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The number of physics problems hidden in Star Wars movies is much greater than you think. Oh, don't worry. I know it's just a movie and not one that really focuses on science. That won't stop me from looking at something from The Empire Strikes Back—the introduction of the TIE bomber. For a human like…

To get a great job, you’ve got to network—make contacts, know the right people. You know the drill. But a study out today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the kind of networking that works best for men isn’t enough for women. Women need access to key kinds of information…

Clyde Tombaugh spent much of his life peering at telescope data. He discovered Pluto in 1930, and he spent years poking around the outer solar system. But as the scientific community began to dream about launching a vehicle into the great beyond, he focused his gaze much closer to home. At the time, the smaller…

The twinkling of a starry night sky is romantic, sure. But for astronomer Dominika Wylezalek, “it’s a nightmare.” That’s because Wylezalek studies galaxies billions of light-years away, and all that finicky glimmering—she’d call it “turbulence”—gets in the way. So she and her colleagues at the European Southern Observatory fire up this Star Wars–worthy laser cannon…

1. When turkeys strut, their leg muscles work as shock absorbers to boost energy efficiency. That gam action inspired a prosthetic exoskeleton for humans: The lightweight contraption is outfitted with a spring and clutch that take the impact off the user’s calf muscle. In experiments, a person wearing the braces while walking expended 10 percent…

Q: What is the "dark side" of the moon? A: The short answer? It's a misnomer. A cool-sounding misnomer! But a misnomer. Assuming they aren't talking about the Pink Floyd album or the French mockumentary, people who say "the dark side of the moon" are almost always referring to the moon's far side—which, despite pointing…

Early last spring, as flu season hit its peak, a woman checked into a Houston hospital with all the familiar symptoms: fever, headache, a grating cough. A chest x-ray revealed an infection engulfing her lungs. Doctors hooked her up to an antibiotic drip, collected blood to be processed and cultured in the hospital’s lab, and…

A long time ago, a star we now call the sun ignited. It did not consume all the material available in its gestational cloud; the leftover gas and dust swirled around it like a ballroom dancer’s skirt. The dusty leftovers started to coalesce in some spots, forming larger rocky objects. After millions of years, the…

The new microscope in Philipp Keller's laboratory looks nothing like a microscope. At least, not to the untrained eye. Tangled cords connect the components mounted to its metal base to a bank of ports on an overhead shelf. An important-looking cube built from tinted panes of acrylic sits at its center. And flexible silver ducting—the…

It’s easy to watch a baby finally learn to walk after hours upon hours of trial and error and think, OK, good work, but do you want a medal or something? Well, maybe only a childless person like me would think that, so credit where credit is due: It’s supremely difficult for animals like ourselves…