Tuesday, 7 February, 2012

The external color does not significantly affect how much the inside of a car heats up in the sun, says Sanford Klein, director of the UW-Madison Solar Energy Laboratory and professor of mechanical engineering. Cars warm up in the sun due to the greenhouse effect: Sunlight passing through the windows into the car is mostly [...]

“It’s true. There’s always one in every group,” says UW-Madison entomology professor and mosquito expert Susan Paskewitz. That’s not to say mosquitoes target certain people because they’re tastier or have higher quality blood. Rather, it’s all about how easy you are to locate. “The main things are how you smell and how hot you are,” [...]

The colors of the sunset result from a phenomenon called scattering, says Steven Ackerman, professor of meteorology at UW-Madison. Molecules and small particles in the atmosphere change the direction of light rays, causing them to scatter. Scattering affects the color of light coming from the sky, but the details are determined by the wavelength of [...]

Using a chemical reaction that changes color when specific chemicals are present, a new “dipstick” may detect spoilage better than the human nose.