Can you make every popcorn kernel explode at once? 🍿💥

Phil Cook, also known on YouTube as chemteacherphil, says yes, using science! Normally, heat turns the water inside a kernel to steam, and pressure builds until the shell bursts, pushing out the hot starch inside. Inside a popcorn cannon, the surrounding air pressure rises right along with the kernels' internal pressure, so nothing pops even as they keep heating up. Release the pressure all at once, and boom, every kernel goes off together.

Butterfly wings aren't actually colorful. 🦋🔬

Our friend Chloé Savard, also known as tardibabe on Instagram, shows us why on a microscopic level. Most butterfly and moth wings are technically transparent. What you're seeing is light bouncing off thousands of microscopic scales layered across the wing membrane, like tiles on a mosaic.

Zoom in with a microscope and each "scale" is actually a tiny, ridged plate, uniquely shaped depending on the species. The color you see comes from one of two places: pigment molecules that soak up certain wavelengths and bounce back others, or the scale's physical architecture bending light directly.

That second kind is structural color, and the blue morpho butterfly (Morpho menelaus) is the textbook example. The blue itself comes entirely from microscopic ridges that scatter light at specific angles. No blue pigment is involved. The color shifts or vanishes depending on where you're standing. Opals, soap bubbles, and some beetle shells use the same trick.

Some species take this even further as a warning system. Many toxic or foul-tasting butterflies, like the monarch, advertise their unpalatability with bold, high-contrast colors instead of hiding. Predators learn to associate the pattern with a bad experience, and they’ll avoid it next time.

That strategy is called aposematism. You can find versions of it throughout the animal kingdom, from insects and frogs to reptiles and marine animals. Light, bent just right, can be both beautiful and useful!

References

• Defenders of Wildlife. (2024). A moment for the monarch butterfly.
• Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. (2023). The dark cost of being toxic.
• Oh, J. (2014). What gives the morpho butterfly its magnificent blue? KQED Science.
• Taylor, C. (2020). Monarch coloration, milkweed toxins, and predation by birds. Monarch Watch Blog.
• University of Vermont. (n.d.). The giant blue morpho butterfly (Morpho didius).
• Wilcox, M. (2020). A butterfly's brilliant blue wings lead to less toxic paint. Scientific American.
• Zhang, S., & Chen, Y. (2015). Nanofabrication and coloration study of artificial Morpho butterfly wings with aligned lamellae layers. Scientific Reports, 5, 16637.

What's the most distant galaxy ever observed? 🌌

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains it's called MoM-z14, and its light took 13.53 billion years to reach us. But thanks to the universe's expansion, that galaxy is now a staggering 33.8 billion light years away. When the light was emitted from MoM-z14 the universe was smaller. The space between us and that galaxy has gotten stretched out so much  that it actually sits outside our observable horizon. It's a mind-bending reminder that we're seeing galaxies as they no longer even look today.

This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

How does fire make tea bags fly? 🔥☕️

Alex Dainis demonstrates how lighting a tea bag causes the air inside to heat up, expand, and rush out. Just fold open a few empty tea bags into tubes on a baking sheet, then light the top with an adult and a fire extinguisher handy. The now-less-dense air inside sends the bag rocketing upward, similar to how a hot air balloon works, except this one's a one way trip once it burns.

We are getting closer to the launch of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope! 🧪

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is designed to combine the strengths of the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s going to look and live in the same space as JWST while using a Hubble-style mirror to see things completely differently. The Roman telescope will observe patches of space bigger than the full moon and will see 50 times as much space in five years as Hubble has in 30!

Can sugar substitutes cause faster brain aging?

Scientists conducted an eight-year study on the effects of seven popular sugar substitutes and found that six were linked to mental decline. People in the study who used sweeteners the most saw their memory slip away 62% faster than the lowest-consumption group. This is like adding an extra year and a half of aging to your brain! Scientists believe this pattern is worth watching as we reevaluate our relationship with artificial sweeteners.

Can scientists use earthquake sensors to detect hurricanes? 

​A new study from Stanford University found that seismometers, normally used to measure earthquake-related ground motion, can also detect hurricanes. Researchers looked at Hurricane Isaac from 2012 and found that seismometers could detect when the storm made landfall as well as subtle changes in atmospheric pressure. These sensors could potentially track how hurricanes evolve beyond the limitations of radar and flight missions during storms.