Science Visualized

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.

Astronomy

The moon’s poles have no fixed address

Ancient deposits of lunar water ice mark where the moon’s poles used to be.

Science & Society

Science gives clues to ‘The Bedroom’ as van Gogh painted it

Art and science converge in a visualization of the original colors of Vincent van Gogh’s “The Bedroom.”