What would you like to read?
For youPlaces to start
- How a Rock Ended Up Running Your PhoneNearly every phone, laptop and satellite begins as a lump of quartz. Getting from one to the other is one of the strangest supply chains in the world.Start with Deep Dives
- Aristotle Was Wrong for 2,000 Years, and That's Good NewsA speech arguing that being wrong, carefully and in public, is the most useful thing a scientist can do.Start with Rhetoric
- Product Review: The Human Eye (Four Stars)We tested the most popular camera on the planet. It has been on the market for a very long time and it shows.Start with Satire & Humour
Curiosities
- Bacteria demand credit for idli They work the night shift and puff up the batter. Somebody’s mother takes the compliments. Read on in Satire & Humour
- Astronauts are falling. They just keep missing. Go fast enough sideways, and the ground curves away exactly as quickly as you drop. Read on in Unpacked
- You already have an army for diseases that don’t exist yet Billions of detectives, waiting. A vaccine just shows them the mugshot. Read on in Deep Dives
- Water breaks the rules every winter Almost everything sinks when it freezes. Ice floats, and every fish in a frozen lake owes its life to it. Read on in Poetry
- There is a hole in your vision right now You can find it in thirty seconds. Your brain has spent your whole life hiding it. Read on in Unpacked
- How to beat everyone at guess-the-sweets One sum, one number to remember, and a crowd that doesn’t know it’s helping you. Read on in Unpacked
- Forget zoom. That’s not what makes a telescope good. The real answer is cheap, and it’s why every school should own one. Read on in Rhetoric
- Family WhatsApp group solves the common cold It was 5G all along. Red letters, three exclamation marks, zero scientists consulted. Read on in Satire & Humour
- There’s a night shift living in your curd Two kinds of bacteria, feeding each other, taking turns and locking out the competition. Read on in Unpacked
- Something alive made every hole in your bread Billions of tiny fungi, breathing bubbles into a net you built with your own hands. Read on in Deep Dives
- The oxygen you just breathed used to be water Not carbon dioxide, as almost everyone assumes. Purple bacteria gave the secret away. Read on in Unpacked
- The iron in your blood is older than the Earth It was made inside a star, somewhere you will never visit. Read on in Poetry
- The Moon is running away from us 3.8 cm further every year, and the oceans are helping it escape. Read on in Unpacked
- Twelve sick sailors changed medicine for ever In 1747, a ship’s doctor ran one of the first fair tests. Your grandmother’s remedies deserve one too. Read on in Rhetoric
- Thunder should go bang. So why does it roll? It sounds like furniture dragged across the floor upstairs. Here is who’s doing the dragging. Read on in Unpacked
- Lightning strikes twice, ignores famous saying One man had organised his whole life around it. Nature didn’t get the memo. Read on in Satire & Humour
- Every time you charge your phone, you push atoms uphill Billions of billions of them. And every trip leaves a little damage behind. Read on in Deep Dives
- Explorers measured mountains with a kettle No ropes, no satellites. Just boiling water and a good thermometer. Read on in Unpacked
- You have never seen the Moon Not as it is now. Only as it was, just over a second ago. Read on in Poetry
- Same grip, same seam, opposite swing Bowl fast enough, or scuff one side enough, and the air flips the rules of cricket. Read on in Unpacked
- The most useful thing a scientist can be is wrong Aristotle managed it for 2,000 years. Here is why that is a compliment. Read on in Rhetoric
- One line of algebra decides an epidemic For measles, the answer is 95 per cent. Fall below it, and the disease walks back in. Read on in Unpacked
- Local man furious at antibiotics They did nothing for his cold. They never could have. He would like a refund. Read on in Satire & Humour
- Your charger slows down on purpose The last seats in a crowded hall are always the hardest to fill. Read on in Unpacked
- Something is boiling inside your fridge right now It never stops, and it’s the only reason your milk is cold. Read on in Deep Dives
- Every drawing of a raindrop is wrong Real ones fall shaped like a burger bun. Read on in Poetry
- A million feathers won’t break a window Einstein won his Nobel Prize for explaining why. It’s also why sunlight burns you and radio never will. Read on in Unpacked
- Pluto lost its job. Good. And it had happened before, to a world nobody made a T-shirt about. Read on in Rhetoric
- Every frozen lake is built upside down Coldest at the top, warmest at the bottom, and alive all winter long. Read on in Unpacked
- Doctor cracks one hand’s knuckles for 60 years to win an argument Then he compared his two hands. Read on in Satire & Humour
- Lightning picks its target at the very last moment In its final few tens of metres. Don’t be the tallest thing it finds. Read on in Unpacked
- Your phone runs on a rock Cleaned until fewer than one atom in a billion is out of place. Read on in Deep Dives
- You sprinkle an explosive metal on your dinner It’s bonded to a poison gas. Pass the salt. Read on in Poetry
- Why your knuckle needs twenty minutes off It has a lot in common with a bottle of soda. Read on in Unpacked
- Iron is what kills the biggest stars One curve explains it, and the same curve runs every nuclear power station. Read on in Unpacked
- Scientists predicted a fossil, then dug it up They said where a fish with a neck should be. They were right. Read on in Rhetoric
- Octopus 1, Humans 0 Its eyes have no blind spot. Yours have one each, and your brain has been covering it up. Read on in Satire & Humour
- The Pole Star is only visiting When the pyramids went up, a different star had the job. In 12,000 years, Vega takes over. Read on in Unpacked
- The monsoon never misses its appointment It arrives within a week of the same date every year, and partly runs on its own rain. Read on in Deep Dives
- Without air, rain would hit at 700 km/h Something brakes every drop in the first few seconds of its fall. Read on in Unpacked
- Three hearts. Blue blood. Neurons in its arms. Meet the most overengineered animal in the sea. Read on in Poetry
- The Sun’s core is less intense than a compost heap So why does it shine? And why are its particles passing through you right now? Read on in Unpacked
- Guess how many heartbeats you get No calculator, thirty seconds, and you’ll land surprisingly close. Read on in Rhetoric
- Same box, same gas. The grapes didn’t budge. Some fruit brings its own lunch. Grapes never did. Read on in Unpacked
- Sun apologises for summer Promises five billion more years and says the heat isn’t its fault. You’re the ones leaning. Read on in Satire & Humour
- On Mars, the sunsets are blue And the daytime sky is butterscotch. Earth got it the other way round. Read on in Deep Dives
- Your veins are lying to you Your blood is never blue. An octopus’s really is. Read on in Unpacked
- Where does the beach go twice a day? The Moon pulls from one side of the Earth. So where does the second tide come from? Read on in Poetry
- 33 °C in Mumbai can be deadlier than 42 °C in Jodhpur Your body cools like a matka, and it has the same limit. Read on in Unpacked
- Nobody ever claimed the £1 million prize All you had to do was make something chemical-free. Read on in Rhetoric
- The monsoon starts out as a completely different wind It crosses the equator, and the spinning Earth swings it round towards India. Read on in Unpacked
- Nobody in space is weightless Gravity on the space station is 90% of what you feel right now. So why is everyone floating? Read on in Satire & Humour
- Your head is older than your feet Time runs faster upstairs. Scientists have measured it over 33 centimetres. Read on in Unpacked
- Einstein is inside your maps app Without his correction, the blue dot would drift about ten kilometres a day. Read on in Deep Dives
- The tree that ate the air A willow gained 74 kg in a pot. The soil lost 57 grams. So where did the tree come from? Read on in Poetry
- How to weigh Pluto without touching it One moon, one stopwatch and one line of algebra. Read on in Unpacked
- Supreme Court rules tomato is a vegetable Botanists disagree. They also say bananas are berries. Read on in Rhetoric
- One atom in a million turns rock into a switch Add phosphorus, add boron, and silicon starts counting in ones and zeros. Read on in Unpacked
Every piece
- Unpacked How an Old Ball Swings the Wrong Way Arjun learned to swing the ball by tilting the seam. Then he watched a Test match where the bowler did everything the same and the ball went the other way. Here's what happens when the boundary layer turns turbulent on both sides. Opens once you've read “The Day My Cricket Ball Refused to Swing”
- Unpacked Why the Sea Bulges Away From the Moon Our poem about the tides said the far side of the Earth swells too. Here is the full reason, and what tides are quietly doing to the Earth and the Moon. Opens once you've read “Why the Beach Disappears Twice a Day”
- Unpacked Why Measles Needs Almost Everyone Vaccinated The vaccine piece said a vaccine shows your immune system a wanted poster. But the poster protects people who never saw it, too. Here's the one-line equation that says how many of us need to look. Opens once you've read “A Vaccine Is a Wanted Poster for a Germ”
- Unpacked Your Brain Is Hiding a Hole in Your Eye Our review of the human eye said every eye ships with a blind spot. Here's how to find yours in thirty seconds, and what your brain is doing to hide it. Opens once you've read “Product Review: The Human Eye (Four Stars)”
- Unpacked One Ultraviolet Photon Beats a Billion Radio Ones The nephew told the family group that a million feathers won't break a window the way one stone will, and got removed. Here's the experiment that proved him right, and won Einstein his Nobel Prize. Opens once you've read “Family WhatsApp Group Confirms 5G Causes Colds”
- Unpacked Why Fast Charging Slows Down at 80 Per Cent The charging piece pictured lithium being marched uphill into the graphite. So why does the march race to 80 per cent and then crawl? Because the last few seats in a crowded hall are the hardest to fill. Opens once you've read “Charging Your Phone Means Pushing Lithium Uphill”
- Unpacked Why Water in Leh Gives Up at 88 °C The rajma in Leh refused to cook at 88 °C. Here's the full science of why, and how explorers once used boiling water to measure mountains. Opens once you've read “The Rajma That Defeated My Grandmother”
- Unpacked Never Shelter Under the Tallest Tree Mr Bhalerao, having given up on the roof, chose the tallest tree in the society garden as his new safe spot. Here's exactly how a bolt chooses where to land, and why that tree is one of the worst places he could stand. Opens once you've read “Lightning Strikes Same Building Twice, Ignores Famous Saying”
- Deep Dives How a Rock Ended Up Running Your Phone Nearly every phone, laptop and satellite begins as a lump of quartz. Getting from one to the other is one of the strangest supply chains in the world.
- Unpacked Why the Bottom of a Frozen Lake Stays at 4 °C The ice poem promised that the fish below swim on at four degrees all day. Why four, and not zero? The answer involves two forces fighting inside every drop of cold water, and a lake that flips itself over every autumn. Opens once you've read “Ice Floats, Which Is Lucky for Fish”
- Rhetoric Aristotle Was Wrong for 2,000 Years, and That's Good News A speech arguing that being wrong, carefully and in public, is the most useful thing a scientist can do.
- Unpacked Why Stars Stop Making Elements at Iron The stardust poem says stars fuse their way up to iron and stop, "for when it fuses iron, the profit's gone". Here's the single curve behind that line, which also explains nuclear power stations and why a star's death takes less than a second. Opens once you've read “Most of You Was Made Inside a Star”
- Unpacked Why You Can't Crack the Same Knuckle Twice Mr Joshi has timed it many times: twenty minutes before the same knuckle will crack again. His wife confirms it. Here's what is happening inside the joint during those twenty minutes, and what it has in common with a bottle of soda. Opens once you've read “Man Cracks Knuckles for Decades to Annoy Mother, Science Backs Him”
- Satire & Humour Product Review: The Human Eye (Four Stars) We tested the most popular camera on the planet. It has been on the market for a very long time and it shows.
- Unpacked The Pole Star Is Only Visiting Ms Kulkarni called Polaris "the only star in the sky that is not going anywhere tonight". The word that matters is "tonight". Over thousands of years, the Earth's axis wanders, and the job of Pole Star passes from star to star. Opens once you've read “How We Found North in a Power Cut”
- Unpacked Why Rain Doesn't Hit Like a Bullet The raindrop poem says rain "can sting, but never cuts you deep", because drag matches weight long before the ground. Without air, a drop from a cloud two kilometres up would arrive at about 700 km/h. Here's the maths of the brake. Opens once you've read “Raindrops Are Not Shaped Like Raindrops”
- Unpacked The Sun's Core Is Less Intense Than a Compost Heap In its statement, the Sun said its protons occasionally tunnel through a barrier, and called it Tuesday. Here's the rest of the chain, the ghostly particles it fires through you every second, and the reason the Sun doesn't explode. Opens once you've read “Sun Promises Five Billion More Years, Apologises for Summer”
- Poetry Why the Beach Disappears Twice a Day A poem about why the sea rises twice a day, not once.
- Unpacked Why the Grapes Never Ripened Rohan's bananas ripened in the mango box. The grapes beside them, in the same cloud of ethylene for two days, didn't change at all. Mummy said grapes are picked when they're ready, and that's that. Here's why she's right. Opens once you've read “The Mango That Ripened All the Bananas”
- Stories The Rajma That Defeated My Grandmother A family trip to Leh, a pot of rajma that refuses to soften, and a pressure cooker that suddenly makes sense.
- Unpacked Why Humid Heat Can Be Deadlier Than Dry Heat Nani's matka beat the Jodhpur heat by eleven degrees. The one in Mumbai managed two. Your body is a matka too, and the same number that measures a clay pot's limit measures yours. Opens once you've read “The Matka That Sweats to Stay Cold”
- Unpacked Why Octopus Blood Is Blue and Yours Is Red The octopus poem says its blood is blue because "copper lends a bluish shade". Here's why copper and iron give different colours, why your veins look blue when your blood never is, and why an octopus gets out of breath. Opens once you've read “The Octopus Has Three Hearts and Blue Blood”
- Deep Dives Your Fridge Is Secretly Heating Your Kitchen Heat naturally flows from hot to cold. Your fridge spends all day forcing it the other way. Here's how.
- Unpacked Why the Monsoon Arrives From the South-West The monsoon piece said moist ocean air flows in towards hot land. Then why doesn't it come straight from the south? Because on a spinning planet, nothing travels in a straight line, and the equator flips which way it bends. Opens once you've read “Why the Monsoon Almost Always Turns Up in June”
- Unpacked Your Head Is Older Than Your Feet The GPS piece said satellite clocks run fast by 38 millionths of a second a day, and that engineers simply correct for it. That sounds like an excuse for a broken clock. Here's why it isn't, and how scientists measured time running faster at the top of a staircase. Opens once you've read “Your Phone Finds You Using Clocks in Space”
- Unpacked How One Atom in a Million Turns Sand Into a Switch The silicon piece ended with nine-nines purity as "a blank page". Here's what chipmakers write on it: a few atoms of phosphorus and boron, placed with extraordinary care, which turn a crystal of rock into billions of tiny switches. Opens once you've read “How a Rock Ended Up Running Your Phone”
- Unpacked How to Weigh Pluto Without Touching It The Pluto speech says early guesses made Pluto as big as Earth, and that it kept shrinking. What finally settled it was a smudge on a photograph in 1978, and one line of algebra any student can do. Opens once you've read “Pluto Isn't Sad, and You Shouldn't Be Either”
- Satire & Humour Gravity's Terms and Conditions (You Already Agreed) Nobody has ever read them. Everybody has agreed to them.
- Stories My Sister Versus the Thunderstorm A power cut, a thunderstorm and a little sister who won't come out from under the blanket until somebody can tell her exactly how far away it is.
- Poetry The Moon You See Is One Second Old A poem about looking up and seeing the past, from a Moon that is one second out of date to a galaxy whose light set off before there were people.
- Rhetoric Guess How Many Times Your Heart Will Beat A speech arguing that every student should be taught to make good guesses, on purpose.
- Stories My Grandmother's Secret Is Bacteria Every night, Ammi saves one spoonful of curd. It takes a week away, a cold December windowsill and two ruined batches for anyone to ask why.
- Poetry Trees Are Made of Thin Air A poem about where a tree actually comes from.
- Deep Dives Your Phone Finds You Using Clocks in Space The blue dot on your map depends on atomic clocks, the speed of light, a fourth satellite you didn't know you needed, and a correction from Einstein.
- Unpacked Meet the Bacteria Living in Your Curd A spoonful of old curd turned warm milk into new curd overnight, and a cold windowsill stopped it dead. Here's who was doing the work, and why they work best as a team. Opens once you've read “My Grandmother's Secret Is Bacteria”
- Stories The Matka That Sweats to Stay Cold Nani swears matka water is the only water that tastes like water. In Jodhpur, her pot beats the heat by eleven degrees. In Mumbai, in July, it barely tries.
- Poetry Most of You Was Made Inside a Star A poem about where your atoms came from, and why the stars that made them stopped at iron.
- Satire & Humour Family WhatsApp Group Confirms 5G Causes Colds The forward was in red letters, with three exclamation marks and a photo of a tower. Scientists were not consulted. Then they were.
- Satire & Humour Local Man Furious That Antibiotics Did Nothing for His Cold "I took the whole strip," says man, still sneezing.
- Unpacked Why Thunder Rumbles Instead of Going Bang Meher's thunder came "rolling over the building like furniture being dragged across the floor upstairs". A bang made in a few millionths of a second shouldn't roll for ten. Here's why it does. Opens once you've read “My Sister Versus the Thunderstorm”
- Stories The Day My Cricket Ball Refused to Swing Arjun polished the ball like a fast bowler on television. It went perfectly, disappointingly straight, and the reason was in his fingers.
- Rhetoric Give Every School a Telescope A speech arguing that the cheapest science lesson no school is teaching is pointed at the sky, and that it has almost nothing to do with zoom.
- Rhetoric No, It's Not "Just a Theory" An opinion piece on the most misunderstood word in science.
- Satire & Humour Sun Promises Five Billion More Years, Apologises for Summer The statement was released this morning and reached Earth eight minutes and twenty seconds later. It contained an apology, a physics lesson and a correction about summer.
- Poetry Raindrops Are Not Shaped Like Raindrops A poem about the shape everyone draws, the shape that actually falls, and why the rain never hits harder than it does.
- Unpacked The Oxygen You Breathe Came Out of Water The tree poem says a leaf frees oxygen "from water, not the air". It sounds like a mistake. It isn't, and the way we found out involved purple bacteria, rotten-egg gas and a heavy kind of oxygen. Opens once you've read “Trees Are Made of Thin Air”
- Stories My Phone Died at 20 Per Cent in Spiti At the top of Kunzum Pass, at the exact moment I wanted a photo, my phone gave up. An hour later it came back, looking innocent.
- Rhetoric Yes, a Tomato Is a Fruit. No, It Doesn't Go in Fruit Salad An argument to settle the lunch-table debate, featuring the US Supreme Court, a strawberry that isn't a berry, and the lesson that a definition is a tool.
- Satire & Humour Bacteria Form Union, Demand Credit for Idli "Every night we work," said a spokesperson, one thousandth of a millimetre long. "Then somebody's mother gets all the compliments."
- Unpacked Astronauts Are Falling All the Time and Missing Gravity's terms and conditions said astronauts float because they're falling "with very good aim". That sounds like a trick. Here's the exact aim required, worked out with a cannon Isaac Newton never fired. Opens once you've read “Gravity's Terms and Conditions (You Already Agreed)”
- Deep Dives The Sky Is Blue Because Air Is Picky The same tiny effect explains the blue of noon and the orange of evening, and why the sky on Mars does the opposite.
- Poetry The Octopus Has Three Hearts and Blue Blood A poem about the most overengineered animal in the sea: three hearts, blue blood, arms that taste, and eyes wired the sensible way round.
- Deep Dives Why the Monsoon Almost Always Turns Up in June A season's worth of weather arrives within a week or so of the same date every year. Here's the engine behind it, and why it partly runs on its own rain.
- Stories The Mango That Ripened All the Bananas My brother hid three green bananas and a bunch of grapes in Mummy's mango box. Two days later the bananas had overtaken the whole bunch. The grapes had not moved.
- Unpacked How to Win the Guess-the-Sweets Jar The heartbeat speech argued that good guessing can be taught. Here's a chance to prove it at the next school fair, with one sum, one number to remember, and a crowd to help you. Opens once you've read “Guess How Many Times Your Heart Will Beat”
- Satire & Humour Lightning Strikes Same Building Twice, Ignores Famous Saying "I organised my whole life around that saying," said a man holding an umbrella, standing in the one spot he believed was safe.
- Rhetoric Your Grandmother's Remedies Deserve a Fair Test An argument that checking a home remedy properly is the most respectful thing you can do with it, and that a ship's doctor showed how in 1747.
- Stories How We Found North in a Power Cut The lights went out across the whole campsite, and the only phone with any battery went with them. Our instructor pointed at the sky and asked for our fists.
- Deep Dives Charging Your Phone Means Pushing Lithium Uphill Plug in your phone and nothing seems to happen. Inside, billions of billions of lithium ions are being forced to move house, from a comfortable home to a cramped one, and that is where the energy is stored.
- Poetry Salt Is a Metal That Explodes and a Poison Gas A poem about the most ordinary thing on the dinner table, made from a metal that bursts into flame in water and a gas that makes you choke.
- Rhetoric Pluto Isn't Sad, and You Shouldn't Be Either A speech arguing that what happened to Pluto in 2006 was science at its best, and that it had happened once before, to a world nobody has made a T-shirt about.
- Satire & Humour Man Cracks Knuckles for Decades to Annoy Mother, Science Backs Him His mother said it would ruin his hands. He has brought a study, a second study, and an MRI video.
- Deep Dives A Vaccine Is a Wanted Poster for a Germ Your immune system is a brilliant detective that starts every case days behind. A vaccine hands it the description in advance, and it never forgets a face.
- Poetry Ice Floats, Which Is Lucky for Fish A poem about the one liquid that breaks the rule almost everything else obeys, and the fish that owe their winters to it.
- Rhetoric There Is No Such Thing as Chemical-Free An argument that the most common label in the shop is the only one guaranteed to be false, and that the right question was asked five hundred years ago.
- Deep Dives Bread Is Held Up by Billions of Tiny Fungi Every loaf is a sponge full of gas made by living things. The holes are where the gas was, and the walls between them are made of a protein net you built with your hands.
Nothing matches that. Try different words, or another department or subject.
- PoetryRhyming poems about real ideas.
- Satire & HumourFunny, and correct.
- RhetoricSpeeches and arguments about science.
- Deep DivesOne idea, followed all the way.
- UnpackedGoing deeper into earlier pieces.