Video
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Artificial Intelligence
AI can learn real-world skills from playing StarCraft and Minecraft
By playing StarCraft and Minecraft, artificial intelligence is learning how to collaborate and adapt.
- Earth
Dry sand can bubble and swirl like a fluid
Put two types of sand grains together in a chamber, and they can flow like fluids under the right conditions.
- Animals
How aphids sacrifice themselves to fix their homes with fatty goo
Young aphids swollen with fatty substances save their colony by self-sacrifice, using that goo to patch breaches in the wall of their tree home.
- Health & Medicine
How an obscure sexually transmitted parasite tangos with the immune system
Scientists are working out how Trichomonas vaginalis, one of the most prevalent sexually transmitted infections, causes problems in women and men.
- Astronomy
The first picture of a black hole opens a new era of astrophysics
Astronomers used a network of telescopes around the world to take a picture of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87.
- Animals
Tiny pumpkin toadlets have glowing bony plates on their backs
Pumpkin toadlets are the first frogs found to have fluorescent bony plates that are visible through their skin under ultraviolet light.
- Astronomy
4 things we’ll learn from the first closeup image of a black hole
Scientists are gearing up to release the first image of the black hole at the center of the galaxy. Here’s what they hope to find out.
- Neuroscience
People can sense Earth’s magnetic field, brain waves suggest
An analysis of brain waves offers new evidence that people subconsciously process information about the planet’s magnetism.
- Life
Some shrimp make plasma with their claws. Now a 3-D printed claw can too
Scientists used a replica of a shrimp claw to re-create the extreme pressures and temperatures that the animals produce underwater.
- Tech
An origami design helps this robot lift delicate and heavy cargo
Fragile items, such as soft fruits, as well as heavier goods are in safe hands with a new robotic gripper.
- Physics
How droplets of oil or water can glow vibrant colors
Viewed from various angles, tiny droplets of water or oil glow different colors under white light.
- Physics
Microwaved grapes make fireballs, and scientists now know why
Electromagnetic waves bounce back and forth inside a grape, creating plasma.
