Optics

Dozens of labs are investigating the internet phenomenon and developing new explanations

This week the first wave of research from scientific journals has begun to be published; Current Biology has posted a trio of papers by three different prominent competing color vision labs, each describing their initial studies of The Dress. So in celebration of the scientific enterprise and its surprise boost from the world of fashion: here is a summary of those first three studies for reading pleasure.

16-year-old Paul Vermeesch recreate the impossible structures in M.C. Escher's Relativity--but with a Star Wars theme--in LEGO.

I’ve been on Instagram for a long time, with a private account to share family photos with friends. Last year, I decided to start up a second account, @FlyingTrilobite, to share my art in process, and the sort of things I normally share on my blog.

Subjects tricked into thinking that they were invisible sweated less when a brush stroke was applied 

What do you do when you are playing in the park on a hot day and your parents offer you an ice cream? Most probably, you go running to them, keep your eyes on the delicious ice cream cone, and reach out to take it from them.

One of the first things I get asked when I tell people that I work on bee cognition (apart from `do you get stung a lot?') is `bees have cognition?'.

Imagine a trio of aerobatic aircraft. Over the years they've gotten very good at their routine. But they want to add another five or six or seven members.

As adults, we don't often experience radical violations of our expectations, particularly those that concern core principles of object behavior.

A novel twist on the young field of optogenetics may provide a new way to study living human brains as well as offering innovative therapeutic uses.

Compare and contrast. Zooming in for greater detail: The same fly, the same pose, the same camera settings. All I changed was the background, and the difference in the animal’s appearance between the two photographs is immense.

Green as a color can mean animal, vegetable or mineral. It is the stuff of crocodiles, chlorophyll and copper patina, the essence of serpentine or of snakes in the grass, the hue of a glacial lake, a stagnant pond and the Chicago River on St.