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Laser light is not the same as other kinds of light. In this activity, discover some of the ways it is special, and make a really cool pattern!

You’re at home, sitting on the couch. Outside, there is thunder and lightning. You notice something at the window: a strange, glowing ball of light. As you watch, it appears to pass through the glass. It wanders through the air before abruptly disappearing.

A few months ago, Science by Email reported on the naming of two superheavy elements, flerovium and livermorium. Now a team from Japan has reported making a third atom of another, new superheavy element with an atomic number of 113.

A clock that lasts forever, without batteries or winding up, sounds like something from science fiction. Right now, that’s the case. But a research team led by scientists in the USA thinks it might actually to be possible to make such a device.

Written by Sarah Kellett Life jackets are often orange to make them easy to spot after an accident. And orange fruit have their own life jackets, all built in!

A few months ago, scientists from the Large Hadron Collider announced they had found a new particle, one that could be the Higgs boson. The Higgs particle is thought to have properties explaining how other particles have mass. But the first signs of this new particle were detected over a year ago.

Written by Sarah Kellett When the rover Curiosity landed on Mars on 6 August (AEST), Australia was listening. Between hitting the atmosphere and landing safely, there were ‘seven minutes of terror’. Then, mission scientists heard the good news.

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have confirmed the discovery of a particle with properties that match those of the Higgs boson. The announcement has created a lot of excitement – why all the fuss?

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry recently announced new names for two recently discovered elements: flerovium and livermorium.

The starlight that we see at night is only a fraction of what is out there. Stars and galaxies don’t just emit visible light but a range of electromagnetic radiation, including UV radiation, X-rays and radio waves. Most of this radiation is invisible to humans.