Videos

Since at least the 1960s, astronauts and satellites have been snapping photos of planet Earth from on high. While many of these photos possess an intrinsic beauty, some hold important clues about the goings-on of the inhabitants below. In this episode of The Countdown, we bring you five images that speak loudly about the challenges facing the human race.

Video credits - Host/writer: Sophie Bushwick, production assistant: William Herkewitz, editor: Kathryn Free, producer: Eric R. Olson

Why do the number of spirals in a sunflower match up with the integers 34,55, 89 and 144; numbers found in the famous Fibonacci Sequence? Scientific American editor John Matson explains.

There were more complications on Apollo 13's failed lunar mission than most people realize. The astronauts carried plutonium on the lunar module they brought back to Earth with them.

We take for granted that we exist as 3-D beings in a 3-D universe, but physicists suggest that our world is just the projection of a reality written in 2-D. Scientific American editor Michael Moyer explains.

Video credits - Production assistants: Kathryn Free & William Herkewitz, produced by Eric R. Olson

With jet thrusters and an aluminum alloy casing, the Exosuit is a submarine you can wear. Later this year, scientists will suit up and plunge 300 meters below the ocean surface to study bioluminescent organisms. Diving safety officer Michael Lombardi of the American Museum of Natural History explains how the Exosuit extends the time a diver can stay submerged at 30 times the surface pressure.

Video credits - Interviewer: Larry Greenemeier, produced by Kathryn Free
 

The Saturn IB rocket was vital to the Apollo era, launching the first manned mission of the lunar landing program, all three Skylab missions, and the Apollo half of the Apollo-Soyuz mission.

According to NASA, more than 500,000 pieces of debris are tracked as they orbit the earth. Individual pieces can travel at speeds of up to 28,000 kilometers per hour, creating a potentially dangerous situation for both satellites and astronauts alike. In this episode of The Coundown, we look at some of the strangest proposals to combat the ever-growing cloud of space junk. One of them, an electrified tether created by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will launch on February 28th, 2014.

 

Anyone that's chopped into an onion is familiar with the noxious fumes and irritating pain induced by an otherwise delicious vegetable. Scientific American editor Ferris Jabr explains how this bulbous member of the Allium genus can bring us to tears.

Video credits: edited by Kathryn Free, produced by Eric R. Olson

Our love affair with chocolate is nothing new, but in recent years scientists have tried to uncover the source of our cocoa cravings. Scientific American editor Dina Fine Maron digs through the available evidence, looking for a morsel of truth.

Every week brings us news of another Web site taken out by hackers or even foreign governments. At the heart of all this digital mischief is the denial of service attack, which floods a Web site with fake requests. Scientific American tech editor Larry Greenemeier shows us how its done.

NASA is known for hi-tech wizardry when it comes to spacecraft, but some of its technology has floated back down to earth and made it into objects we use everyday. Here are five that surprised us!

We've put robots on both the moon and mars, but scientists have never tried to soft-land a robot on a comet--until now. In this episode of The Countdown, we cover everything you need to know about the European Space Agency's groundbreaking Rosetta mission.