Life on Earth exists under a constant particle shower. Tiny invisible particles form in the
atmosphere and fall towards the Earth’s surface, passing through our bodies and everything around us on their way. From the Great Pyramids of Giza to Mount Vesuvius, one such particle, the muon, is being used by particle physicists to make new discoveries about the physical structures that surround us on Earth.
How many times have you downloaded Duolingo, fired up to learn Portuguese or Korean, only to give up after losing your 40-day streak? Even after 40 days, you think, I still only know how to say “Hi, how are you?” It’s easy to get discouraged, but if it’s any solace, our struggles with learning new languages are mostly biological.
Earlier this year in the US, a lawsuit was taken against the popular juice product Simply Tropical for containing levels of dangerous chemicals called PFAS. It turns out that these chemicals were at levels “hundreds of times” greater than the US Environmental Protection Agency’s advisory limits for drinking water.
On December 13, 2022, the world of clean energy changed forever with a groundbreaking announcement from the US Department of Energy. Fusion ignition had been achieved for the first time in history on December 5, 2022. Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) at the US National Ignition Facility successfully achieved one of the largest scientific milestones of the 21st century by producing an excess of energy – even more than they put in.
In the 1933 classic King Kong, a giant gorilla terrorizes New York City, towering above trucks and houses and standing menacingly atop the Empire State Building. Since then, the idea of animals larger than human-made structures has fascinated us. From the giant reptiloid Godzilla and insectoid Mothra to the fish-like Sea Kings in One Piece, colossal creatures are a recurring theme across media.
The power of invisibility has been wielded by countless fictional heroes—and many have wondered about bringing that power into the real world. Making the body turn invisible on its own sounds out of the question, but what about instances where characters disappear with the help of special invisibility-granting clothing or covers? Would it be possible to harness technology to invent something similar? Numerous scientists have been diving deep into optics—the study of light—to answer that question.
Shapeshifting creatures are amazing, and they’re not just in our favourite books or movies— they’re all around us. Many animals have the ability to change size and shape, allowing them to do things from scaring off predators to unlocking new abilities. Some of them, like the pufferfish, are famous for their ability, but there are other lesser-known shapeshifters that are just as awesome. Here’s a look at some of the lesser-known members of this shapeshifting team—and the ways they perform this fantastic feat.
Immortality has always been one of those topics in science fiction that seemed a little too fantastical to ever be true. Maybe it’s not as full of paradoxes as time travel, or riddled with hypothetical questions like extra-terrestrials, but the concept of eternal life has long been seemingly rooted in our primal fear of death. Ever since humans could write, we’ve been fascinated with the preservation of life; from the ancient myths of the Fountain of Youth to the worship of everlasting deities, this fascination has truly stood the tests of time. Now that we finally have the knowledge and technology to potentially make immortality a reality, researchers are looking for ways to bring it out of science fiction and into the real world.
When Charles Darwin published his book Insectivorous Plants in the late 19th century, the idea of meat-eating flora larger than life soon captured the imaginations of creators. Plants capable of devouring human beings became a regular subject of periodical pieces, and featured in stories by famous authors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells. The idea of the man-eating plant has continued to endure in fiction—perhaps most famously in the musical film Little Shop of Horrors, where a sentient plant introduced into a flower shop demands the blood of its owner and soon begins to devour those around him.
I’ve got news for you: you are a mutant! Yes, you read that correctly! Every human being is technically a mutant due to the naturally occurring mutations in our genes. And, we have been using this natural process as a spark for our creativity through science fiction. Science fiction is a genre of media in which science is used to enhance the products of our imagination. But sometimes, these ideas can seem more like fiction than science. For instance, the superpowers we see in literary universes can look utterly implausible.