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In the Leidenfrost Effect, a water droplet will float on a layer of its own vapor if heated to certain temperature. This common cooking phenomenon takes center stage in a series of playful experiments by physicists at the University of Bath, who discovered new and fun means to manipulate the movement of water.

Researchers test ridged surfaces in order to control the movements of hot water.

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This video is part of Science Friday's #CephalopodWeek 2015! Join the cephaloparty starting Friday, June 19th. http://cephalopodweek.tumblr.com

What do you call an tiny octopus with big eyes, gelatinous skin and is cute as a button? Nobody knows quite yet! Stephanie Bush of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute aims to classify and name this presently undescribed deep-sea cephalopod using preserved specimens and a clutch of eggs hatch housed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

**DISCLAIMER** from Dr. Stephanie Bush: The Opisthoteuthis eggs depicted in this video are preserved specimens, not the eggs laid at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (which are still being lovingly incubated at MBARI's Cold Storage Facility!)

Since the 1960s, developmental psychologists point to the "Visual Cliff"—an experiment that plops babies on a fake precipice—as proof that infants learn to fear heights as they learn to crawl. Yet, over the past 25 years, a series of rigorous (and adorable) experiments by Karen Adolph of NYU's Infant Action Lab has shattered this myth, revealing that while babies can learn from experiences near high ledges or narrow bridges, it's not a phobia they acquire.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Starring Derek Hough, Tessa Rose Confessore, and Clarabelle Kaufman
Music by Audio Network Footage
Stills and Additional Footage provided by Karen Adolph and the NYU Infant Action Lab,
Eleanor Gibson and R.D. Walk
KTCA Twin Cities Public Television
Ira Flatow
Glacier National Park (C.C. 3.0)

Many of us spend more time at our desks than anywhere else. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson takes us into his office at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City for a tour of his office, in the fourth of Science Friday's Desktop Diaries series. From a Saturn lamp Tyson made as a kid to his van Gogh pillow, Tyson has a lot of universe-themed paraphernalia. Tyson highlights some of his collection, and talks about what his journey to science stardom has been like.

Crystal formation is essential in making smooth chocolate that's solid at room temperature and melts in your mouth. Richard Ludescher, professor of food science at Rutgers, and Rick and Michael Mast, of Mast Brothers Chocolate in Brooklyn, NY explain the science and art of chocolate making.
Produced by Emily V. Driscoll
Filmed by Stavros Basis, Ben Effinger, Jon Foy
Lighting by Tony Sur

Music by Audio Network
Narration by Christopher Intagliata

Additional Stills by
Shutterstock

Thanks to
Ken Branson
Robert Forman
Luke Groskin
Derek Herbster
Julie Leibach
Annie Minoff
Ariel Zych

There are millions of specimens of ice age plants and animals in the Page Museum's collections. Yet excavators and preparators will continue to dig up, clean and catalog millions of more fossils for the foreseeable future. The Page Museum's Chief Curator, Dr. John Harris, explains how paleontological and climatological research at the museum relies upon on tar pit's prolific fossil deposits.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Filmed by Luke Groskin and Christian Baker
Additional Stills and Video by The Page Museum
Shutterstock
Robin O'Keefe
Charles R. Knight
Rudyard Sadleir
David Berkowitz

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

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.

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
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

"I have always emphasized the willingness to discard," says psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, professor emeritus at Princeton University. That philosophy works on two levels -- forget desk trinkets, Kahneman doesn't have a desk -- and he doesn't hoard ideas either, he says. If an idea doesn't work, he lets it go. Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences for his research with Amos Tversky on how people make decisions, is retired and works from his New York City apartment.

The La Brea Tar Pits represent much more than world-renowned fossil sites - they're the mass graves of thousands of ice age creatures, each with a story to tell. Researchers at the nearby Page Museum clean the asphalt from the fossil remains, and using paleoforensics, recount the grim details of their deaths. In the process, clues emerge about what life was like in prehistoric Los Angeles.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Luke Groskin and Christian Baker
Animation by Joshua Krause
Narrated by Shane Morris
Additonal Footage and Stills provided by The Page Museum, Shutterstock
Pond5, Getty Images, Miles Roberts/John Ososky, Smithsonian Institution
Kathleen Cantner, AGI, created for EARTH Magazine

http://www.sciencefriday.com
By looking at a face for less than a second, we can judge someone’s age, gender, race, emotional state and even their trustworthiness. High-speed scanning and perception experiments by social neurologist Dr. Jon Freeman have revealed our brain’s ability to generate character assessments in less than blink of an eye. These first impressions can linger in our brains and influence our real-world interactions.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
MRI Stand-in by Sarah Lewin
Footage ands Stills Provided by Dr. Jon Freeman, Shutterstock, Warren Goldswain, Glasgow Unfamiliar Face Database, Bruce Gionet (C.C. 3.0), Nina Paley (C.C. 3.0), Kim Cramer (C.C. 3.0), “Brain Optic Nerve Impulses,” Produced by Purdue University Calumet senior engineering students supervised by Professors Bin Chen, Ph.D, and Ge Jin Ph.D, with support of the university’s Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation. Full video is available at: http://webs.purduecal.edu/civs/brain-visualization

Michael Musnick is a citizen scientist who studies wood turtles in the Great Swamp -- a stretch of wetland about 60 miles north of New York City. He found turtles dying in the railroad tracks and proposed a solution to New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority: tiny turtle bridges.

http://www.sciencefriday.com
Have you ever noticed that it's easier to walk without spilling a foamy beer versus walking around with regular cup of coffee? Have you ever wondered why? To solve this everyday physics phenomenon, a team of fluid mechanics researchers at Princeton University's Complex Fluids Lab investigate the anti-sloshing abilities of foam.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Footage Provided by Alban Sauret, Emilie Dressaire, Francois Boulogne, Howard Stone, Jean Cappello
Dusty Wobbls (C.C. 3.0), and Jake Millie (C.C. 3.0)

http://www.sciencefriday.com
For over 70 years, no one had seen the oblong rocksnail. Declared extinct in 2000, the species was considered to be another native Alabaman mollusk gone and forgotten. But one day in the spring of 2011, biology grad student Nathan Whelan picked up a tiny rock and got a big surprise.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Photos by Shutterstock, Thomas Tarpley, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center, Nathan Whelan, Boris Datnow, Alabama Power, Annals of Lyceum, Wild Side TV, Paul Johnson, Masood Lohar, Bermuda Conservation Services, Jefferson County Environmental Services

Brenda Tan and Matthew Cost, high school seniors from Trinity School in New York City, used a technique called DNA barcoding to find out what species were present in over 200 animal products. Their extracurricular experiment, which they completed with the help of Mark Stoeckle, of The Rockefeller University, suggests that buyers should beware!

Composer and instrument builder Paul Rudolph makes music from garbage. He combs recycling centers and scrap yards for what he calls "found object instruments"--propane tanks, film reels, artillery shells and other items that he likes the sound of. Rudolph sometimes modifies the objects and then uses the newly-minted percussive instruments in his music performance group GLANK, which has appeared at the Eagle Rock Music Festival in Los Angeles and Maker Faire in New York City. John Powell, physicist and author of How Music Works, chimes in on the physics of making music.

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Meet the farmers who want to make cheap, environmentally friendly kelp America's next favorite vegetable.

Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Footage Provided by Kurt Mann /NOAA

These aren't your ordinary garden snails. Tiny cone snails may boast delicate and gorgeous shells, but they pack a powerful—and lethal—punch. The snails' venom can be fatal to various fish and even humans.


But it could also offer a potential cure.

Mandë Holford, a biochemist at Hunter College and the American Museum of Natural History, works with a team to investigate the snails' venom and look for compounds that could be used to treat pain and cancer. Ancient cultures have traditionally used their natural environment to look for cures for the things that ail them, she explains. Now, researchers are investigating how "nature's deadliest cocktail" could create new pathways for treating old problems.

A film by Science Friday

Produced in collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Produced by Emily V. Driscoll and Luke Groskin

Directed and Edited by  Emily V. Driscoll 

Filmed by  Christian Baker and Dusty Hulet 

Animations by M. Gail Rudakewich and Luke Groskin

Music by Audio Network

Additional Photos and Video by
Olivera Lab, Shutterstock, Pond5, NatureFootage, BioPixel, iBiology, Mandë Holford, Gregory S. Herbert
Guillaume van den Bossche, The National Library of Medicine
 
Project Advisors:
Laura A. Helft, Laura Bonetta, Dennis W.C. Liu and Sean B. Carroll - Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Special Thanks to
American Museum of Natural History, Hunter College, Olivera Lab at the University of Utah
Baldomero "Toto" Olivera, Talia Amador, Devin Callahan, Sean Christensen, Mandë Holford
Gregory S. Herbert, My Huynh, Terry Merritt, Aubrey Miller, Kendra Snyder, Danielle Dana, 
Chistian Skotte, Ariel Zych and Jennifer Fenwick

Science Friday/HHMI © 2017