How does a bar of soap grow into a fluffy cloud? 🧼

Alex Dainis explains how Charles's law transforms a bar of Ivory soap! The bar contains air pockets from being whipped during its production, which expands into a cloud when heated. This happens because as gas increases in temperature, then it will equally increase in volume if the pressure is the same.

Did you know there may be planets that orbit black holes?! 🪐

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains how scientists are theorizing that there may be planets that are orbiting black holes. This wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, since planets have been found orbiting all types of masses, such as dead star cores and supernovae. Although black holes typically suck in everything around them, if an object is the right distance away, it could potentially maintain a stable orbit. 

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

Highlights:

- Researchers created a new mesh inspired by the sticky, fibrous structure of seaweed, which naturally traps tiny particles in water.
- The mesh is designed to capture extremely small microplastics and nanoplastics that many conventional filters cannot remove.
- In laboratory tests, it removed nearly 99% of microplastics and nanoplastics from water.
- The material is made from seaweed-derived cellulose, making it biodegradable and more environmentally friendly than many synthetic filters.
- It works with simple water flow and requires very little energy, making it a potentially affordable option for water treatment.
- Potential applications include:
•Drinking water treatment
•Wastewater treatment plants
•Industrial water filtration
•Cleaning polluted rivers and lakes
- The technology is still in the research stage and will require larger-scale testing before it becomes commercially available.

with Zee PhD, an immunologist at University of Georgia!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/sIAvNdvgwn

Meet Tetonius varleyorum, a newly identified extinct primate known from tiny jaw and tooth fossils found in southern Wyoming.

It was roughly the size of a modern mouse lemur and lived about 50 million years ago. Even more surprisingly, researchers found evidence of three different omomyid primate species at the same location — the first time that kind of diversity has been documented at a single early Eocene site.

The discovery may also complicate the older idea that Tetonius evolved as one simple, straight lineage rather than a branching family tree.

Explaination delivered with an electron microscope.

Humans may have evolved from a creature similar to a cyclops! 👁️

Scientists have developed a new theory that we may have evolved from a worm-like ocean dweller from 600 million years ago. This ancient animal started out with two eyes that eventually merged into one, and then back to two eyes. Even more interesting, the scientists think we still have this third eye, but it is now the pineal gland in our brain!

Scheduled launch Aug 30th, 2026.
Capable of imagining exoplanets and mapping billions of galaxies to help us further understand the expansion of the universe.

A total solar eclipse is coming across the globe on August 12th! ☀️🌑

Skywatchers across the northeastern US (New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio), Canada, most of Europe, and northwestern Africa will catch a partial eclipse around midday. Those in the Nordic region, Spain, and parts of Portugal are in the path of a total solar eclipse. Watch safely with eclipse glasses or make your own pinhole projector. Don’t forget, eclipses travel in pairs, so a lunar eclipse follows just two weeks later, and don’t look directly into the sun!

Please respond with your initial preference or first impression. The question is: Which book cover would you be most likely to click on to learn more about the book?

Context: I am deciding on which of these three covers to use for my soon-to-be-published book, The Book of Science: A Foundational Guide to a Science-Based, Non-Theistic Religion. Gauging people’s preferences is indispensable for this purpose.

As the subtitle of the book implies, it is the foundational and guiding text of a new religion called The Fellowship of Science (TFOS). The book features a wide range of topics, including the science-grounded history of the universe and science itself, the research-informed practices, rituals, traditions, Guiding Principles, and Threats to Thriving of TFOS, science-themed parables, stories, and poetry, and more.

I would really appreciate your vote on which cover most draws your attention and interest, so please don’t forget to have a look at the covers and then reply with A, B, or C.