Veritasium
Newsletters and videos about science, education, and anything else we find interesting.
How Mexico Plans to 7x Latin America's Computing Power
Hi Reader, astronomers found a star that tells two contradictory stories. Its chemistry says it's 10 billion years old. But vibrations rippling through its interior reveal it's only 5 billion years old. The paradox? Stellar violence. The red giant orbits Gaia BH2, a dormant black hole that likely contaminated it during a past merger, artificially aging its chemical signature while keeping its interior young. Speaking of black holes and contradictions: our first story this week shows how...
Physicists Say The Matrix Can’t Exist
Ines LeeLead Writer at VeMail Hi Reader, Hurricane Melissa tore through the Caribbean last week as a Category 5 storm, killing at least 50 people and leaving 76% of buildings damaged in Jamaica's Black River. Seismometers hundreds of miles away in Florida recorded its approach like an earthquake. Scientists say this kind of data could help reconstruct hurricanes from before satellites existed and, more importantly, track whether storms are intensifying as the planet warms. (Early signs say...
The Bacteria That Outsmarted NASA
Ines LeeLead Writer at VeMail Hi Reader, physicists in Germany built the world’s smallest light-emitting pixel last week. It’s only 300 nm across yet shines as bright as a standard OLED pixel 300 times larger. It uses a gold nano-antenna that prevents short circuits, paving the way for ultra-dense displays in smart glasses and even contact lenses. Our top stories this week share a similar theme: what might we discover when we push science to its "smallest" possible unit? Coming up this week🦠...
Meet Ice XXI: Water That Freezes at 20°C
Ines LeeLead Writer at VeMail Hi Reader, the CIA’s most famous code was finally cracked. By accident. For 35 years, Kryptos, the copper sculpture by Jim Sanborn standing in the CIA’s courtyard, has taunted codebreakers worldwide. Three of its four encrypted messages were solved long ago; the last, K4, resisted even supercomputers. Last week, the mystery was solved not by cryptographers but by two “amateurs”. Novelist Jarett Kobek stumbled on the plaintext in the Smithsonian archives, hidden...
A Laser That Sees Through Mountains
Ines LeeLead Writer at VeMail Hi Reader, an autonomous submarine just left Martha's Vineyard on a five-year, 73,000-kilometer journey to circle the globe, powered only by gravity and buoyancy. Redwing moves by adjusting its buoyancy, sinking and rising in a sawtooth pattern, surfacing every 8-12 hours to transmit data on ocean temperature, salinity, and currents. The data will help predict hurricane intensity and track climate change in the ocean's least-sampled regions. Over 50 Rutgers...
The “Radioactive Scalpel” That’s Outperforming Chemotherapy
Ines LeeLead Writer at VeMail Hi Reader, It’s Nobel season - the week when the world pauses to celebrate science that reshapes our understanding of reality. The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics went to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis for breakthroughs that brought quantum effects into everyday electrical circuits. In Medicine, Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi were honored for revealing how the immune system learns tolerance, preventing it from attacking the body’s...
Scientists just made atoms talk to each other inside silicon chips
Ines LeeLead Writer at VeMail Hi Reader, last week NASA unveiled its newest class of astronauts. From over 8,000 applicants, 10 people (six women and four men) were selected and introduced in a ceremony at Johnson Space Center in Houston. They will enter nearly two years of rigorous training, which could lead them to Artemis missions around the Moon and, potentially, future crewed flights to Mars. For this week’s first story, let’s bring things back down to Earth. Coming up this week: 💊 Could...
The Paradox of Chemo: Killing and (Potentially) Awakening Cancer
Ines LeeLead Writer at VeMail Hi Reader, some science this week made us laugh and think. The 2025 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded last week at Boston University. Yes, the awards that honour weird, quirky, unexpected research (not to be confused with the rather more prestigious Nobel prizes awarded in Scandinavia next month). This year’s winners include cows painted with zebra stripes to avoid fly bites, a Teflon-filler diet to reduce calories, babies sucking longer on garlic-flavored breastmilk....
80 Billion Songs Fit on This “DNA Cassette Tape”
Ines LeeLead Writer at VeMail Hi Reader, this month offers the best chance in years to see Saturn. The ringed planet reaches opposition on September 21, meaning it sits directly opposite the Sun from Earth's perspective, the closest and brightest it gets all year. What makes this month special is that Saturn’s rings are tilted nearly edge-on to our view. To the naked eye, Saturn will still shine like a bright star, but through telescopes the rings take on a dramatic, knife-thin appearance....
Why Ice Is Slippery: Were We Wrong?
Ines LeeLead Writer at VeMail Hi Reader, last Friday’s Maths Challenge proved that the Ve community has serious puzzle-solving skills. We watched thousands of you tackle the challenge with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for major sporting events. For those who signed up to see how you stacked up, you'll find our team's average score and how the other percentiles performed down below. Coming up this week: 🧊 The hidden physics behind slippery ice🛜 Could this glass-straw fiber boost...
Newsletters and videos about science, education, and anything else we find interesting.