Have you every wondered how mosquitoes survive a rainstorm? The mosquitoes receive a pelting as if, on a human scale we were being hit with huge boulders! This public radio story describes the different experiments the researchers tried and how they discovered the secret to mosquitoes’ survival. Turns out… it’s all physics! This is a great example of the physics concepts of momentum and impulse.
Story Length: 2:34
© 2012 National Public Radio, Inc. Used with the permission of NPR. All rights reserved.
AIR DATE: 06/05/2012
Gravity keeps the earth, moon and sun in orbit. It keeps us on the ground instead of floating in space. And yet, it is the weakest of all the forces. This public radio story explores the velocity in rockets, the shapes of planets, the trajectories of baseballs, and even the strength of the human leg bones.
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Copying the way a desert beetle gets water, scientists have designed a membrane that can extract water from the air. Since all air contains water, even in the desert, this could provide a very inexpensive way to supply drinking water. This audio story describes an application of the idea of “biomimicry,” or using ideas from nature to solve technological problems. Listen to learn how this idea can help solve the problem of scarce drinking water.
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Students in Bellingham, Washington, pushed to introduce composting programs at their high schools and these programs proved successful. This public radio story also gives an insider's view of industrial scale composting from multiple perspectives. It follows food from the school cafeteria to the compost site where it is transformed by microorganisms and eventually to home gardens and nurseries where compost is applied as fertilizer and mulch.
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