New Zealand has two scientists that will be traveling to the South Pole. This journey will be part of a 100 year long record of the magnetic field. The magnetic South Pole changes and this record is necessary to see its new positions. The two poles have been moving Northwest, North is moving quite fast [...]
Entries from December 28th, 2011
A Levitating Slinky
December 24th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Physics
This video show us that the bottom of a dropped slinky hovers dramatically in the air. Through this situation some physicists provided new insight into this phenomenon. Shimon Kolkowiz who is a physics graduate student at Harvard University in Cambridge said, “When we hold one end of a Slinky, letting it hang down and then [...]
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Reduce Energy Use In Open-case Refrigerators by 10-15 Percent
December 24th, 2011 · 2 Comments · Physics
Did you know that when you open the refrigerator, it can cost a huge amount of money depending on how long we open it? University of Washington Engineers Mazyar Amin and his team created a method to make between 10-15 percent more energy efficient, by how warm air sneaks in. In most of refrigerators, an [...]
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Acid Rain Poses a Previously Unrecognized Threat to Great Lake Sugar Maples
December 23rd, 2011 · No Comments · Biology
These great trees grow in calcium enriched soil. In the coming years, they say that the population is to decline in the coming decades due to the acid rain. They have found out the seedlings are being the most affected because the acid rain has a lot of nitrogen in it that it is killing [...]
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Hide Your Face!
December 20th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Biology
Scientists have discovered that paper wasps can remember each other’s faces with extreme accuracy. In general, species find many ways of recognizing each other, but recognizing faces is usually a human trait. The way our brains remember a face is the same way that these wasps’ brains process them. Next, the scientist who discovered this, [...]
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Frogs can be thinner than M&M’s?
December 20th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Biology
Two new species of frog have been found in Papua New Guinea. Both are smaller than 9.3 millimeters, beating out the next smallest frog by about .7 millimeters. Not only are these the smallest sized frogs in the world, they are also the smallest known vertebrates with 4 legs. These frogs are “really pushing the limit of what’s possible,” says [...]
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New Metal Found Deep in Earth
December 19th, 2011 · No Comments · Chemistry, Physics
Inside Earth’s core, the pressure and temperatures are so intense that when atoms and electrons are squeezed tightly together, they react quite differently than normal. Their materials change with depth. New experiments and studies have revealed that iron oxide undergoes drastic changes deep inside the earth. Iron oxide, FeO, is a components of ferropericlase, the second [...]
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Soyuz Rocket Lifts Off Once Again
December 19th, 2011 · No Comments · Physics
A Soyuz rocket was launched on Friday out of Europe’s space base in French Guiana. This was the second launch of the Russian made rocket from the European Space Agency (ESA). Soyuz is a “Cold War” veteran of space and can be traced back to the launch of Sputnik. The 2.2 ton rocket is meant [...]
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New Studies Reveal More About Da Vinci’s Rule of the Trees
December 19th, 2011 · No Comments · Physics
Leonardo Da Vinci wrote 500 years ago about how the thickness of the branches of a tree added up is equal to the thickness of the tree’s trunk. Until now, nobody had really tested Da Vinci’s theory. In order to test the rule, physicist Christophe Eloy, from the University of Provence in France, designed many trees [...]
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Finding the Black Hole’s Heart
December 17th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Physics
A team of astronomers have discovered a black hole that could be the smallest black hole ever detected. The astronomers used NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer which finds the “heartbeat” of a black hole. From the “heartbeat”, they are able to determine the size of the black hole. The faster the beat, the smaller the [...]
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