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Holes in parachutes? Yes

If you’ve ever folded a sheet of paper and placed small cuts throughout to create a snowflake design, you’ve participated in the Japanese artform of kirigami.

A team of researchers from Polytechnique Montréal and École Polytechnique has applied the kirigami technique using a laser cutter to create parachutes that demonstrate stable, predictable descents in real-world tests.

The results are a reduction in materials, more accurate landing and less complex designs, compared with traditional parachutes.

The chutes are made of thin, laser-cut polymer discs programmed to reconfigure themselves during descent. Upon release, kirigami patterns prompt the material to deform into shapes that slow their descent and reduce sideways drifts.

Unlike typical parachutes that must be released at a specifically angled trajectory, the new model descends vertically, regardless of the release angle.

The design’s practicality was proven during a full-scale test dropping a water bottle from a 60-meter drone flight.

Manufacturing of this technology can be achieved at scale utilizing die-cutters or laser processes and can offer ample cost and deployment advantages in situations where humanitarian airdrops or drone-based logistics are required. It could also potentially have aerospace applications.

Results are published in Nature and suggest geometric-cut patterns, not just material or size, play a significant role in parachute stability and performance.

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Social media is not your friend

In the final quarter of 2023, Meta-Gallup published a survey in which 24 percent of people over the age of 15 across 142 countries reported feeling lonely. While the majority lay with the younger population, a new study into the connection between loneliness and social media use suggests that it may no longer be the case.

The study out of Oregon State University says that though we might be laughing at TikTok, Instagram or Facebook posts, social media is not preventing us from feeling isolated and alone.

The longitudinal study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Publish Health of over 1,500 people 30-70 years old, indicates that U.S. adults who spend more time on social media or checking platforms are significantly more likely to report feeling lonely.

The loneliness correlates to how often participants checked their social media accounts. Notable results showed associations between time spent on social media platforms and loneliness followed an inverted U-shaped pattern. Loneliness peaked at moderate levels of use and declined slightly at the highest levels.

The study indicates that social media use frequency may be a particularly strong driver of loneliness and modifying use could mitigate its psychosocial impacts.

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What if we added ‘what if’ to
the design?

When designing complex machinery like spacecraft or drones, engineers typically use best- and worst-case scenario thought processes — kind of like what’s the best we can get out of this part and what’s the minimum this part can do?

This kind of thinking, however, doesn’t account for things that happen in the real world, like battery life depleting faster in the heat or software behaving differently in different conditions.

For this reason, a team from MIT and the University of Zurich created a framework that allows for probability. So instead of factoring in that a certain motor will last five hours, the framework says sometimes it lasts five hours, sometimes it lasts four and at times it lasts six hours.

Each part comes now with a probability profile that allows the designers to run “what if” simulations that factor in the messiness of the real world.

Testing was run on drone design and the results were unexpected. For example, a specific battery setup appeared poor in worst-case models but performed very well on average. Without the new probability-based considerations, it may have been dismissed altogether.

This means engineers can design smarter, safer and more dependable systems, which is imperative in situations where failure is not an option. Embracing uncertainty has made design more realistic and much more of service.

The research team will be speaking on their paper at the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) 2025.

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Rice fields using electric biochar
release more methane

Rice paddies take up about 9 percent of global agricultural land and pump out loads of methane, which is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Adding electrically charged biochar, though it increases crop yield and has often been used for its sustainable properties, makes them even gassier. A new study, in Springer Nature Link, reveals that soils treated with graphene-enhanced biochar produce up to 70 percent more methane.

This is because biochar’s conductivity helps electrons move faster through dissolved organic matter — like giving soil a power boost. The extra electron flow enhances methane production.

This means biochar isn’t always a climate-friendly option. In rice farming, its electrical side effects could mean more greenhouse gas than less.

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Weird science

The Nobel Prize represents innovation, excellence and global impact in science, literature and peace. Serious stuff.

But there’s a whole other world of weird, wacky and often hilarious science out there getting its own recognition. Welcome to a night of awards honoring research that makes us “LOL” — the IG Nobels.

Founded in 1991 by Marc Abrahams, editor of the satirical magazine Annals of Improbable Research, a bimonthly publication “spotlighting genuine, improbable research culled from the entire world,” the Ig Nobels are awarded to scientific researchers whose projects will “first make you laugh, and then make you think.”

It’s quirky and weird and hilarious, but it’s still science. And Nobel laureates hand out the awards.

IMAGE: Shutterstock

Nature Magazine says this gala is “arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar,” calling the awards “a welcome antidote to the everyday seriousness and stuffiness of life in the lab, providing a rundown of mildly amusing, and sometimes frankly ridiculous, science.”

The projects may seem ridiculous, but the Ig Nobels ignite interest in our world and surroundings.

Among the first Ig Nobel laureates is Robert Klark Graham, honored in 1991 for creating a genius sperm bank of Nobel honorees and Olympians. The Smithsonian Magazine calls the idea racist, but the bank did initiate change within the fertility industry.

But enough with the serious — we’re here to have a laugh, so without further ado, observe the hilarious moments of the 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.

IMAGE: Shutterstock

It was a night of humor that included a nutrition prize awarded for groundbreaking research into the preferred pizza toppings of rainbow lizards.

Like many humans, the lizards wisely prefer cheese, extra cheese but mostly four-cheese.

An Italian team was awarded the physics prize for solving the worldwide crisis of why cheesy pasta sauce sometimes gets lumpy and how to avoid such a catastrophe.

Cacio e pepe was the dish on the menu and the research determined the cheese lumped upon reaching 65 degrees Celsius.

The solution is surprisingly not to lower the temperature but to incorporate the exact starch concentration required to bind with the cheese proteins. Here is the final and scientifically researched recipe.

“We have plenty of physics tools at hand to study phase separations, so we decided to apply that expertise to pasta sauce,” Giacomo Bartolucci said in an interview with Physics Magazine. Why not, right?

The theme of digestion seemed to consume the night as research tipped its hat to whether eating Teflon would, like food, achieve satiety and contribute to weight loss, what happens to a nursing baby when the mother eats garlic, and if drinking alcohol can sometimes improve the ability to speak in a foreign language.

OTHER PRIZES AWARDED

LITERATURE:
Awarded to the late William B. Bean, who consistently recorded and analyzed the rate at which his fingernails grew over 35 years.

BIOLOGY:
Given for experiments into whether painting a cow with stripes like a zebra would deter biting flies (FYI, it does).

ENGINEERING DESIGN:
Honored a team from India for analysis into how the experience of using a shoe rack can be impacted by stinky shoes.

AVIATION:
Conferred to Columbian researchers who studied whether alcohol ingestion can impair bats’ ability to fly and echolocate.

The prizes aren’t the only hilarity of the Ig Nobel gala evening. Like most awards ceremonies, the night is stacked with traditions and performances.

For example, each year since 1996, the ceremony has featured a mini opera, sometimes including actual Nobel laureates in the cast. This year’s was titled “The Plight of the Gastroenterologist.”

Other traditions include the audience chucking paper airplanes at the stage; Miss Sweetie Poo, who interrupts any speaker who drones on too long with a high-pitched wail of “Please stop: I’m bored”; the winning prize of 10 billion Zimbabwean dollars (equivalent to U.S. $0.002); and the customary closing words, “If you didn’t win a prize — and especially if you did — better luck next year!”

This year’s ceremony was also available to watch via webcast with Japanese captions.

You’re welcome.

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