Surprising Science — May 20, 2010

Cheese Please

Cheese, among other organic material, may power the future since sugars like lactose can be fed to bacteria cultures inside of full cells to generate electricity; the Economist wheys in.

bigthinkeditor

Cheese, among other organic material, may power the future since sugars like lactose can be fed to bacteria cultures inside of full cells to generate electricity; the Economist wheys in. “One of the biggest obstacles is a lack of investment to develop materials that would work with this kind of fuel cell. As things stand, researchers like Dr Antononpoulou and Dr Melhuish have to use electrodes designed with traditional fuel cells in mind.”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

Judicial Extremists

Steve Chapman sees the Supreme Court’s recent decision to ban life sentences for minors as a much needed compromise between conservative and liberal views of the Constitution.