Five properties of physics that affect your gas mileage

Physics is inescapable. It's everywhere, making your Frisbees fly, your toilets flush and your pasta water boil at a lower temperature at altitude. We've harnessed these forces, along with chemistry and engineering, to build ...

Spiders go ballooning on electric fields

The aerodynamic capabilities of spiders have intrigued scientists for hundreds of years. Charles Darwin himself mused over how hundreds of the creatures managed to alight on the Beagle on a calm day out at sea and later take-off ...

How do planets form?

We have a pretty good idea of how planets form around stars. We know that dust is formed from the remnants of supernovae, that protoplanetary disks of dust form around young stars, and that dust grains can clump together ...

How evolution builds the most efficient airfoils

Swimming and flying animals are optimally adapted for cruising through their environments, producing thrust via propulsors—wings for birds and caudal fins for fish. Over millions of years, the morphology of these animals ...

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