Museum of Science and Industry

Finally! It’s about time you started pulling your weight around here, bubbles. Researchers at the University of Hawaii have created microscopic “bubble robots” to manipulate very small objects. By using an infrared laser to heat areas of the fluid surrounding the bubble, researchers were able to steer the...

I’ve always suspected that the sun was up to something. Have you ever noticed that you can’t look directly at it? It hurts. Which means that it can get away with whatever it wants! For now. Soon we’ll be able to see what that sneaky old star is up to, thanks to a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency launching in 2017.

The mission will send a Solar Orbiter,...

What if I told you that researchers have found another star, in our galaxy, that was the same size as our sun? You would say “Big deal. We’ve found, like, ten billion of those.” But this star may be special! It’s called HP 56948, and a recent paper called it "the best solar twin known to date." HP 56948 has the same unusual chemical makeup as our...

Despite what popular culture would have you expect, scientists almost never become supervillains. But sometimes a study comes along that makes you perk your ears up and reach for the Bat-Signal. Researchers in Copenhagen have pioneered a new method for DNA monitoring that’s as easy as taking candy from a baby, except instead of candy, it’s blood! And instead of a baby, it’s a hideous mass of leeches.

By collecting leeches and testing the blood in their tummies, researchers can get a basic...

Man, the popular monkeys have it so easy. All the bananas, and all the pretty monkeys want to groom them, and they get… all the good vines and stuff. And now they get stronger immune systems, too.

A recent study indicates a strong link between a monkey’s social status (roughly, how popular and powerful it is in monkey society) and its gene expression. “Gene expression” is a term for the changeable way your...