The Nobel Prize of Physics isn’t awarded to just any Tom, Dick or Albert, and the two scientists who took the stage to accept the honor this year for the creation of Graphene are no exception. Graphene has been touted as a super-substance, as strong as steel, as conductive as copper and only as thick as a single atom. But ...

If you’re unfamiliar with potassium chlorate, don’t feel bad. I was too before I heard about this. Potassium chlorate is a strong oxidizing agent that reacts violently with sugar, any sugar, including gummy bears. Man, what is with gummy bears and our apparent hate for them? We’re always doing something to torture our gummy comrades. When potassium chlorate meets gummy ...

If you grew up in a rural area and then moved to a big city, one of the first things that you probably noticed was the differences of the night sky. And if you’ve never traveled outside of your safety zone, then this could be a revelation. I think most people have a good idea that pollution and light have ...

California�s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that it has taken the world�s largest laser, housed in the National Ignition Facility, for its first ‘dry run.’ Yes, a laser so massive it needs to be housed in a 10 story building as wide as three football fields. But the big news here isn’t actually the massive laser, although it is pretty ...

Meet our two new national heroes. You might even have a pair of heroes living under your own roof. Luke Geissbuhler and his son (not the heroes) took an iPhone and an HD video camera (there they are!), enclosed in a Styrofoam block attached to a specially-designed weather balloon, and launched the devices 19 miles into the sky. As the ...

For as long as intelligent human life has existed, we’ve wondered about our origins. How did it all begin? Theories have ranged everywhere from waterborne molecules, to comets, to alien colonization, but now scientists are turning their eyes in a new direction – towards the heavens. A new experiment that simulates chemical reactions in the atmosphere of Titan, the largest ...

We already know unicorns exist. Where else would they be getting all of that unicorn meat from? And if it’s not unicorn, what the hell have I been eating? But despite their existence, those damn critters are completely elusive. Rarely, if ever, caught on camera and never captured for scientific study. Peter Hickey-Jones, a birdwatcher and Toronto native, captured this ...

Google’s Lunar X competition is still alive and kicking. The mission? Land a robot on the moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth. Teams must be at least 90% privately funded. The winner wins $30 million. The Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association team (ARCA) is hard at work on their ...

By definition, Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon which makes your brain see vague or insignifigant stimulus as something significant. In other words, pareidolia is your brain’s way of making the unfamiliar or vague seem concrete, like when several bruise marks on a banana resemble Jesus, or thinking a cloud looks like George Clooney. Whatever the case might be, your brain ...

An unnamed teenage boy sat in his hospital bed, awaiting death as his muscles slowly degenerated into oblivion. He was perhaps days away from death when doctors decided on a radical procedure. The 15-year-old in question suffered from Duchenne syndrome, a disease which causes rapid muscle degeneration but does not provide eligibility for a heart transplant. That’s just the way ...