http://www.sciencefriday.com
Can you roll a ball without touching it? Mold an object simply by waving your hands? MIT's Tangible Media Group can. They demo two innovative projects as part their vision to make user interfaces more physical. Entitled "InFORM," this interactive shape-changing display boasts a myriad of functions and a mind-bending design. "jamSheets" combines pneumatic pumps and thin sheets of paper and fabric to enable users to mold surfaces, clothing or even furniture without the aid of a computer.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional video by MIT's Tangible Media Group

A couple of neuroscientists saw Snowball, the dancing sulphur-crested cockatoo, on YouTube and decided to do a study on him.

If you spin a hard-boiled egg in a pool of milk, the milk will wick up the sides of the egg and spray off at the egg's equator. Engineer Tadd Truscott, of Brigham Young University, along with Ken Langley and others, launched an investigation to figure out why this happens -- complete with a custom-built spinning apparatus, billiard balls and high speed video cameras.

http://www.sciencefriday.com
Armed with appetites and attitudes, brush-clearing goats will mow down weeds and shrubs from even the steepest of Southern California's hillsides. Perfectly adapted to a life of constant browsing, these ruminants are being deployed as a shield against the region's rampant wildfires. We join Ian Newsam, owner of Brush Goats 4 Hire, and his "elite" herd of goats as they reduce the invasive plants and fuel that contributes to the fires.

Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network

Additional Stills and Video Courtesy
Henry the Goat, California Office of Emergency Management, U.S. Geological Survey, Youtube User "thatlocalsportsguy"

As the owner of Casa Della Mozarella, a world-famous Italian deli on New York City's Arthur Avenue, Orazio Carciotto has been making mozzarella for over 30 years. During that time, Orazio has learned that mastering the flavor and texture of this silky smooth cheese requires a deft (and burn-resistant) hand and a mastery of milk curd chemistry. Now, he bestows the tricks of his trade upon you!

Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Production Assistance and Cheese Slicing by Rachel Bouton
Additional Video by Xochitl Garcia

"Disturbingly informative," is how museum director Robert Hicks describes Philadelphia's Mütter Museum--items of interest include a gangrenous hand, wax models of extinct diseases, deformed bones and body parts. Now imagine what's in the basement. Science Friday got a behind-the-scenes tour.

http://www.sciencefriday.com
Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? Try making your own winter wonderland. Ken Libbrecht, Caltech physicist and author of The Secret Life of a Snowflake, devised an experiment to grow a snow crystal in an old plastic bottle. Dry ice required. Or maybe you'd rather go on a Snowflake Safari?

SCIENCE FRIDAY'S CEPHALOPOD WEEK 2016 BEGINS May 17th!
http://www.sciencefriday.com/cephalopodweek
With thousands of chemically-sensitive suckers, color-changing skin, and a brain that literally stretches when they eat, octopuses seem like aliens living in our oceans. Understanding their physical adaptations and how octopuses might process their own sensations requires a flexible imagination. Thankfully, Frank Grasso of Brooklyn College is up to the task. He reveals some of the small biological and behavioral clues that researchers have uncovered as they try to understand these curious creatures.

The axolotl is a Mexican salamander with an incredible ability: Cut its leg off, and the limb will grow right back! How it does this and why humans can't is still a bit of a mystery. Researchers like Susan Bryant of UC Irvine are studying these amphibians to understand the underlying mechanisms for their miraculous regenerative powers.
Produced by Christian Baker
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Video by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Dr. Susan Bryant, Dr. David Gardiner, and Dr. Akira Satoh

Thought to the be inspiration of "sea serpent" stories, the monstrously-long Oarfish provokes wonder in nearly all that witness it. Yet despite our fascination, little is known about this fish, its lifecycle and how it navigates its deep-sea environment. With help of a frozen specimen, CalState Assistant Professor Misty Paig-Tran provides us with a biomechanist insights into this real-life "sea monster's" unusual physiology.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Christian Baker, Luke Groskin, CalState - Fullerton Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Video by UnCruise Adventures, Mark Benfield NOAA, and Juan, Pablo Maturana, Corrine Bourbellion, Thomas Kohler

http://www.sciencefriday.com
When it rains, it blooms. Beneath Death Valley lies a massive seed bank of desert wildflowers, and when heavy winter rains soak deep into the soil, these hidden wonders spring to life. Some call this growing spree a "beautiful revolution against the tyranny of the desert," while others simply refer to it as a "superbloom."
Produced and Directed by Christian Baker
Edited by Brian McAllister
Music by Audio Network

Many of us spend more waking hours at our desk than anywhere else. Writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks explains what his desk means to him in the first in a series of Desktop Diaries. From lumps of metal to lemurs, Sacks describes some of his treasures, his preferred method for writing his books and why he takes comfort in dense metals.

http://www.sciencefriday.com
With its fanned plumage and bold strut, a male wild turkey's display conjures images of Americana and festive feasts. But this grandstanding isn't intended for human eyes - it's for female turkeys who actually use it to discern a male's genetic prowess. How exactly she parses his performance to pick her suitor can be a fairly complex enterprise but thanks to the research of Dr. Richard Buchholz of the University of Mississippi, we have some clues as to what a female turkey finds "hot" in a male.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Footage ands Stills Provided by
Pronghorn Productions - www.pronghornproductions.comRichard Buchholz, Ph.d.
Pond5,
U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Sgt. White Knight YT User (C.C. 3.0)
"Light Curve on the Road" (C.C. 3.0)
Music by Audio Network, Ponchielli, "Dance of the Hours"

Effortlessly, manta rays glide through the ocean gulping down plankton and fish eggs by the mouthful. However, until recently, it wasn't clear how they managed to do so without clogging the filters that surround their gills. Marine biologist and biomechanist, Dr. Misty Paig-Tran details her research into these graceful giants and reveals the multiple methods of filtration they use to sift a meal from the water.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Luke Groskin, Ryan Hawk, Christian Baker
Music by Audio Network
Footage by Misty Paig-Tran, Shutterstock, Anita Ong (C.C. 3.0)
Dirk Hondhel (C.C. 3.0), Kimberly Forbragd (C.C. 3.0), Patrick Yeo Ho Yoon (C.C.3.0)

Many of us spend more time at our desks than anywhere else. Theoretical physicist and futurist Michio Kaku takes us on a tour of his office, where he writes his bestsellers and records his radio shows. The futuristic 1950s TV show Flash Gordon jump-started his interest in science. Watching it as a kid, Kaku realized that it was the problem-solving scientist, not the chiseled crimefighter Flash, who was really the hero. Originally published May 20, 2011.

Of the suit he wore on the moon, Neil Armstrong wrote, "it was tough, reliable, and almost cuddly." But that cuddly suit, made by the company Playtex, had some stiff competition (literally) from rival rigid, metal designs. This video features archival NASA footage of mobility tests for several spacesuit prototypes. Music is from the band One Ring Zero's album "Planets".

Reporting in the journal Nature Physics, William Irvine and Dustin Kleckner, physicists at the University of Chicago, describe the knotted fluid vortex they created in the lab -- a scientific first, they say. The knots resemble smoke rings -- except these are made of water, and they're shaped like pretzels, not donuts. Understanding knottiness has extra-large applications, including untangling dynamics of the sun.

More SciFri videos

Untangling the Hairy Physics of Rapunzel: http://www.sciencefriday.com/s....egment/04/20/2012/un
Dive Into the Physics of Splashing: http://www.sciencefriday.com/v....ideo/02/06/2009/dive
Cracking the Egg Sprinkler Mystery: http://www.sciencefriday.com/v....ideo/05/04/2012/crac

http://www.sciencefriday.com
The aptly named Northern clingfish uses its fins to suck onto the roughest and slimiest of marine surfaces. Where manmade suction cups consistently fail, the clingfish achieves suctorial glory. Dr. Adam Summers of the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Labs, details how this bottom dweller takes the art of suction to new heights.
Produced by Luke Groskin. Filmed by Ryan Hawk. Music by Audio Network. Additional stills and footage by University of Washington, Friday Harbor Labs, Central Michigan Department of Microscopy, Shutterstock.

It's floating all around you, all the time—a wafting cloud formed by billions of bacteria that slough off your body with every movement you make. At the Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon, researchers have revealed that not only can they detect and catalog this personal microbial cloud, but each person's cloud is unique.

More Microbe Week videos! (Click "show more" for links)
BrainCraft: Good Sleep = Good Gut? https://youtu.be/jkjqQXX47KE
Gross Science: What Really Causes Cavities? https://youtu.be/WU05zZJKSdE
AMNH: Microbes of New York https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTdeZU_8cLI
Science Friday: Your Very Special Bacterial Cloud https://youtu.be/2_ib7Z4bmrg
Inspired by the Secret World Inside You exhibition http://www.amnh.org/exhibition....s/the-secret-world-i


Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network and Ego Plum's Live Performance of Raymond Scott's "In the Hall of the Mountain Queen"
Additional Video by The American Museum of Natural History
Microbe Stills by B. Peterson © AMNH
Special Thanks to Roxana Hickey, Jessica Green, Ashley Bateman, Clarisse Betancourt and Erin Chapman

www.sciencefriday.com
Why Spiders Don't Stick to The Web

William Eberhard, of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of Costa Rica, and colleague Daniel Briceno film spiders in the lab, in the field and under a dissecting microscope to untangle this longstanding arachnological mystery. The secret to not getting stuck? Oily, hairy legs and delicate movements.

Produced by Flora Lichtman
Video footage: Daniel Briceno and William Eberhard.
Additional: archive.org, prelinger archives