Blog

Physics can be mouth-watering. Think of the sizzle as chips deep-fry. Turns out there are 3 kinds of sizzle sounds! Can you read this without getting hungry?

If you get bored eating the same thing over and over, spare a thought for dogs. Many pet dogs eat the same thing every day, week after week. And a change in food can be abrupt – empty the old bag of dog food, and start with something brand new. But how long does it take a dog to adjust to a new diet?

Have you ever struggled to pack balls back into your toy box? The Fields Medal, one of the most famous prizes in mathematics, was recently announced. One of this year’s winners, Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska, is an expert in packing balls in boxes. But there’s a catch! Her findings work in 8 dimensions (D) and beyond.

Australia has many amazing land snails. There are currently about 1,500 described species and another 1,000 waiting to be named.

It sounds like a perfect way to make money – scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) are now selling random numbers over the internet! But before you start your own business writing whatever number pops into your head, there’s something special about these numbers.

Forget blue whales, redwood trees and aspen groves. There’s a new biggest organism in town. It’s a huge patch of seagrass, the size of about 20,000 rugby fields. And it’s been hiding in plain sight in Shark Bay, at the western tip of Western Australia!

Every second counts when a big earthquake hits. As soon as an earthquake sensor picks up the tremor, warnings can be sent over the internet, much faster than the shake travels through the Earth. And now, scientists have found a way to detect big earthquakes fast, maybe even before the ground starts to shake!

What on Earth can jump the highest? Olympic high jumpers can clear more than 2 metres. Pumas might be the best animals at jumping, able to leap 7 metres into a tree. But a team of researchers from the USA have just made a robot that jumps higher than any animal!

When people talk about fungi, what do you imagine? Mushrooms and toadstools are instantly recognisable parts, but there are many types of fungi that grow in different ways.

There’s a lot of waste in how we make, use and dispose of clothes. CSIRO is looking for ideas to make fibre and materials more sustainable, and build a recycling, environmentally friendly, circular fibre industry.