After their 2015 success, the researchers set out to use their flattening technique to address all finite polyhedra. This change made the problem far more complex. This is because with non-orthogonal polyhedra, faces might have the shape of triangles or trapezoids—and the same creasing [...]
Tag: Science
‘Flash Droughts’ Are the Midwest’s Next Big Climate Threat
Flash droughts are also a global problem, with Brazil, India, and multiple countries in Africa facing the worst impacts. In 2010, a flash drought followed by a heat wave in Russia [...]
Quashing Racist Pseudoscience Is Science’s Responsibility
Though these two classes (the mainstream and the fringe) are very different, each contributes to the public confusion that directly or indirectly feeds the racist pseudoscience machine. For example, though the Buffalo terrorist was deeply entrenched in the alt-science world, his screed [...]
Everything You Need to Know About Monkeypox
While the current monkeypox outbreak will be the first time many have heard of the disease, the virus is thought to have been infecting people for centuries, possibly even millennia. A member of the same virus family as chickenpox and smallpox, monkeypox’s [...]
How to Make a Microphone … From a Face Mask
Suppose this parallel plate capacitor is connected to a 9-volt battery. A volt is a measure of the electric potential difference. In short, this is the electric potential energy per charge—it’s a measure of how much energy a charge would gain by moving across that potential. So, [...]
Why Was the Tonga Eruption So Massive? Scientists Have New Clues
Just how big was the January eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano? Four months of intensive science has only bumped up the scale. You could point to the audible booms that interrupted [...]
The Story of Abortion Pills and How They Work
The French health minister was furious. In September 1988, Claude Évin’s department had approved an abortion pill called RU-486 for sale. A world first. But now just four weeks later, under pressure from anti-abortion groups, the board of the pharmaceutical [...]
The Mystery of Monkeypox’s Global Spread
When Moritz Kraemer first heard about the new monkeypox outbreak spreading through the UK, Europe, and the US, it was not through conventional scientific channels, or from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), but via Twitter. As each suspected case was reported, [...]
The Wetlands Are Drowning
Schoenoplectus americanus, or the chairmaker’s bulrush, is a common wetland plant in the Americas, and it has an existential problem. It has chosen to live in a place where it is always at risk of being drowned.
Like all plants, the bulrush requires oxygen to produce energy. One solution is [...]
Patients May Not Receive Miscarriage Care in a Post-Roe America
For those wondering how miscarriages would be managed in a post-Roe America, Texas could be a frightening harbinger.
In December 2021, Anna, a woman who lives in Central Texas, was 19 weeks pregnant when her waters broke on her wedding night. It was too early in the pregnancy [...]