Science

How do you cook your eggs?The Daniel Heighton Food Collection/Alamy Cooking a perfect boiled egg takes at least half an hour, physicists have claimed, as they say the best method for a tasty and nutritious breakfast involves switching repeatedly between pans of different temperatures. As anyone who has ever struggled to get an egg to their liking will know, an even boil is difficult because the yolk and white cook at different temperatures. Cooking at a vigorous boil works for the white, which requires temperatures of 85°C (185°F) for optimum consistency, but can also result in a hard yolk, which only needs 65°C (149°F). Chefs have found immersing the egg in a water bath at a steady temperature of between 60°C and 70°C (140°F and 158°F) can lead to better cooked yolks,...

Simulating turbulent air flow accurately is vital for weather forecastsEUMETSAT/ESA Quantum-inspired algorithms can simulate turbulent fluid flows on a classical computer much faster than existing tools, slashing computation times from several days on a large supercomputer to just hours on a regular laptop. This could improve weather forecasts and increase the efficiency of industrial processes, say researchers. Turbulence in liquid or air involves numerous interacting eddies that quickly become so chaotically complex that precise simulation is impossible for even the most powerful computers. Quantum counterparts promise to improve matters, but currently even the most advanced machines are incapable of anything but rudimentary demonstrations. These turbulence simu...

For as long as we have tried to figure out the nature of reality, we have grappled with the concept of empty space. Around 400 BC, when the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus conceived of small, indivisible bodies called atoms, he supposed there must also exist a void surrounding them: a featureless, unchanging vacuum in which they moved. Today, the void remains a potent idea for understanding the universe, but we have come to realise that it is anything but featureless. More than a century ago, Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity revealed that space-time is stretched and warped by the matter it contains. Later, quantum theory introduced the idea of virtual particles, which momentarily appear and disappear in a vacuum, making pure nothingness seem like an intangible...

Credit: Julia M Cameron via pexels Fashion has a waste problem, with ever-increasing volumes of used textiles clogging up landfills and thrift stores around the globe. Donating clothing might seem like a perfect solution—clothes stay out of the landfill and can be used by those who need them—but this rarely plays out in the real world, as there is simply too much used clothing in circulation. Most used clothing ends up as waste or is exported to counties in the Global South, where it’s resold or eventually ends up at a landfill anyway. And the waste piles up: The average American consumer discards an estimated 81 pounds of clothing and shoes every year, creating a total of almost 13 million tons of textile waste nationwide, according to the most recent available data (from 2018). Of ...

A battery pouch with rectangular holesLiangbing Hu/Teng Li A stretchy and flexible battery pouch filled with strategically placed holes is more breathable than cotton. That could make it an ideal power source for wearable sports or fitness devices built directly into clothing. “This is especially useful for athletes or individuals who wear electronics for extended periods – smart clothing for fitness tracking, medical monitoring devices and similar applications that demand both comfort and reliable performance,” says Lin Xu at Yale University. To design the new battery, Xu and his colleagues created a pattern of long, rectangular holes in a pouch cell battery – a type of lithium battery that resembles a flat bundle with a limited degree of bendability. Simulations...