Surprising Science — March 7, 2014

Turning Lemons into Batteries

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

How many lemons does it take to power a light bulb? This video shows you how to turn lemons into batteries. Maybe you won’t get a sour, juicy lemon powering your remote control anytime soon, but the science behind this demonstration is fascinating.

Image credit: Craig Murphy/Flickr

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

An image of a man and a woman with the words carrer R

High Culture

Why R is the weirdest letter

You can learn an awful lot about people, culture, and politics by studying R.

Starts With A Bang

Can technology save astronomy from light pollution?

With LEDs bringing brighter nighttime lighting than ever before, and thousands of new satellites polluting the skies, astronomy needs help.

The Future

How strong of a nuclear bomb could humans make?

The biggest nuclear blast in history came courtesy of Tsar Bomba. We could make something at least 100 times more powerful.

A stack of rocks sitting on top of each other.

The Learning Curve

Nagomi: The Japanese philosophy of finding balance in a turbulent life

Nagomi helps us find balance in discord by unifying the elements of life while staying true to ourselves.

Starts With A Bang

NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory to finally answer the epic question: “Are we alone?”

NASA has finally chosen which flagship mission, like Hubble and JWST, will launch in ~2040. Detecting alien life is now a reachable goal.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Mysterious Ubiquitous Earth Creature Can Survive in Space

If these mysterious creatures can survive in Space then maybe they came from space, according to this video from Vice. Tardigrades look like a George Lucas-depiction of a caterpillar. Researchers […]