December has the longest solar days (noon-to-noon) because of the weird way a combination of the axial tilt of the Earth and a quirk in its elliptical orbit. Henry Reich clarifies the reasons in this edition of minutephysics.
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Autumn can be called our transitional month, ushering in mild temperatures, the holidays and the magical transformation of our deciduous trees and shrubs. The splendor of gold- and russet-colored leaves as trees prepare to bare their branches, gives us a fall spectacle like no other, prompting MinuteEarth host Henry Reich to say, “They are the world’s prettiest recycling plants.” But have you ever wondered why the leaves change color? Reich gives us a thorough scientific explanation.
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Aging isn’t as universally a fact of life as we think. Naked mole rats, lobsters and rock fish, for instance, seem to stay forever young, or at least middle-aged. Says Henry Reich of MinuteEarth, “Their anti-aging secret may have to do with their ability to rebuild the DNA caps on their chromosomes. These caps, called telomeres, are one line of defense in many species.” But all these critters, including humans of course, will ultimately meet their end, because it’s possible to be immune to aging but not to death.
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Basic physics tells us that rain shouldn’t happen. It’s mathematically impossible. Henry Reich explains how cohesion, adhesion, air resistance and other factors play vital roles in one of nature’s comforts in this edition of minutephysics.
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Have you ever wondered how mega-ton airplanes stay airborne? A wonder of science, for sure. But more precisely, it’s a byproduct of Newton’s Laws of Physics.
“Airplanes stay in the air because of one simple fact,” says Henry Reich. “There is no net force on them. And with no net force, an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays that way.” Join Reich in this edition of minutephysics as he explains the phenomenon.
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It’s safe to say our relationship with the moon is pretty one-sided–literally. Because it rotates exactly once on its axis each time it orbits Earth, we always see the same old side of the moon. Fact is, the first time we saw the far side of the moon was when Russian satellite Luna III beamed back images in 1959. Join Henry Reich as he discusses the moon’s evolution and how it settled into its current orbit in this edition of MinuteEarth.
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Henry Reich tells us that the poorest places on the planet can also be the richest. Although this is especially prevalent in nature, it can also apply to the human landscape. “In nature, as in human society, plenty of resources doesn’t necessarily translate into ‘everyone gets plenty,'” Reich says. He gets into the nuts and bolts about why poor places are more diverse in this edition of MinuteEarth.
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It was a mystery to geologists why our continents drifted about the planet, occasionally glomming together then breaking apart. Not until the 1960s was it discovered that the Earth’s crust is broken down into fragments called tectonic plates–and they are moving. Host Henry Reich explains the fundamentals of this phenomenon in this edition of MinuteEarth.
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Isaac Newton pegged it correctly when describing the colors in a rainbow. But terminology and technology changed drastically over the years, nearly eliminating the colors indigo and violet and re-introducing purple. Henry Reich explains in this fascinating edition of minutephysics.
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Shockingly, the sky is not blue and the sun isn’t yellow. “The sky is not really blue,” says Henry Reich of minutephysics. “It’s a stage upon which all colors dance. It’s mostly transparent air that, at best, is the color of what light it scatters.” Tune in as Reich explains the grand ballet of light in our universe.
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