1+ hour, 15+ min ago (666+ words) In this science activity, we strap skis to an action figure to find out Why would you put planks under your shoes to slide around? Do this activity to find out! Key concepts: Weight, pressure, force, balance, center of mass Credits: Sabine De Brabandere, PhD, Science Buddies Earth's gravity pulls us all the time. It makes us return to the ground when we jump, and it makes objects fall when we release them. But gravity even pulls us down when we are standing on a hard floor! Snowshoes use this concept to make you sink less into fresh, fluffy snow. Snowshoes create a larger contact area with the snow, so your weight pushes less on each square inch of it. The strength of each push per square inch of contact area is what scientists call pressure, and snowshoes reduce that…...

1+ hour, 15+ min ago (931+ words) The leaves of lots of trees change color and then fall in autumn. Here's why Some trees put on a colorful show before falling to the ground and leaving their tree bare for the winter. For many trees, autumn is a spectacular grand finale. Their summer greenery gives way to a rich display of gold, crimson and even purple leaves. But those splashes of color are short-lived before leaves fall off their trees. Why do so many deciduous trees undergo this radical transformation? It's all part of how the plants prepare for winter. At the same time, these trees stop putting effort into holding on to their leaves. Shedding their leaves can help trees conserve moisture in their trunks over winter. It also allows harsh winds to blow more easily through trees' branches, putting less strain on them. Bacteria, fungi…...

1+ day, 1+ hour ago (1477+ words) The insects and their microbes acidify and thicken milk into a creamy, tangy treat This traditional method of making yogurt begins with four ants and a jar of warmed cow's milk. The technique was once popular in Bulgaria and Turkey. The ants and their bacteria acidify and thicken the milk into yogurt, a new study shows. By Erin Garcia de Jes's In parts of Eurasia, the key to a tangy yogurt treat scurries along the forest floor. The secret ingredient is ants! A once-popular yogurt-making technique uses ants and their microbes as a bacterial starter for this process. Those bacteria are used to kick-start the fermentation process that makes yogurt so thick and tangy. The traditional recipe requires live ants " not frozen or dehydrated ones. Now, scientists have identified the exact microbes the ants have that make this creamy treat…...

4+ day, 1+ hour ago (1053+ words) The new tech created barcodes, micro-lasers and a tiny elephant " all in living cells With the use of a laser, scientists 3-D printed tiny structures within human cells (like those shown here). For the first time, scientists have 3-D printed objects within living cells. They included a mini elephant and tiny barcodes that could help track individual cells. Remarkably, many of the cells lived to tell the tale. " "It's amazing to see that some of the cells actually do survive," says Kerstin G'pfrich. "Honestly, I wouldn't have thought this. If you told me, I would have been like, "Nah, never." G'pfrich is a biophysicist at Heidelberg University in Germany who did not take part in the new work. The technique is novel and exciting, says Malte Gather. He's an optical physicist at the University of Cologne in Germany who was…...

5+ day, 1+ hour ago (1831+ words) The Milky Way's forecast: mostly cloudy. But the origin of these cosmic clouds is unclear Beyond the bright swirling arms of our Milky Way galaxy, something enormous, mysterious and shadowy barrels toward us. It's called Smith's Cloud. And it isn't like any cloud you've seen before. From head to tail, it extends more than 11,000 light-years. That's roughly 2,500 times the distance from the sun to its closest stellar neighbor. And Smith's Cloud is fast. It covers 300 kilometers (nearly 200 miles) every second. That would be fast enough to zoom from Earth to the moon and back in less than an hour. Instead of ice or water vapor, Smith's Cloud is a cold gas made mostly of hydrogen. Most peculiar, though, is where it's going. Smith's Cloud doesn't move in the same direction, or at the same speed, as the stars that make…...

6+ day, 1+ hour ago (988+ words) It "hears" sounds by viewing the vibrations they produce on objects Sound travels in waves of vibrating air molecules that bump into each other. Microphones work by picking up these vibrations. Scientists had wondered if they could make microphones that see those vibrations rather than hear them. Now researchers in China have built such a device. "This is a promising technology to detect faint audio signals," says Varun Raghunathan. He"s an optics engineer at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. He didn"t work on the new tech. But it could someday be used in environmental, industrial and security-monitoring applications, he says. Sound travels as air transfers vibrations from one molecule to the next " until they reach our eardrums. When sound waves hit objects, such as a leaf or sheet of glass, they vibrate those surfaces, too. The…...

1+ week, 1+ hour ago (1028+ words) Emotional experiences boost memories of ordinary moments that happen just before or after Why do we remember some ordinary moments and not others? A new study shows that weak memories can attach themselves to more exciting ones. Chenyang (Leo) Lin grew up in a city along China's south coast. It was far from any woods. So the large trees and darting squirrels he saw while hiking in New Hampshire, last year, awed him. "That was very new to me." That hike is now crystallized in Lin's memory. So, oddly, are the more familiar chickens he saw on his way to that hike. Lin is a brain and behavior expert at Boston University in Massachusetts. His latest research helps explain why both those chickens and squirrels have lodged in his memory. Events that pack an emotional punch help people remember moments…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago (1071+ words) Recognizing toys by how they are used during play shows complex thinking Harvey, a border collie, enjoys tug-of-war with a pull toy. Border collies are among dog breeds that are good at recognizing toys by name. By Jennifer S. Holland "Where's your squeaky ball? Bring me your panda bear!" It's not unusual for some dogs to learn the names of their favorite toys. But some dogs can categorize toys by how they're used during play, researchers now report. These dogs can even decide what category a new toy should be in, based on how it's used. And that's without any verbal or physical clues. This work came about after a dog in another study could sort her own toys into categories like ball, rope and ring. She could even "sort toys she'd never seen before into those categories," says Claudia Fugazza…...

1+ week, 4+ day ago (916+ words) It's unclear how this extra singing might hurt or help birds In places with a lot of artificial light, birds like this Northern cardinal sing an extra 50 minutes on average. That includes about 18 minutes more in the morning and 32 minutes more in the evening. Ser Amantio di Nicolao/Wikimedia Commons Light pollution makes birds work overtime. Streetlamps, buildings and other human-made sources pollute the night with artificial light. This extra brightness can lead to birds singing nearly an hour longer per day, researchers have found. That number comes from a new study of nearly 600 bird species around the world. How much the singing increased took the researchers by surprise. "We expected some behavioral adjustment to the lights at night," says Neil Gilbert. But "we didn't anticipate that it would be this impactful." Gilbert is an ecologist at the Oklahoma State…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago (1847+ words) Your guide on how to use ChatGPT and other generative AI bots wisely Many U.S. teens talk to bots like ChatGPT or Replika regularly. These conversations can easily go very wrong " in extreme cases, even encouraging young people to harm themselves. The more you learn about when and how to use chatbots, the less likely you are to face problems. How often do you talk to ChatGPT? A few times a week? Every day? "Everyone uses AI for everything now. It's really taking over," Kayla Chege told AP News. She's a 15-year-old high school student in Kansas. More than seven in every 10 U.S. teens have talked to a chatbot " tech that uses generative AI to converse. Short conversations with AI can be helpful or entertaining. A bot can act like a friend who's always there to listen and support you. But this…...