Science, Spoken

It’s become a veritable rite of passage for humans settling into their first apartments: Assemble a piece of Ikea furniture from a cryptic set of pictures without having either you, or the item in question, fall apart. What better way, thought researchers at the University of Southern California, to torture teach robots to manipulate the world around them. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Cassini spacecraft perished in a literal blaze of glory on September 15, 2017, when it ended its 13-year study of Saturn by intentionally plunging into the gas giant’s swirling atmosphere. The crash came after a last few months of furious study, during which Cassini performed the Grand Finale — a sensational, death-defying dance that saw the spacecraft dive between the planet and its rings 22 times. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A few years ago, a group of physicists created an unusual, never-before-seen subatomic particle. Using a particle accelerator at Riken, a Japanese research institute, they slammed streams of calcium nuclei against a metal disk, over and over, for hours at a time. Then, sifting through the aftermath of the collisions, they found their coveted particle. They named their creation: sodium. That’s right, sodium. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Anyone who says there’s nothing new under the sun hasn’t made a recent trip to Lancaster, California. There, on the outskirts of the Mojave desert, 400 giant mirrors, each the size of a large flatscreen TV, twitch in the sunlight. Their reflective faces are turned toward a nearby tower that looms over the lot like an industrial eye of Sauron. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Imagine maneuvering your car through a dark tunnel that bulges unexpectedly in places and then turns sharply through a maze-like passage. The perilous journey feels safer with a light and camera showing the way ahead. It’s even better if digital lines lay out a track, assuring you stay in your lane. In a rudimentary way, that scenario illustrates the advantage mixed reality (or augmented reality) is bringing to surgery, starting with the delicate pathways of the sinus. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the search for life in our solar system, Mars tends to steal the spotlight (thanks, David Bowie). But in recent years Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, Europa, has emerged as a promising extraterrestrial nursery. Planetary scientists have long suspected Europa may harbor a vast liquid water ocean beneath its thick, icy crust. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The economics of knockoffs is simple: The rich buy Prada bags, while the not so rich opt for fakes, which telegraph to the world they’re just as shallow as the rich, but on a budget. Prada doesn’t like knockoffs because they undercut both the bottom line as well as the purity of its brand. Some scientists have been trying to put this principle to work in the rhino horn trade, by producing a convincing synthetic alternative and one day unleashing it on the market. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In an age when so much of the internet feels bad, Pinterest has carved out a niche as the place you come to feel good. So when the company noticed Pinterest users searching for content related to “self-harm”—not a ton, but enough to catch someone’s attention—it decided first to filter out what would show up on the site. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices