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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    You can help fight the coronavirus. All you need is a computer

    With Folding@home, people can donate computing time on their home computers to the search for a chemical Achilles’ heel in the coronavirus.

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  2. Chemistry

    Evaporating mixtures of two liquids create hypnotic designs

    Through the magic of surface tension, mixtures of two liquids form fingerlike protrusions and other patterns as droplets evaporate.

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  3. Life

    A new lizard parasite is the first known to move from mom to baby

    Nematodes were found living in a lizard’s ovaries and the braincase of her embryos — the first evidence of a reptile parasite that jumps generations.

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  4. Physics

    How to make the best fried rice, according to physics

    Researchers show exactly how rocking and sliding a wok can launch fried rice into the air, letting it cook at a high temperature without burning.

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  5. Life

    Wolves regurgitate blueberries for their pups to eat

    The behavior, documented for the first time, suggests that fruit may be more important to wolves than previously thought.

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  6. Life

    How thin, delicate butterfly wings keep from overheating

    Structures in butterfly wings help living tissues such as veins release more heat than the rest of the wing.

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  7. Space

    ESA’s Solar Orbiter will be the first spacecraft to study the sun’s polar zones

    ESA's Solar Orbiter is now on its way to the sun, beginning a nearly two-year journey.

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  8. Earth

    Here are 5 of the weirdest auroras, including the newly spotted ‘dunes’

    A newfound type of aurora dubbed the “dunes” joins the ranks of black auroras, STEVE and other obscure auroral phenomena.

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  9. Space

    These are the most detailed images of the sun ever taken

    First images from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope reveal details on the surface of the sun three times as small as ever seen.

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  10. Life

    How bacteria create flower art

    Different types of microbes growing in lab dishes can push each other to make floral patterns.

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  11. Chemistry

    A dance of two atoms reveals chemical bonds forming and breaking

    Two rhenium atoms approach and retreat from one another in an electron microscope video.

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  12. Life

    ‘PigeonBot’ is the first robot that can bend its wings like a real bird

    Insights into the joint movements and feather surface structures that help birds control their wing shape could help robotic flyers move more deftly.

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