Since our earliest ancestors gazed up from dimming campfires to marvel at the night sky, the stars have been a source of awe and wonder for humankind. After thousands of years of tracking, mapping, and cataloging those mysterious points of light, twentieth century conflict brought with it an unexpected means of reaching them.  Read More

    The Mysterious State of Matter That Powers Our Digital Displays   The three states of matter to which every foundational chemistry class introduces us — solid, liquid, and gas — turn out not to be quite so clearly delineated as they might seem. Liquid crystals represent a sort of mixed state, not quiteRead More

The Molecular Structure That Causes Enthralling Light Effects in Soap Bubbles   Soap bubbles, peacock feathers, and CDs all have one notable feature in common: all three are iridescent, they appear to change color when viewed from different angles. In the case of soap bubbles, this quality stems from the structure of a bubble’s surface.Read More

  If it can be produced on a large scale, graphene might be the backbone of the next revolution in electronics, building materials, medical devices, and much more. First isolated in 2004 by Professor Sir Andre Geim and Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov of the University of Manchester, graphene is one of the first two-dimensional materials discovered, composed of aRead More

The Lepidoptera are beloved among insects. Most of us are familiar with their fluttering beauty, seasonal migrations, and amazing ability to transform from caterpillars. But here are some surprising facts about butterflies which you may not have heard: 1. Butterfly metamorphosis is grisly. To become a butterfly, a caterpillar first digests its own body insideRead More

Our planet-wide oxygen-rich atmosphere was created by tiny photosynthesizing bacteria called cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are single celled bacteria, sometimes (misleadingly) referred to as blue-green algae. They live alone or in colonies in any environment that has moisture. Over 2 billion years ago, cyanobacteria triggered what’s known as the Great Oxygenation Event. Every breath you take, youRead More

  If you’ve ever caught a snowflake on your tongue, you’ve likely swallowed a bacterium called Pseudomonas syringae. Don’t worry, it’s harmless. The rod-shaped, Gram-negative bacteria can be found in the exact center of trillions of snowflakes. Its presence there is directly tied to the formation of the snowflakes themselves. Snowflakes don’t just materialize outRead More

    A snowflake is made up of billions of water molecules, each one identical to every other. And yet somehow in a snowflake a single ingredient is able to form endlessly varying, intricate, and symmetrical designs. How do water molecules do it? The surprising truth is that in order to freeze, water molecules assumeRead More