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Queen Ants Don’t Have a Divine Right to Their Thrones, Just the Right Genetics

2 Aug 2018

Humans have classified more than 12,500 species of ants, and there are an estimated 10,000 more waiting to be discovered. Besides their incredible strength, almost all of these species have...

Can Nike's New Shoes Really Make You Run Faster?

26 Jul 2018

A New York Times’ study of 500,000 race times, set wearing Vaporflys and other shoes, confirmed Nike’s claims. They found that Vaporflys allowed a runner to run 1% faster than the next-fastest shoe...

The Luminescent Chemistry of Lava Lamps

19 Jul 2018

If you think back to the 60’s and 70’s your memories are probably illuminated by a lamp filled with swirling globs of colourful goop that really didn’t shed much light at all....

It’s Not the Smoke from a Joint That Makes Your Eyes Red

12 Jul 2018

The familiar red and glassy-eyed stare of someone who’s high was previously thought to be due to the irritation of eyes by pot smoke. But, now we know that weed makes your eyes red for the same...

Fake Snake News: How Not to Identify a Poisonous Snake

10 Jul 2018

There are almost no poisonous snakes. That’s because for something to be poisonous means it’s toxic if ingested. Like hemlock.

Science Says Scotch Tastes Better Watered Down

5 Jul 2018

Everyone knows that oil floats on water. That’s because oil is nonpolar, and water is polar. These terms describe the arrangement of charges in their structure: nonpolar means a molecule has no net...

Before the Breathalyzer There Was the Drunkometer

4 Jul 2018

The idea of a mechanism to measure the alcohol a person has consumed dates back quite far.

There are more ways to arrange a deck of cards than there are atoms on Earth

28 Jun 2018

Think of your last card game – euchre, poker, Go Fish, whatever it was. Would you believe every time you gave the whole deck a proper shuffle, you were holding a sequence of cards which had never...

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