Today in Science Blog Posts

Infrared Pothole Repair: A More Permanent Solution
Potholes are an annoying reality for anyone who drives a car. We discuss how potholes form in asphalt and a potential way to permanently repair them using infrared technology.

Vinyl Records: A Sound All Their Own
Here’s a piece of music trivia: Vinyl records can be traced back to the development of the phonoautograph in 1855 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville.

Designing Future Technologies with Gallium
Here’s a piece of element trivia: Gallium’s existence was first predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1871, but it was not discovered spectroscopically until 1875 by Lecoq de Boisbaudran.

Magnetic Cooling Technology in Refrigeration
Is your refrigerator running? Then you better go catch it (and see if it uses magnetic cooling technology, which offers a greener approach to preserving foods)!

Selective Laser Sintering for Prototype Production
A type of 3D printing called selective laser sintering is used to produce everything from metal prototypes and plastic, ceramic, and glass materials to coffee! Learn about modeling this process.

The Hygroscopic Swelling Effect
If you put a quarter cup of rice in a pot of water, you end up with half a cup of rice. This isn’t magic — it’s simply hygroscopic swelling at work. Learn more about this phenomenon.

What Is a Packed Bed Reactor?
Absorption, distillation, stripping, separation processes, catalytic reactions — the list goes on! All of these chemical processing applications require the use of a packed bed reactor.

Treating Damaged Biological Tissue with Cryotherapy
Ever hear of cryotherapy (also called “cryosurgery”)? This superfreezing method uses low temperatures to treat damaged tissues, typically with the help of liquid nitrogen.