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Humans

Ring World

Ever wonder what it might be like to live on a doughnut-shaped world? NASA has created a Web page that gives you a sense of what life would be like in a ringlike structure out in space, where there is no gravity except the centrifugal force generated by the structure’s spin. Simulation requires a Java-enabled […]

Math

Deciphering the Wrinkles of Crumpled Sheets

Crumpling is a ubiquitous, though poorly understood, physical phenomenon. It occurs when a fender absorbs the energy of a car crash, when Earth’s crust buckles at the interface between colliding tectonic plates to create a mountain range, when a blood cell’s membrane folds to allow the cell to pass through a narrow capillary, when a […]

Humans

Test Flight: Young scientists earn—and spread—their wings

A century after two brothers from Ohio launched the first powered aircraft, more than 1,200 students from 31 countries descended on Cleveland to participate in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.