Science
Discover facts about science. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Science
Ether revolutionized harsh surgeries after being a drug
Breathed in as a vapor, ether suppresses activity in the brain and nervous system until a patient loses consciousness. That changed the experience of surgery:…
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Silicones serve as both industrial lubricants and implants
A silicone lubricant and a flexible silicone implant can start with the same kind of silicon-and-oxygen chain. Leave the chains free to move and the material…
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Why your peripheral vision spots motion first
Your peripheral vision is better at catching movement than fine detail. So you might notice a glass wobbling toward the edge of a table before you can make…
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A raspberry-flavored medicine helped change U.S. drug law
In 1937, Elixir Sulfanilamide used toxic diethylene glycol to dissolve an existing medicine into a liquid. The manufacturer checked flavor and appearance, not…
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The chemistry experiment that reportedly stank up a town
An 1889 report from Freiburg described an odor spreading beyond a laboratory during work involving thioacetone, causing vomiting, fainting and people fleeing.…
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Your brain can read words with scrambled middles
Your brain doesn’t have to inspect every letter to guess a scrambled word. Fixed first and last letters help, and the sentence around the word narrows down…
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The lethal gas that smells like fresh hay
Phosgene can have a faint smell like freshly cut hay, but that odor can’t tell you how much danger is present. Lung injury may worsen after a delay, so…
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The chemical in corpses also makes furniture
Formaldehyde helps make the glue that holds particleboard together. It reacts with other ingredients to form a resin, which binds the wood particles into a…
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The bicycle ride that revealed LSD’s effects
Hofmann’s bicycle ride came after he had deliberately taken a measured dose of LSD in 1943. When the effects grew stronger, he rode home, and that trip became…
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Superacids push chemistry past ordinary acids
Acids transfer positively charged hydrogen particles called protons. A superacid can force that transfer onto substances that resist ordinary acids, opening…
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The Moon is shrinking—and causing moonquakes
As the Moon’s inside cools, it contracts and squeezes the crust. Along a thrust fault, one slab of crust can ride up over another, jolting the ground; on a…
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Only female mosquitoes bite you
For many mosquito species, a female’s bite is an egg-building supply run: she uses nutrients in blood to help develop her eggs. Males don’t bite; both sexes…
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When the whole family shared one bed
For many households, a bed was a major purchase, so it had to earn its keep. Children—and sometimes travelers passing through—might share it with the family.…
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Why lottery tickets feel worth buying
A lottery ticket sells a vivid possibility, not a likely outcome. Our minds give small chances extra weight when the prize is enormous, so the jackpot feels…
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Cutting an onion starts a chemical reaction aimed at your eyes
Breaking the cells brings ingredients together that form an airborne irritant. When it reaches the eye, tear glands respond by producing tears. The onion…
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Why kitchens once stood outside the house
In a wooden or straw-built house, a cooking fire could turn into a house fire fast. Putting the kitchen in a separate building meant flames could consume one…
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When loved ones look like impostors
In Capgras syndrome, someone believes a familiar person has been replaced by an impostor. One explanation is a mismatch between recognizing a face and feeling…
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Pure luck decides which human genes survive over centuries
Each generation gets only a sample of the gene copies carried by the previous one. By chance, some versions make it into more descendants and others into…
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'Stay positive' can become another demand on someone who is hurting
“Cheer up” can add a second burden to someone who is already hurting: now they may feel they have to hide the hurt, too. That pressure can make encouragement…
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Identical twins only share genes and highly similar lives
Identical twins begin with nearly the same inherited DNA, but their bodies don’t develop in perfectly identical conditions. Experiences and biological changes…
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The question that could break digital security
P versus NP asks whether a problem that is quick to check is also quick to solve. Imagine a giant puzzle: once someone hands you a completed answer, checking…
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Fooling human judges defines artificial intelligence
In the Turing test, a judge chats by text with a person and a machine, then tries to tell them apart. If the machine fools the judge, it has imitated human…
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Why computers can't predict every program's fate
Suppose a perfect checker predicts whether any program will stop. Now write a program that looks at the checker’s prediction about itself and does the…
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A ZIP archive is a package, not just a smaller file
The format can collect multiple files, preserve their names and folder structure, and compress their contents. That lets you send one object and unpack the…
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