u/TheMuseumOfScience

How do honeybees navigate a big city? 🐝

When a forager bee discovers a patch of flowers, she returns to the hive and performs a precise series of movements that tells other bees the direction, distance, and the quality of the food source. The forager bee can even give exact angles relative to the sun’s position! With brains no bigger than a poppy seed, honeybees can accurately locate the exact flowers without ever being led there.

What happens when you push a lit sparkler through an egg? 🥚🧨

In this experiment, Alex Dainis explains why the sparkler doesn't fizzle out and keeps burning straight through the egg. Most fires rely on oxygen from the surrounding air, sparklers are self-oxidizing. They release the oxygen needed to keep the reaction going, even inside the egg. That's also why you can't simply blow a sparkler out!

Ketchup, relish, and mustard walked into a microscope! Our friend Chloe Savard, also known as tardibabe on Instagram, is back to show us the fascinating microscopic world hiding inside your favorite condiment trio.

Under polarized light, ketchup transforms from a humble staple into a dazzling constellation of suspended particles. What you're seeing is the colloidal suspension that gives ketchup its characteristic texture: tomato cell wall fragments, pectin networks, spice particles, and insoluble solids interacting with polarized light according to their optical properties and internal structure. That riot of color isn't artifice, it's physics. Together, these microscopic structures reveal the complex journey from raw tomato to the smooth, familiar condiment on your plate.

Relish may be an overlooked condiment on the table, but under the microscope it's anything but simple. What you're seeing is a world of cucumber cell wall networks, their honeycomb architecture remarkably intact even after pickling, alongside drifting plant fibers, suspended spice particles, and brine droplets refracting light into iridescent halos. Those four-petaled Maltese cross patterns? That's birefringence, the optical signature of crystalline starch granules interacting with polarized light. Humble hot dog topping. Extraordinary microscopic universe.

Mustard can pack a punch and that holds true at the microscopic level. That vivid yellow fragment at center is a piece of mustard seed tissue, its color coming from curcumin in the turmeric used to make yellow mustard. Surrounding it is a complex emulsion of ground seed husks, starch granules, and oil droplets, while those deep indigo-black streaks are seed coat fragments rich in pigmented phenolic compounds. Mustard's signature heat and pungency come from a chemical reaction between myrosinase enzymes and glucosinolates released when mustard seeds are crushed, and the visual complexity you're seeing under the lens reflects just how much chemistry is packed into every squeeze.

Three condiments. Three completely different chemistries. One very satisfying rabbit hole. 🌭🔬

How many red, white and blue LEDs can you light up with 250 coins?

Alex Dainis built a battery using 250 coins, electrolyte-soaked paper towels, and parafilm, generating an impressive 18 volts. But high voltage isn't everything. The long battery also had so much internal resistance that it couldn't deliver enough current to light an LED. By splitting it into several smaller batteries, each producing about 3 volts, she reduced that resistance enough to light all three LEDs.

Does this nebula violate the law of the speed of light? 🎆⭐️

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains that the“Fireworks Nebula” is a nebula that surrounds a binary star system, one of which occasionally puts out a ton of light in a nova explosion. In 1901, astronomers observed this for the first time and assumed the nebula was getting bigger faster than the speed of light. What was really happening was a “light echo” where the light bounces off existing structures. While this does give a cool firework effect, it does not break the law of the speed of light!

This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

Did you know that an entire microscopic world lives between each grain of sand? 🏝️

Quinten Geldhof, also known as Microhobbyist, shows us how each grain can hold tens to thousands of bacteria, and how the organisms feed on them. These microbial residents act as a filter as the tide moves in and out, processing debris as it passes through!

Ever wondered why a balloon can stay inflated without being tied? 🎈

Greg Wolf demonstrates how atmospheric pressure can keep a balloon inflated without trying it. Using a simple bottle experiment, he reveals why trapped air prevents a balloon from inflating, and how changing the pressure lets the invisible force of Earth’s atmosphere do the work. It’s a fascinating physics demonstration that shows the power of air pressure in action.

The sun isn’t always the exact center of our solar system. ☀️

In this Space Oddity, Erika Hamden explains what the barycenter of the solar system is, and how it may not always be inside of the Sun itself. The variations in the barycenter can be explained by the large masses of the outer giant planets!

Some spiders can engineer some pretty amazing webs! 🕸️

Meet the Australian ballista spider. This arachnid diligently spends up to four hours crafting a web trap designed to catch one type of prey: the green tree ant. When the green tree ant triggers the trap by biting, it’s rapidly thrown upward into the spider’s main web. Some scientists think this might be the first spider’s web engineered to catch one kind of prey!

Allez les Bleus! 🇫🇷

As France lines up for their fixture against Norway here in Boston, our robot Stompy took to the streets to show its support for the Bleus! Allez! Allez! Allez!

Row! Row! Row! 🇳🇴

As Norway lines up for their fixture against France right here in Boston, our robot Stompy took to the streets to show its support for The Vikings! Alt For Norge!

Inside every watermelon are countless microscopic water balloons.🔬🍉

Our friend Chloé Savard, known as tardibabe on Instagram, shows us what's actually happening inside that bright red flesh. Each cell is swollen almost to bursting, distended against its own thin cellulose wall and packed with water, which is exactly why watermelon is about 92% water by weight, and why it splits so easily under the lightest pressure. That deep red color comes from lycopene, the same carotenoid pigment responsible for the red in tomatoes, concentrated here in tiny chromoplasts scattered throughout the cell.

Threading through the pulp are thin, fibrous strands, vascular bundles, the plant's plumbing system, left over from when they carried water and sugar from the vine into the growing fruit. Most of that infrastructure becomes irrelevant once the fruit is ripe, but the traces remain, visible here as faint lines cutting across the field of view.

Look closely enough, and you'll also spot small air pockets between cells, along with the occasional immature seed coat, still soft and white before it has the chance to harden into the familiar black husk. Texture-wise, this is also why an overripe watermelon turns mushy: as the cells age, their walls weaken, and water leaks out into the spaces between them, turning that crisp bite into something closer to mush.

It's wild that something so simple, sweet, cold, and refreshing is really just millions of cells holding as much water as physically possible without popping. Nature's own water balloon.

Sources:

"A Comparison of Watermelon Flesh Texture across Different Ploidy Levels Using Histology and Cell Wall Measurements." (2024). Horticulturae (MDPI). — cell wall structure, cellulose, texture/firmness

"Cell Wall Polysaccharide Composition of Grafted 'Liberty' Watermelon With Reduced Incidence of Hollow Heart Defect." (2021). Frontiers in Plant Science. — large parenchyma cells, intercellular air spaces, pectin/cell wall breakdown with ripening

"Effects of fruit maturity on watermelon ultrastructure and intracellular lycopene distribution." (2008). PubMed. — chromoplast and cell ultrastructure across ripening

"Systematic Study of the Sensory Quality, Metabolomics, and Microbial Community of Fresh-Cut Watermelon." (2022). PMC. — water content (~89–92%), firmness loss linked to cell wall degradation

Zhang, J., et al. (2020). "Expression of ClPAP and ClPSY1 in watermelon correlates with chromoplast differentiation, carotenoid accumulation, and flesh color formation." Plant Science (ScienceDirect). — chromoplasts, lycopene concentration in flesh

A new hero rises. DC Studios' Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow blasts onto the IMAX® Dome at the Mugar Omni Theater!

Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) embarks on a sweeping interstellar journey when an unexpected enemy forces her to team up with an unlikely companion. As the pair travel across the galaxy seeking justice, Kara must confront her past, her Kryptonian heritage, and what it truly means to be a hero.

Get tickets at our website.

Don’t miss fireballs streaking across the sky during the Alpha Capricornids! ☄️

Beginning on July 3rd and lasting until August 15th, this meteor shower is known for its high quality and intense fireballs. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere or southern US, you may see it overlapping with the Delta Aquariids. Peaking overnight on July 30th into the 31st, this shower is visible from anywhere in the world, so don’t miss it!

Did you know pineapple eats Jell-O? 🍍

Alex Dainis explains how to bypass this and make a pineapple Jell-O mold! The fruit contains an enzyme called bromelain that breaks down proteins, effectively breaking apart the Jell-O when mixed! You can often deactivate enzymes with heat, so if you cook the pineapple, you can make the bromelain ineffective, and add it to your Jell-O!

Maple syrup looks pretty simple... until you zoom in. 🔬

Our friend Chloe Savard, also known as tardibabe on Instagram shows us the microscopic view of maple syrup. As temperatures begin to rise in the spring, sap in maple trees thaws and can be collected, then boiled and concentrated into syrup and transformed into candies, desserts, and just about anything your sweetest dreams are made of.

Although maple syrup is primarily composed of sugar (sucrose), its chemistry and flavor are shaped by a complex interplay of factors like sap collection and processing methods, microbial activity within the sap, environmental conditions, and the packaging and storage of the final product. Not only maple syrup is composed of sugar but also a mixture of water, minerals, organic acids, amino acids, proteins, phenol compounds and even a few vitamins.

Flavors and composition also vary depending on the country it has been produced in! Canada, especially the province of Quebec, where Chloe is from, is by far the world’s largest producer of maple syrup, followed by the United States. It’s important to recognize that maple syrup was first introduced to European colonizers by First Nations, who deserve the credit for this knowledge and tradition!

As you can see from Chloe’s sample, sugar from maple syrup crystallizes over time and it’s mesmerizing to look at under the microscope! 🔬

References:

Childs, Stephen. "Chemistry of maple syrup." Cornell Maple Bulletin 202 (2007): 1-4.

Mohammed, Faez, et al. "Chemical composition and mineralogical residence of maple syrup: A comprehensive review." Food chemistry 374 (2022): 131817.

Perkins, Timothy D., and Abby K. van den Berg. "Maple syrup—Production, composition, chemistry, and sensory characteristics." Advances in food and nutrition research 56 (2009): 101-143. 

The race is on to save a falling orbital telescope! 

NASA is attempting a first of its kind space rescue mission to save the Swift Observatory before it falls back to Earth. The plan is to have Katalyst Space’s LINK spacecraft dock with Swift and boost it into a higher orbit. If successful, it could help launch an entirely new era of in-orbit satellite servicing.

Step into prehistoric history with our new interactive experience, the Life Chronicles Immersive Expedition! For 30 minutes, explore different paleo-landscapes and geological periods with dinosaurs. Accompanied by a virtual guide, you and your group can venture into the Achaean era, the Cambrian period, and the Cretaceous era!

Secure your spot on our website!