Strange

A team of researchers has developed a theoretical model explaining how specific structural details on surfaces influence water’s freezing point, paving the way for advancements in materials design for ice formation and enhanced weather prediction. Credit: SciTechDaily.comResearch unveils a mathematical model for ice nucleation, showing how surface angles affect water’s freezing point, with applications in snowmaking and cloud seeding.From abstract-looking cloud formations to roars of snow machines on ski slopes, the…

When the Apple TV+ series The New Look premiered in February, it brought with it the true stories of Paris-based fashion designers — from Christian Dior to Coco Chanel — navigating the hardships of World War II. But the show also offered a new sound by way of its Jack Antonoff-produced soundtrack. The latest release from the record finds Bartees Strange reimagining the 1940s classic “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” “Jack pulled a crazy group of musicians together to do original versions of some classic songs,”…

Minqaria bata was around the size of a pony (3-4 meters long) and closely resembles the European species of duckbill dinosaur. Credit: Raul MartinFossils of pony-sized duckbill dinosaurs from Morocco have been discovered by an international team of scientists. Their analysis reveals a surprising connection between the dinosaurs of Europe and Africa.How did duckbill dinosaurs, a group that evolved in North America, end up in Morocco? At the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago, high sea levels and the breakup…

New Insights from AI, Strange Metals and Parents of LGBTQ KidsAI has deciphered ancient texts, learned new math and provided new ideas about human consciousnessBy Laura Helmuth Credit: Scientific American, April 2024Artificial intelligence is finally starting to live up to the second half of its name. You’ve probably heard a lot of buzz about large language models lately—the text-producing AIs that can spit out fluent essays based on the books and articles and other data they’ve been trained on. They may sound smart, but…

How the Strange Relationship between Chickens and Humans Shaped Our WorldChicken takeovers, the missing histories of silk, a dazzling memoir of gravity, and more books out nowBy Tove Danovich Credit: Serhii Yushkov/Getty ImagesNONFICTIONFowl Play: A History of Chicken from Dinosaur to Dinner Plate by Sally Coulthard. Apollo 2024 ($27.99)As you’re reading this, there are more than 20 billion chickens alive on the planet. They live absolutely everywhere—except for Antarctica—playing important roles not just in our kitchens…

Copper, platinum, aluminum, gold. Metals have been so important in human history that we’ve named historical epochs (the Bronze Age, the Iron Age) for their transformative power. These materials, with their characteristic ability to conduct electricity, are no less vital to our modern era—they are found in essentially every technology that has enabled the information age. Yet despite metals’ utility, scientists are still trying to decipher their inner workings.After centuries of study, physicists have a good understanding…

Scientists have uncovered the oldest fossilized forest, dating back 390 million years to a time when life was just getting a foothold on land. The ancient forest was made up of the first trees to ever grow on Earth – bizarre “prototype” trees that had to rip their skeletons apart in order to grow.Among the sandstone cliffs of South West England, researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff discovered a startlingly well-preserved scene: an entire fossilized forest, complete with stumps, logs, fallen branches,…

Our world may seem fragile, but Earth has been around for a very long time. If we ventured far back into the past, would we reach a time when it looked fundamentally different? The answer lies in some of the earliest extensive relics of Earth's surface, found in a remote corner of southern Africa's highveld—a region known to geologists as the Barberton Greenstone Belt. The geological formations in this region have proved difficult…

For Engadget’s 20th anniversary, we put together a package of stories about the most pivotal pieces of technology from the past two decades, and mine was on Steam. It’s difficult to overstate how influential Steam is to PC gaming, or how rich the storefront has made Valve. As a private company with infinite piles of Steam cash, Valve has the freedom to ignore market pressure from consumers, creators and competitors. It famously has a flat hierarchy with no strict management structure, and developers are encouraged to…

Scientists have discovered a new species of fossil bird, Imparavis attenboroughi which is the first of its kind to have evolved toothlessness. Illustration showing the fossil skeleton of Imparavis attenboroughi, alongside a reconstruction of the bird in life. Credit: Ville Sinkkonen.No birds alive today have teeth. But that wasn’t always the case– many early fossil birds had beaks full of sharp, tiny teeth. In a paper in the journal Cretaceous Research, scientists have described a new species of fossil bird that was the…