Physical Science

Our listeners have a lot of questions about the way animals see the world, and this episode tackles lots of them.

The process that turns sand into glass is very cool – or rather, we should say very hot. Very, very, very hot as it turns out. Humans have been turning minerals from the earth’s crust into glass for 3,500 years. Find out how it’s done and how it’s evolved – from blowing glass by hand to a factory that makes hundreds of glass bottles every minute. Plus: The mystery sound!

Snow days - snow daze - snow dazzle!

What route would you take to walk around the world?

We’re heading to space, and dropping a feather in a few different places to see what happens!

This episode shines a light on crystals, and they’re sparkling right back at us! We’ll zoom way in on a diamond to understand the structure that makes crystals special, and hear about some unexpected crystals, too (hint: chocolate chip cookies contain a few different crystals!). Then, we take a look at how crystals form and get their cool colors. Plus, Marc and Sanden hunt down a hoax about Mesoamerican crystal skulls.

After getting a firsthand look at the history of trash, we’re having visions from garbage’s present and future this week. Producer Kunsang Dorjee visits a landfill to see what happens to our trash after we throw it away, and producer Ruby Guthrie shows us how we can make less trash and dispose the trash we do make in ways that are better for the planet. Plus: we hear from a kid who helped her class produce almost no waste during the school year. And our Moment of Um answers the question: if ants like sweet things, why don’t they attack beehives?

How are mountains made? What causes an earthquake? How does hot lava come bubbling up? The answer in each case is…tectonic plates!

Robotics is a huge industry, but in this episode we focus on the smallest part: tiny robots!

It’s the showdown of showdowns: kids vs. adults. Who has more energy and why?

Ink is so much more than quills and caligraphy. We use it to write, to color, to print — there are even animals that use it.

We don’t usually think about dust unless we’re cleaning up, but it’s all around us all the time. There’s more to this stuff than just boring, old grey specks. Way more.

Today we learn how mirrors reflect, what color mirrors are and the rich, gooey history of sequins.

In this episode, we take a field trip to a piano shop, peek behind the walls at a world-famous piano factory and have an EPIC FIGHTING BATTLE to discover how sound travels.

In this episode, we find out how a system of cables around the globe (and deep in our oceans) brings websites, songs, videos and podcasts to our phones and computers, almost at the speed of light.

Never explore the final frontier without your trusty, white, puffy space suit! But why is it puffy and white? And why do astronauts need them? Turns out space is super dangerous and these suits can save your life. We’ll give you a tour of all the features of NASA’s iconic EMU suit and explain why it looks like a squishy marshmallow. Plus, we’ll interview an engineer working on the next generation of space suits and hear a funky new space jam by singer Jamie Lidell. Add in a mystery sound, a Moment of Um looking at knuckle cracking and some rad ideas for super suits of the future and you’ve got an action packed episode of Brains On.

Elevators are like magic. You walk in, the door shuts and when it opens again, you are suddenly someplace new! Ta da! But it’s not magic that does this trick, it’s science and engineering.

Human-made plastics are super useful, but the fact that they last forever means we find ourselves with a plastic problem.