A potentially new species of tree frog has been discovered in New Guinea, and it’s full of surprises. For starters, instead of the bright green skin of its relatives, this creature sports a beautiful chocolate brown.
Papers and a diverse range of personal items belonging to the late British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking have been acquired by Cambridge University and a UK museum group.
Under an agreement between Cambridge University Library, the Science Museum Group and the UK government, the entire contents of the world-renowned scientist’s office and archive will be preserved for future generations.
The £4.2 million ($5.9 million, 4.8 million euros) deal means 10000 pages of Hawking’s scientific papers and other documents will remain in the university city of Cambridge in eastern England where he died in 2018.
Falling drops usually make a splash, but these drops do the twist. Researchers have created surfaces that can make droplets spin and whirl at more than 7300 revolutions per minute when they rebound.
To make the water droplets spin, researchers first had to make sure they didn’t wet the surface they fell on—otherwise, they’d just splash. The researchers did this by coating alumina plates with a fluorinated nonstick coating, similar to those found in nonstick cooking pans. Next, they masked some regions of the surface and shone ultraviolet (UV) light on the entire plate. The regions exposed to the UV became highly “wettable,” meaning water touching those regions spread out immediately rather than bouncing back up. The team created several designs of the wettable regions, including one with spiral arms radiating out from a center, much like a pinwheel.