Tyson were part of a panel of science experts gathered together to discuss topics ranging from the origins of the universe to cutting-edge technologies. The panel took place as part of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. You could watch the whole multi-hour discussion, or check out the below video for the juiciest bit.… Read more

It looks like a fish swimming in a bowl, or a serving of living octopus in its own salt water, but the photorealistic works of Singapore-based artist Keng Lye are not even sculptures, but paintings. He uses a technique developed by Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori, using acrylic paint and resin to build up, layer by layer, images of creatures swimming in water.

The technique involves starting with a container and pouring in thin layers of clear resin. When each layer dries, the next "slice" of the creature is painted on and allowed to dry before the next layer is poured. It's quite a painstaking process, but the effect, as you can see, is stunning. … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Whether you're an adult looking for a cool place to have your kid's birthday party, or a kid wanting to get your hands messy with science, the Exploratorium has been a favorite for all ages since it first opened its doors more than 40 years ago. But it eventually faced a problem: space.

Originally located at the Palace of Fine Arts, the only building left standing in its original location from San Francisco's 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the Exploratorium had outgrown the Beaux Arts house and began planning to move. Now completed, the Exploratorium will reopen to the public on April 17.

Its new space straddles the city and the bay at Pier 15, an overhauled warehouse located near the heart of downtown San Francisco. The hands-on science museum, founded by J. Robert Oppenheimer's physicist brother Frank in 1969, is using its new location to drive its popular mix of art and science into the 21st century. And it's huge. … Read more

There have been days recently when I would have liked to have been taken out of the present.

Anywhere would have done. Greece 2012. The moon 2034. The entrails of a whale, to chat with Jonah, the eighth century B.C.

Science seems to have been very slow to take us out of our place and time, despite the best efforts of Michael J. Fox.

I can reveal, however, that progress has finally been made. For an Iranian scientist has invented The Aryayek Time-Traveling Machine. Or, at least, he says he has.… Read more

Stephen Hawking's mind is reaching out into the far depths of space as he contemplates the survival of humanity over the very long term. He doesn't hold out much hope for us here on Earth. Instead, the famous physicist is looking to the stars for an answer.

"We must continue to go into space for humanity. We won't survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet," Hawking said in a recent lecture, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The delicate nature of Earth and humanity's propensity for steamrolling over the environment both spell doom as far as Hawking is concerned. He has been talking about the need to colonize space for years, but his latest comments have ramped up the discussion.… Read more

If you thought the Big Bang theory was boring and particle physics was hard to understand, you've never seen those things explained by a cartoon version of CERN physicist Tom Whyntie.

He's able to put the information from a three-month science course into an easy-to-understand three-minute TEDEd video with the help of animation team at Hornet. The British-voiced blob bounces around and explains how scientists study the Big Bang by replacing the heat, energy, and activity of the first few seconds of the universe. … Read more

Studying the brain can be a tricky business.

The interesting stuff, such as neurons and how they communicate, is obscured by things like fatty tissue. Usually, scientists just cut it up into paper-thin slices to study, like with Einstein's brain, but a team of scientists at Stanford University, led by Karl Deisseroth and Kwanghun Chung, have found what the director of the National Institute of Mental Health Thomas Insel is calling "one of the most important advances for doing neuroanatomy in decades."

The new technique lets researchers leave the brain intact, which puts an end to the damage that slicing can cause. It involves infusing the brain with acrylamide, which binds the proteins; once heated, it polymerizes, preserving the important molecules. Then, the brain is rinsed with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) detergent, which strips the fatty lipids, leaving intact the proteins that the researchers wish to study. … Read more