Category Archives: Science

Fun with Physics

Physics Girl: Bizarre Spinning Toys. (YouTube, 5:23)

“Spinning toys and tops have unusual behaviors. The famous tippe top flips itself over and spins on its stem. The PhiTOP stands up on its end, which you can also do with a hard-boiled egg. These behaviors all have to do with torque and angular momentum, like a bicycle wheel precessing around a rope due to gyroscopic behavior.”

“You can really think of it as playing Russian roulette“

The Guardian: DNA study lays bare devastating damage caused by smoking. “Major investigation into root causes of cancer reveals how tobacco smoke mutates DNA and gives rise to more than a dozen types of tumour.”

“The devastating impact of cigarette smoke on the body’s DNA has been laid bare by the first comprehensive study into the damage tobacco inflicts on human cells.

People who smoke a pack of cigarettes each day for a year develop on average 150 extra mutations in every lung cell, and nearly 100 more mutations than usual in each cell of the voice box, researchers found. More still build up in the mouth, bladder, liver and other organs.
[…]
“There is a message here for people who are occasional or social smokers who think it doesn’t do anything,“ said Alexandrov. “If you smoke four to five packs of cigarettes in your lifetime it doesn’t sound that much, but you still get several mutations in every cell in your lungs and these are permanent, they do not go away. There are a lot of things that do revert back when you stop smoking, and this shouldn’t discourage people from giving up, but the specific mutations in the lung cells are like scars. If you stop smoking, they’ll still be there.“ “

Dancing water droplets in an air bubble inside a water bubble in space

Smarter Every Day 160: The WALKING WATER Mystery (in SPACE and SLOW MOTION!). (YouTube, 12min)

Destin Sandlin explains why you often see water droplets dance or bounce on the surface of water instead of coalescence occurs.

This video features astronaut Don Pettit, who did a cool experiment in space: He attached a big water bubble to a speaker, then inserted an air bubble into it. When he played cello music (by Yo-Yo Ma) through the speaker, little water droplets would detach from the water and bounce around inside the air bubble. You can see it in the above video starting right here.

“[T]he species may not actually need to land for sleep”

NPR – The Two-Way: This Bird Can Remain Airborne For 10 Months Straight.

“Scientists have long suspected that the common swift remains airborne for extraordinary amounts of time during its annual migration.

Now, a team of scientists in Sweden has proved that these birds fly for tremendously long periods of time. They affixed data loggers onto a total of 19 of the master fliers in 2013 and 2014, and recaptured the birds months or years later. Researchers found that the birds can spend almost their entire 10-month nonbreeding period on the wing.”