Science Visualized
- Animals
Tiny structures give a peacock spider its radiant rump
Peacock spiders use pigments and complex nanostructures to achieve bright dance costumes.
- Planetary Science
Spacecraft reveal diversity in solar system’s landscapes
The latest generation of interplanetary spacecraft have revealed diverse landscapes on planets, asteroids and comets throughout the solar system.
- Computing
Supersmall device uses individual atoms to store data
Scientists manipulate chlorine atoms to store data on a supersmall device.
- Animals
How Houdini tadpoles escape certain death
High-speed video of red-eyed tree frog embryos reveals the secrets to their getaway plans.
- Animals
What animals’ life spans can tell us about how people age
The animal world can offer insights into human longevity.
- Planetary Science
The 43-year history of journeys to Jupiter, in one graph
With the arrival of Juno, nine spacecraft will have flown past or orbited Jupiter over the last 43 years.
- Earth
A third of the population can’t see the Milky Way at night
Light pollution conceals the Milky Way’s star-spangled core from more than a third of Earth’s population, a global atlas of artificial sky luminance reveals.
- Materials Science
Butterfly-inspired nanostructures can sort light
Scientists re-created a nanostructure found on butterflies that can separate out circularly polarized light, a characteristic that may be useful for telecommunications.
- Oceans
Here’s where 17,000 ocean research buoys ended up
A combined look at 35 years’ worth of ocean buoy movements reveals the currents that feed into ocean garbage patches.
- Plants
Here’s what a leaf looks like during a fatal attack of bubbles
Office equipment beats synchrotrons in showing how drought lets air bubbles kill the water-carrier network of veins in plant leaves.
- Astronomy
To find ET, look at who’s (maybe) looking at us
To listen for aliens, two astronomers suggest that we focus on stars whose inhabitants can see Earth periodically cross in front of our sun.
- Astronomy
There’s far more to the galaxy than meets the eye
A new map of the galaxy as seen in submillimeter light reveals intricate details from nearby nebulas to the far-flung galactic center.
