TPF will be able to search the habitable zones of stars located up to fifty light years away, analyzing the composition of planets atmospheres. It will look for gasses that signal the possibility of life, gasses such as oxygen, water vapor, methane,...
One of the least pleasant things about being human is the appearance at adolescence of pimples. Not only do they make their entrance just at the time when people are most self-conscious, but they come and go for the rest of your life. It would almost...
This is because whenever a sound wave moves suddenly from a narrow space to a more open one, some of the sound is reflected backward. This is exactly what happens when the sound of your voice moves from the narrow confines of your mouth into the wide...
If you want to call to a friend half a block down a crowded street, you might cup your hands around your mouth to better aim your voice. Have you ever wondered why simple megaphones amplify your voice so well? Actually, they work for two different re...
You know I read that the European Union is currently building an international biobank network. It will connect all the biobanks in Europe and make the combined resources available to researchers around the world. Some experts think thats whats neede...
Clever cephalopods and colorblind camouflage championscuttlefish! Cuttlefish are cephalopods, relatives of squid and octopuses, and are masters of camouflage. Using unique skin pigment cells, cuttlefish can rapidly change their skin color and pattern...
Do you ever find little fluffs of lint trapped in your bellybutton? What is that stuff, and where does it come from? Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki, a physicist from the University of Sydney was on an Australian public radio show when a listener called in to...
If youve ever had to dig a hole and then fill it back in, you may have noticed a mysterious thing: there was always a little dirt left over. This can often be seen when construction crews dig down to get at sewer pipes or electric cables. But how can...
But the fact that the brass reacts more to temperature than iron does enables the switch to open and close in response to temperature. As your house gets cold, the brass side contracts more than the iron pulling the strip toward the brass side. If th...
Four regions were found that may regulate life span, a breed characteristic that usually decreases with increasing body size. Regions associated with some behavioural stereotypes like herding, pointing and boldness were also identified. What can they...
Scientists are making great strides in understanding the genes that allow such a wide range of shapes, sizes and personalities in different dog breeds. Did you know domestic dogs were bred from wolves about 15,000 years ago? That's pretty recent in e...
The scientists guessed that the new seedlings were sensing the presence of neighboring plants by detecting the characteristic color of light reflected sideways from leaves of the neighboring plants. That characteristic color contains a very small amo...
Frisbees and compact discs have the same advantages as far as gyroscopic force is concerned, but theres another physical property that gives your frisbee an aerodynamic edge over your music collection. The top surface of a frisbee is curved. Its wide...
Gardeners and botanists have known for a long time that when a green plant is shaded by neighboring plants it will often react by elongating its stem. This so-called shade-avoidance reaction raises the plants leaves out of the shade, toward the light...
With a gentle flick of the wrist on a warm summer day, you can launch a frisbee on a long and graceful flight. Why frisbees fly so well? One reason is something called gyroscopic force. This is the tendency of a spinning object to maintain a stable o...
